Catholic Saint

St Josaphat Kunsevich

Bishop Martyr (1580 -1623)

Saint of the day November 12

St Josaphat was born in Lithuania at a time when the Ruthenian Church, having separated from Rome, had fallen on evil days. Named John Kunseyvc at birth, he was a lad of 15 when the promising “Union of Brest-Litowski” withdrew some ten million Christians from allegiance to the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople and reunited them to Rome, a step which was to a large extent to become void by persecution in Russia and Poland.

John, though apprenticed to a merchant, became deeply attracted to the religious life, and at 24 took the habit of a Basilian monk at Vilna and changed his name to Josaphat. Many of the Priests were at that time poorly educated and seldom preached or taught the catechism. Ordained priest in 1609, Josaphat proved to be a great influence for good in the reform of his Order and the regeneration of the clergy. He rose rapidly to be Abbot, Coadjutor and finally, at 38, Archbishop of Polozk, which was one of the Sees where rivalry between the Catholic and Orthodox Clergy was in sharp evidence.

In the constant strife between the Uniates and Schismatics, he showed an indefatigable zeal for converting souls to union with Rome. He entreated, preached, heard confessions, not only in the churches butin the hospitals, prisons and in the fields. As a result, personages of importance, like the Patriarch of Moscow and a relative of the Greek Emperor, got converted by this “Thief of Souls”! He held regular synods for his clergy, restored churches, wrote regulations for the priestly life and a catechism, which he required to be memorized.

His personal life was one of austerity and mortification  frequent fasts, abstinence from meat, rigorous chastisement of the body, sleeping on the Floor, and so on. One of his favourite devotions consisted in making obeisance, i.e., bowing in deep reverence until his head touched the floor, when he would exclaim: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a poor sinner!”

So fruitful were Josaphat’s endeavours that the hatred of the schismatics reached the point where, on 12 November 1623, they finally martyred him and threw his mangled body into a river. Consequently, the conversions marked a steady rise, not excluding his murderers!

Josaphat was beatified in 1643 and canonized by Pope Pius IX in 1867, becoming the first Easterner to have been formally canonized by Rome.