Josaphat Kuntsevych
Jehoshaphat Kunzewitsch ( Jehoshaphat Kuncewycz, Belarusian: Язафат Кунцэвіч, Polish: Jozafat Kuncewicz, Ukrainian: Йосафат Кунцевич ) (* 1580 Wlodzimierz, then, now in Poland - Lithuania in Ukraine; † November 12, 1623 in Vitebsk ) was Archbishop of Polotsk ( weißruss. Polotsk ) and is a saint of the Catholic Church.
Life
Jehoshaphat Kuncewicz was born around 1580 in the town of Wlodzimierz (now Vladimir Volynsky ) in Volhynia. Even as a child he was indefatigable in visiting the Church Slavonic worship, in learning the prayers and chants; his favorite residence was the house of God. The confessor of Jehoshaphat said the canonization that he had heard from his own mouth, he said: "When I was little and my mother once went to church and she asked what that meant the image of the Crucified, and how the mother taught me a spark of fire came up to me and entered me. The effect was that the church services were my sweetest fruit. "
The impoverished parents sent their son to a merchant in the doctrine, who would gladly have made him his heir. But his vocation led him to the Basilian monks in Vilnius (Lithuania). As a monk, he lived in allerstrengster asceticism and devoted himself to the study of the liturgy and the Church Fathers. The unity of the Ukrainian faithful with Rome was particularly close to his heart.
His Spriritualität was entirely ostkirchlich. The Jesus Prayer: "Jesus, Thou Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner ", had become like breathing his soul. He was the innovator of his order from his example. His sermons and writings seemed so for the reunion that his opponents the "Soul Robber " called him.
As a friend and closest collaborator of the metropolitans of Kiev Rutski he became in 1618 archbishop of Polotsk. The Union of Brest ( 1596) brought so many difficulties that the voices were louder, demanding to abandon the Ukrainian rite, and latinize the Uniates. Archbishop Josaphat tried to stop these efforts. What him during his tenure did not succeed that was to constitute his martyrdom.
When he was in Vitebsk on 12 November 1623 the home of the " Latin Papists " was stormed by a mob. Jehoshaphat stood protectively in front of his family and was slain while he prayed for his enemies. The body was dragged through the city and, weighted with stones, sunk to a particularly deep Stelles of the river Daugava. He was brought after six days out of the water, then placed in eight days to ship to Polotsk, where he was ten open for days on display in the cathedral. Then the body was covered with red silk blankets, kept in the castle church of Polotsk. The solemn burial took place a year later, on 28 January 1625th In the Kanonisationsakten is repeatedly testified that the face of the saints after death was very nice, for example, " quod facies Servi Dei ex acquis extracti pulcherrima fuisset ". The confessor said: " We placed the body for several months all publicly flaunt to his glorious funeral. However, the whole time he was issued, no change or corruption appeared to him. So I say, because I know it because I 've seen it and have been even present at all. "
The murder of Archbishop Josaphat shook the conscience, aroused the indifference of the Latin clergy, which was located at the Polonization of Ukrainians by Latinization of the rite, from his lethargy, and induced the king by access. One can say that without his death, the Union of Brest would then hit the rocks.
Already in 1628 was entrusted with the investigation of his case by Pope Urban VIII a commission. He was beatified in 1643 and canonized in 1867.
His feast day is celebrated on November 12. On the occasion of the 300th anniversary of his martyrdom wrote Pope Pius XI. the encyclical Ecclesiam Dei admirabili of 12 November 1923.