Stefan Czmil
Written Stepan Czmil SDB, also Chmil ( born October 10, 1914 in Sudowa Wyschnja; † 22 January 1979), was a Ukrainian religious priests and Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishop.
Life
From 1925 Czmil visited the Ukrainian Boys High School in Przemysl in Poland today. His dortiger catechist P. Petro Holynskyj was a great admirer of Don Bosco. Meanwhile, stories about Don Bosco meant that Czmil even Salesians of Don Bosco wanted to be.
1930 allowed Pope Pius XI. candidates for the priesthood of the Salesians of Don Bosco, who belonged to the Orthodox rites to be allowed to practice their rite on. The then Metropolitan Andrey Scheptyzkyj allowed to advertise in the schools for a Salesian education in Italy. Czmil was the first who perceived this possibility. Together with nine other students, he was sent in 1932 to Ivrea. After the end of the school education he did in 1935 in the novitiate in Villa Moglia at Chieri and put in the following year his first vows from. According to the philosophical and theological studies in Foglizzo and Bollengo, interrupted by a two- year tenure as an educator in the novitiate, Czmil was consecrated on October 14, 1945 by the Apostolic Visitor for Ukrainian emigrants in Western Europe, Ivan Buchko, a priest.
There followed a Bachelors degree in Education at the Athenaeum in Turin. For a time he worked as Katakombenführer in the St. Callistus catacombs in Rome that are under Salesian Administration. In Rome he met many Ukrainian refugees who were forced during the war, on pain of death, to fight for the Third Reich, and were now persecuted by the ruling Communists as traitors. Czmil tried them with a diaspora community in Italy to build. He worked as a teacher and assistant in Valdocco, where he was primarily responsible for the training of Salesian missionaries.
In 1948 he was sent by the Congregation for the Oriental Churches to Argentina to work there too for the tens of thousands of Ukrainian immigrants as pastor. He was finally appointed in place of Andrés Sapelak to the Director of the Ukrainian minor seminary. Under his directorship, the school received the title of Papal seminar. In 1967, he joined, in poor health, as a retreat director and confessor for the Ukrainian communities to Rome. He also lectured at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome Italian language and Italian literature, and published the second volume of the Ukrainian- Italian and Italian -Ukrainian dictionary.
1976 was again appointed the director of a seminar. On December 6, 1976, he was appointed by Jossyf Slipyj archimandrite and finally consecrated on April 2, 1977 by Slipyj and also the co-consecrators Bishop Ivan Prasko and Isidore Borecky in the monastery of Studi tenor Dens in Marino, near Rome, together with Ivan Choma and Lubomyr Husar as Bishop. This becoming public only in internal Ukrainian Catholic and Salesian area secret ordinations were recognized by Pope John Paul II on September 22, 1996.
Czmil died but already almost two years later at the age of only 65 years. Already on the way to the sacristy he felt sick this morning, but insisted on, to celebrate the liturgy. After the Mass, he collapsed in the sacristy. Some seminarians still brought him to his room, but where he died shortly afterwards. Since at this time met the General Chapter of the Salesians of Don Bosco, his newly elected Superior General and former classmate Giles Viganò could personally pay their last respects. Jossyf Slipyj himself, who was hit hard by the death of the younger friend and bearer of hope, stood before the funeral. Bishop Czmil was the first Ukrainian Catholic Salesian, who was buried in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Sophia in Rome.
Beatification process
Beginning of September 2008 agreed to the Synod of the Ukrainian Greek - Catholic Church of the request of the Salesians of Don Bosco to take the beatification for Bishop Czmil.