Seminarians from Denton, Nebraska, visit the Bishop Velychkovsky Martyr’s Shrine in Winnipeg. (Bishop Velychkovsky Martyr’s Shrine Photo )
The Bishop Velychkovsky Martyr’s Shrine in Winnipeg
showcases the theme of human rights, attracting a steady flow of visitors to St.
Joseph’s Ukrainian Catholic parish.
This shrine is the final resting place of Blessed Vasyl Velychkovsky, a Ukrainian bishop and martyr who died in Winnipeg after a long and terrible imprisonment at the hands of the communists in Ukraine and Russia.
Today, he is on the road to sainthood.
The 20th century has been called the century of martyrs. Ukraine suffered particular agonies under two totalitarian regimes, first the Nazis and then the Soviets.
When Bishop Vasyl was born in 1903, Ukraine was a peaceful place, the bread basket of Europe, a vast land with a historic Catholic presence.
In 1925 the young Father Vasyl was ordained a Redemptorist priest and began his priestly labours, teaching and preaching parish missions. At that time there was no indication of the horrors that lay ahead for the Ukrainian people, including a forced famine at the hands of Stalin in the 1930s.
World War II brought destruction and ruin to the region. Afterwards, there was no break in the storm when the Soviets replaced the Nazis.
The communists unleashed a fierce persecution of the Catholic Church, seeking in earnest to exterminate it completely when they made it illegal in 1946.
On Aug. 7, 1945, Father Vasyl was arrested by the Soviets because he was a Catholic priest. Being offered a position as a Russian Orthodox priest, he was told to deny his faith and leave the Catholic Church. The young priest’s response was firm: “No, never.”
After one year of imprisonment that included barbaric mental and physical torture in a KGB prison, Father Vasyl was finally sentenced to death by firing squad.
On death row for three months, the heroic priest wasted no time to comfort and reach out to the other prisoners.
When his name was called on the appointed day, he left his cell resigned to die for Christ and the Church. However, at the last minute his death sentence was commuted and he was given a new sentence of 10 years in Russian slave labour camps in the Arctic tundra.
Following this torturous imprisonment, Father Vasyl was sent back to Ukraine where he became instrumental in organizing the resistance – an underground church. In a short time his small apartment flat became the center of a flurry of church activity.
Though Catholic monasteries were officially closed, Father Vasyl instructed priests and nuns how to live out their monastic and religious vows in new and clandestine ways.
Word spread to the Vatican and in 1959 Father Vasyl was appointed the bishop of the underground church, even though there were no bishops in the country to ordain him.
The story of his episcopal ordination is told with great emotion. The bishop-elect was ordained secretly in 1963 in a Soviet hotel in the shadow of the Kremlin.
Fellow Ukrainian Metropolitan Josyf Slipyj had just been released by the Communists after 18 years in Soviet labour camps. While in Moscow, he bid the Bishop-elect Father Vasyl to come with haste to his hotel room in the storied Hotel Moskva, an iconic symbol of Communist Russia to the world.
When Father Vasyl entered the room, Metropolitan Josyf immediately began the rite of ordination to the episcopacy. Metropolitan Josyf himself had been ordained a bishop secretly in 1939, due to a similar political situation.
On Jan. 27, 1969, Bishop Vasyl was arrested the last time. The authorities accused him of anti-Soviet agitation, the result of his priestly ministry.
The prison sentence was three years. It was during that time the bishop underwent severe chemical, electric, physical, and mental torture that eventually cost him his life.
When the bishop was released from prison in 1972, he was already near death. As a final insult, the Soviets exiled him forever from his homeland.
The Ukrainian Archbishop of Winnipeg, Metropolitan Maxim Hermaniuk, invited Bishop Vasyl to come to Canada where a devoted Ukrainian Catholic diaspora welcomed him with open arms.
After one year in Canada, still overcome by the debilitating effects of years of prison tortures, the Bishop died a martyr’s death in Winnipeg on June 30, 1973.
After the funeral services at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Winnipeg, he was buried in nearby All Saints Cemetery.
During Pope St. John Paul II’s pastoral visit to Ukraine in 2001, the bishop was beatified. The beatification included other martyrs of the Ukrainian Catholic Church under the title of Nicholas Charnetsky and Companions.
In 2014, Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, solemnly proclaimed Blessed Vasyl a patron of prison ministry.
The shrine in Winnipeg stands as a testimony to this 20th-century apostle of human rights. Established in 2002, it is a prayerful and peaceful place where visitors come to visit and reflect.
The shrine is presented in two parts – first, a prayer room with his remains and, second, an educational room with a museum.
The prayer room contains the new resting place of the bishop, where his remains were transferred in 2002 after his exhumation, a requirement during the beatification process.
Despite initial apprehension about the exhumation, the process for the canonical recognition of the body was carried forward.
The casket was exhumed amid prayers and chants, in the presence of various religious and civic dignitaries as well as medical staff from St. Boniface Hospital, where the body was then taken for examination.
The remains were found to be intact, except the feet, which had suffered unbearable frostbite in the gulags, an injury caused by the freezing of the skin and underlying tissues.
The body was re-dressed in new sacerdotal vestments of episcopal dignity and was placed in a specially commissioned stainless steel sarcophagus made according to directives from the Vatican.
Because the tomb is of a martyr, the sarcophagus was designed as an altar. This is an ancient tradition, allowing the Divine Liturgy to be celebrated on it.
Here pilgrims kneel in humble prayer amid vigil lights and stained glass, asking Blessed Vasyl to intercede before Almighty God.
Due to the powerful intercession of the Bishop, many graces and miracles have been reported.
The small attached museum is dedicated to the life of the bishop and includes information on the lives of other Redemptorist martyrs of that same time period.
Through the presentation of a short video, visitors become acquainted with the life of the holy bishop while wall panels and display cases contain certain artifacts that complete the story of his life.
One of the most precious items is a broken spoon which the bishop made use of in prison as a substitute chalice when he celebrated the Divine Liturgy in secret.
Other walls in the museum depict the story of the exhumation and enshrinement of his holy relics. A souvenir and gift shop complete the room where visitors can browse and purchase religious items.
The Bishop Velychkovsky Martyr’s Shrine receives individual pilgrims or pilgrim groups. Volunteers are available to guide visitors on their spiritual pilgrimage through the museum and shrine.
All are welcome to visit and get to know this giant of human rights, Bishop Vasyl of Winnipeg.
J.P. Sonnen is a tour operator and history docent with Vancouver-based Orbis Catholicus Travel.