Szilárd Bogdánffy

Szilárd Ignatius Bogdanffy ( born February 21, 1911 in Feketetó, county Torontal, today Crna Bara, Okrug Severni Banat, † October 3, 1953 in prison Aiud ) was a Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop in Satu Mare and Oradea. On 30 October 2010 he was beatified in the Basilica of Oradea (Hungarian Nagyvarad ).

Life

Szilárd Bogdanffy Ignatius was born in the then Hungarian Vojvodina. 1925 the family moved to Timişoara, where he attended the Piaristengymnasium. After high school he studied for two years at the Theological Academy of Oradea (Hungarian Nagyvarad ) and then at the Pázmány Péter University in Budapest. On 29 June 1934 he was ordained by Bishop Stefan Fiedler priest. In 1943 he received his doctorate in philosophy and dogmatic theology at the University of Budapest. Upon his return to Romania in 1934, he was chaplain and religion teacher in several schools in Oradea; ibid from 1944 professor of theology. During the Second World War, he protected the persecuted Jews and hid in the Theological Faculty in order to save their lives, which is why he constantly received threats from the Gestapo and the state police.

After the Second World War and the seizure of power by the Russians and the communist regime in Romania, the persecution of the Catholic Church began. The government wanted to convert the Catholic church in a Romanian national church and several leaders of the church, including Szilárd Bogdanffy force to participate in it. These experiments were but so rejected by the person concerned, even the canon Bogdanffy.

On 14 February 1949 he was ordained by Bishop Gerald secretly Patrick O'Hara, acting head of the Apostolic Nunciature in Romania, as Auxiliary Bishop. About two months later he was arrested and sentenced to twelve years hard labor. He spent four years in the toughest prisons in Romania. On October 3, 1953 Auxiliary Bishop Bogdanffy died in prison Aiud (Hungarian Nagyenyed ) from the effects of abuse and of pneumonia because he received no medication.

Beatification

On 30 October 2010 he was beatified in the Basilica of Oradea by Cardinal Peter Erdo and Archbishop Angelo Amato as a martyr.

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