Saint Josaphat Kuncewicz

Saint Josaphat Kuncewicz was a Basilian monk and the Eastern-rite archbishop of Polotsk. He devoted his whole life to the unity of the Church and died for it in Vitebsk in 1623. The Church commemorates him on November 12, the day of his martyrdom.

He was born in Volodymyr in Volhynia, into an Orthodox family, around 1580; the exact date is not certain. At baptism he received the name John. As a boy he was sent to Vilnius to learn the merchant’s trade. These were the years after the Union of Brest of 1596, in which the bishops of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv entered into unity with the Church of Rome while keeping the Byzantine rite. That decision stirred tension and conflict, and John chose unity with Rome.

In 1604 he entered the Basilian Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Vilnius and took the name Josaphat. He lived austerely, prayed much, and studied the Fathers of the Church and the liturgical books of the East. In 1609 he was ordained a priest, and soon afterward he became archimandrite of that monastery. Together with Joseph Velamin Rutsky, later metropolitan of Kyiv, he renewed the religious life of the Basilians; he also founded monasteries at Byteń and Żyrowice.

He won many people for the unity of the Church, and so his opponents called him “duszochwat,” a snatcher of souls. On November 12, 1617, he was consecrated bishop as coadjutor to the aged archbishop of Polotsk, and in 1618 he succeeded him as archbishop. He lived in poverty; Pius XI recalls that he even pawned his omophorion to help the poor. He visited his priests and wrote a catechism for them. He joined fidelity to the successor of Saint Peter with love for the liturgy and traditions of the East.

His work also met with fierce opposition. In 1620 an Orthodox archbishop, Meletius Smotrytsky, was consecrated for Polotsk. Josaphat said openly that he was ready to give his life for the unity of the Church. In the fall of 1623 he went on a pastoral visit to Vitebsk. On November 12 a mob broke into his house and began beating the members of his household. The archbishop went out to the attackers and, as it was reported, asked: “My children, why are you striking the people of my house? If you have something against me, here I am.” He was killed, and his body was thrown into the Dvina River.

This death shook many people. Even the killers repented, and a few years later Meletius Smotrytsky himself entered into unity with the Catholic Church. Pope Urban VIII declared Josaphat blessed on May 16, 1643, and Pius IX canonized him on June 29, 1867.

In 1923 Pius XI devoted the encyclical Ecclesiam Dei to him and called him an apostle of unity. In the twentieth century the saint’s body came to Rome by way of Vienna, and since 1963 it has rested in Saint Peter’s Basilica, beneath the altar of Saint Basil the Great. The order that Josaphat renewed bears his name today. On the day of his memorial the Church asks for the Spirit who moved him to lay down his life for his flock, so that we too may not hesitate to give our lives for our brothers and sisters.