Stepan Czmil
Stepan Czmil SDB , also written Chmil (born October 10, 1914 in Sudowa Wyschnja ; † January 22, 1979 ), was a Ukrainian religious priest and Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishop .
Life
From 1925 Czmil attended the Ukrainian boys' grammar school in Przemyśl in what is now Poland. His catechist Fr. Petro Holynskyj there was a great admirer of Don Bosco . His stories about Don Bosco made Czmil want to become a Salesian of Don Bosco himself.
In 1930 Pope Pius XI made it possible . the priesthood candidates of the Salesians of Don Bosco, who belonged to the Orthodox rites, to be allowed to continue to practice their rite. The then Metropolitan Andrei Scheptyzkyj also made it possible to advertise Salesian education in Italy in high schools. Czmil was the first to take advantage of this opportunity. Together with nine other students he was sent to Ivrea in 1932 . After finishing school he entered the novitiate in Villa Moglia near Chieri in 1935 and made his first temporary vows the following year . After the philosophical-theological studies in Foglizzo and Bollengo , interrupted by a two-year activity as a novitiate educator, Czmil was ordained a priest on October 14, 1945 by Ivan Buchko , the Apostolic Visitator for Ukrainian emigrants in Western Europe .
This was followed by a bachelor's degree in education at the Athenaeum in Turin . For a time he worked as a catacomb guide in the Calixtus catacombs in Rome, which are under Salesian administration. In Rome he met many Ukrainian refugees who were forced to fight for the Third Reich during the war under threat of the death penalty and who were now persecuted as traitors by the ruling communists. Czmil tried to build a diaspora community in Italy with them . He himself worked as a teacher and assistant in Valdocco , where he was primarily responsible for the training of Salesian missionaries.
In 1948 he was sent to Argentina by the Congregation for the Oriental Churches to work there as a pastor for the tens of thousands of Ukrainian immigrants. He was finally appointed director of the Ukrainian Minor Seminary in place of Andrés Sapelak . Under his directorate, the school was given the title of Pontifical Seminary . In 1967 he moved to Rome as a retreat master and confessor for the Ukrainian congregations, with poor health . He also lectured on the Italian language and Italian literature at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome and edited the second volume of the Ukrainian-Italian and Italian-Ukrainian dictionaries.
1976 was again appointed director of a seminar. On 6 December 1976 he was of Josyf Slipyj to Archimandrite appointed and finally on 2 April 1977 also by Slipyj and the co-consecrators Bishop Ivan Prasko and Isidore Borecky in the monastery of Studi tenor Dens in Marino in Rome together with Ivan Choma and Lubomyr Husar consecrated bishop . These secret ordinations, which only became public in the internal Ukrainian-Catholic and Salesian areas, were recognized by Pope John Paul II on September 22, 1996.
But Czmil died just two years later at the age of only 65. Already on the way to the sacristy he felt sick that morning, but insisted on celebrating the liturgy. After mass he collapsed in the sacristy. Some seminarians took him to his room, but he died shortly afterwards. Since the General Chapter of the Salesians of Don Bosco was meeting at this time, the newly elected Superior General and former classmate Aegidius Viganò was able to personally pay his last respects. Jossyf Slipyj himself, who was badly hit by the death of his younger friend and bearer of hope, presided over the funeral. Bishop Czmil was the first Ukrainian Catholic Salesian to be buried in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Sophia in Rome.
Beatification process
At the beginning of September 2008, the Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church approved the request by the Salesians of Don Bosco to initiate the beatification of Bishop Czmil .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Article Ukraine on apostolische-nachstieg.de
- ↑ Ukrainian Catholic Bishop begins Canonization Process on catholic.org ( Memento from June 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Czmil, Stepan |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Chmil, Stepan |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Ukrainian religious, Greek Catholic bishop |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 10, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Sudowa Vysnya |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 22, 1979 |