Boļeslavs Sloskāns

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Boļeslavs Sloskāns (born August 31, 1893 in Tiltagals, Latvia ; † April 18, 1981 in Korbeek-Lo, Bierbeek , Belgium ) was a Latvian Roman Catholic clergyman and bishop. His beatification process has started.

life and work

As a priest

Sloskāns, who was born near Varakļāni (80 km north of Dünaburg ), attended high school in Rēzekne and entered the seminary of Saint Petersburg in 1911 . He was ordained a priest in January 1917 and celebrated his primary mass on April 22, 1917 in Ludza . For nine years he was a chaplain in Saint Petersburg (Petrograd, Leningrad) and Vitebsk .

As a bishop

As part of a secret operation that Pope Pius XI. carried out with secret bishop Michel d'Herbigny , Sloskāns was ordained titular bishop of Cillium on May 1, 1926 in Moscow and appointed apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Minsk-Mahiljou , based in Mogilev . He took Russian citizenship. He officially took office in September 1926 (Mogilev) and May 1927 (Minsk).

Gulag in the Solovetsky Islands

In September 1927 he was convicted of espionage when the police first secretly hid documents in his apartment and then found them. He was arrested and taken to Lubyanka Prison in Moscow and then to Butyrka Prison. Without trial or judgment, he was administratively assigned to three years of concentration camp on the Solovetsky Islands near Kem , the original cell of the Gulag . From March 1928 to October 1930 he did forced labor there under the harshest conditions. With symptoms of paralysis and completely exhausted, he was released on November 1, 1930.

Siberia

On November 8, 1930, he was arrested again in Mogilew for no reason. On December 19, 1930, he was connected to a prisoner transport to Siberia via Minsk and Moscow , which took him via Sverdlovsk , Irkutsk , Krasnoyarsk , and Yenisseisk to Turukhansk , where he arrived on June 22, 1931. There he was separated from the other prisoners and taken 37 km northwest to Staro-Turuchansk, where he was isolated and plagued by mosquitos in the summer, reading the French autobiography of Therese von Lisieux and learning French there. In November 1932 he spent ten days in Turukhansk prison. The transfer to Krasnoyarsk by sledge lasted from November 28, 1932 to January 2, 1933. Then the train went to Moscow. There he was exchanged for a Russian spy and arrived in Riga on January 22, 1933 . His refusal to leave the USSR was broken by the lie that the Pope himself wanted him to leave.

Rome. Riga. Eichstatt. Lohr

He went to Rome and was honored with the title of Papal Assistant to the Throne . Back in Latvia, he taught at the Riga Theological University. In 1944 he was taken to the Schneidemühl camp by the Gestapo together with Bishops Antonijs Urbšs and Jāzeps Rancans (1886–1969) . At the end of the war he came to Eichstätt , then to the Capuchin monastery Mariabuchen in Lohr am Main .

Brussels. Lions. death

In 1947 he went to Brussels , where he worked for the refugees from the east. In 1951 he entered the Keizersberg Benedictine Abbey near Leuven . In 1952 Pius XII appointed him . as apostolic visitor for the emigrated Catholic Russians and Belarusians . In 1955 he became the moderator of the Latvians and Estonians . In 1979 he left the monastery due to illness and went to care in Korbeek-Lo. There he died at the age of 87 in the Emmaus home of the sisters of the Duffel Bethlehem Monastery . He has been buried in the Aglona basilica since 1993 . In 2004 he was awarded the honorary title Venerable Servant of God by Pope John Paul II .

Works

  • (with Paul Roth, 1925–2006, and Ernst Nittner ): The East. Call and task. Volksbote press association, Munich 1962 (series of publications by the Ackermann community 17).
  • Témoin de Dieu chez les sans-Dieu. You bagne des îles Solovetski à la déportation en Sibérie. Journal de prison. Aide à l'Eglise en détresse, Mareil-Marly 1986 (introduced by François Rouleau, SJ, 1919–2017).
    • (German) Witness of God among the wicked. Prison diary. Munich 1988.

literature

  • Stefaan Van Calster, Dirk Hanssens: Memorial book Monseigneur Boleslas Sloskans. Symbool van de vervolgde kerk. Tabor, Bruges 1995.
    • (French) L'anéantissement silencieux. Mgr Boleslas Sloskans. Pierre Téqui, Paris 2000.
  • Jānis Jerumanis: Upuris par brāļiem. Bīskaps Boļeslavs Sloskāns. Atmiņu sakopojums. Internacionālais Katoļu palīdzības fonds "Baznīca spaidos", Wavre 1990, Riga 1993 ("Sacrifice for the brothers. Bishop Bolesław Sloskāns. Collected memories").

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Sloskāns, Boļeslavs
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sloskans, Boleslav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Latvian Roman Catholic clergyman, bishop and victim of Stalinism
DATE OF BIRTH August 31, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Tiltagals
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 1981
Place of death Bierbeek