Blessed Michał Sopoćko

Blessed Michał Sopoćko was a priest of Vilnius and Białystok, a professor of theology, and the confessor and spiritual director of Saint Faustina Kowalska. It was through his efforts that the first image of the Merciful Jesus was painted, and he devoted the rest of his life to spreading devotion to Divine Mercy. His memorial falls on February 15, the day of his death.

He was born on November 1, 1888, at Juszewszczyzna in the Vilnius region, then under Russian rule, into a Polish family of the nobility. In 1910 he entered the seminary in Vilnius, and on June 15, 1914, he was ordained a priest. For four years he was parochial vicar at Taboryszki, where he saw to the building of two chapels and founded schools.

In 1918 he became a military chaplain, and at the same time he studied theology at the University of Warsaw, where he earned a doctorate. From 1924 he worked in Vilnius again: he was spiritual director of the seminary, a lecturer at Stefan Batory University, rector of Saint Michael’s Church, and a confessor of religious sisters.

In 1933 Sister Faustina Kowalska became his penitent. As he himself recalled, he received what she told him about her revelations with reserve: he asked her superior about her, requested an examination of her health, and sought the advice of other priests. He told her to write down her experiences, and so the “Diary” came into being. Commissioned by him, the painter Eugeniusz Kazimirowski painted in Vilnius in 1934, following Sister Faustina’s directions, the first image of the Merciful Jesus. In 1935 it was shown to the faithful for the first time at the Gate of Dawn (Ostra Brama), during a triduum that ended on the first Sunday after Easter.

From then on he wrote about Divine Mercy and repeatedly asked the Polish bishops and the Holy See to establish the Feast of Mercy. During the war he helped the persecuted, Jews among them, at the risk of his own life. In 1942 he escaped arrest and for two years hid with the Ursuline Sisters at Czarny Bór near Vilnius. In those years he helped bring about the Congregation of the Sisters of Merciful Jesus.

In 1947 he came to Białystok, where the Vilnius seminary had been moved. He taught there, heard many confessions, and went on working for recognition of the devotion. In 1959 the Holy Office issued prohibitions concerning devotion to Divine Mercy in the forms proposed by Sister Faustina. Father Sopoćko died in Białystok on February 15, 1975, three years before the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared those prohibitions no longer binding. In 1988 his remains were moved to the Church of Divine Mercy in that city.

John Paul II canonized Sister Faustina on April 30, 2000, and announced that the Second Sunday of Easter would from then on be called Divine Mercy Sunday throughout the Church. Benedict XVI enrolled Father Sopoćko among the blessed by an apostolic letter, which Archbishop Angelo Amato read in Białystok on September 28, 2008. The letter set his memorial on February 15, the day of his birth into heaven.