By Greg Barrett
Part 3 of 5
This is where we left off in September…
Blessed Vasyl carried out his work under conditions of intense risk knowing all the time that he was being watched on a 24-hour basis. At any time, as he traveled in and around Lviv, he was likely to be picked up and arrested by the KGB.
Inevitably, on January 27, 1969, after 6 years of constant pressure, his time ran out and he was again arrested. He received another prison sentence – this time, however, he was not sent to the Gulag but given a 3-year sentence in Komunarsk (now known as Alchevsk in the Donbas Region). He was taken to a hospital for the mentally ill and over the next three years Bishop Velychkovsky was subjected to harsh, physical, psychological and chemical torture.
Despite all of this, he refused to defect to the Russian Orthodox Church, he refused to denounce his faith or provide information about the underground church. His niece in Canada later stated that Bishop Vasyl shared with her that in the process of this torture he told his tormentors – “You can do anything to my body but you will never have my soul.” With his physical and mental health ruined, the Soviet authorities released him in 1972. His nephew, Dr. Vasyl Nikolic of Zagreb, was working to get Blessed Vasyl out of prison and then with one-and-a-half-hour notice was told by the Soviet authorities that they were putting him on a plane to Belgrade, Yugoslavia. At that point Dr. Nikolic contacted his good friend and patient Archbishop Bukatko, Archbishop of Belgrade and informed him of the situation.
Archbishop Bukatko met Blessed Vasyl at the Belgrade airport, welcomed him, brought him home, gave him food and clothing and put him on a train to Zagreb. Dr. Nikolic met him at the train station and stated that he looked very sick and was in poor health. Dr. Nikolic was concerned about his heart and dangerously weakened overall medical condition. He was of the opinion that his jailors “… had given him something that would cause his death in a year of two.” By the time that he left Zagreb for Rome three weeks later, Dr. Nikolic felt that his medical condition had “improved”.
Blessed Vasyl arrived in Rome on February 20, 1972 and lived in the campus church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus which had been set up as a Ukrainian national parish by Cardinal Slipyi. His arrival in Rome was picked up by the Italian press. On February 26, 1972 the Corriere Della Sera printed an article with the headline “The unexpected arrival in Rome of a mysterious Ukrainian priest”. The article went on to say that in the Vatican he is simply known as “Father” but it also reported that he was consecrated as a bishop secretly.
The article notes that his arrival in Rome revived Vatican interest in the most recent events in the Ukrainian Catholic Church and identified him as a Redemptorist. The bulk of the article deals with the Vatican’s policy toward a rapprochement with Soviet Russia. It seems that Blessed Vasil’s arrival in Rome sparked a renewal of the controversy between Cardinal Slipyi and the Vatican’s policy toward Soviet Russia and the Russian Orthodox church of Moscow. The Vatican saw Bishop Velychkovsky’s presence as a potential obstacle to this policy preferring to keep him very much in the background. Accordingly, instead of being warmly welcomed and honored by the Vatican he was, in fact, shunted aside by Vatican funtionaries for political reasons.
In Rome he was received in audience by Pope Paul VI. This audience apparently did not go well inasmuch as Blessed Vasyl was accompanied by a priest that he did not know. He was suspicious of this person and, as a result, even though he was standing before the Holy Father, he felt that he could not share all the information that he had about the church in Ukraine. Standing there he was in mortal fear of divulging information that might harm the church in Ukraine or its people. Given the circumstances, his level of suspicion was probably exaggerated but his reaction can be seen as a direct result of his tortures at the hands of the Soviet authorities and his uncertainty as to the Vatican’s priorities.
Even in Rome he could not let his guard down. When Blessed Vasyl arrived in Rome he was introduced to Raphael Turkonyak a Deacon at the time. Raphael remembered Bishop Vasyl as someone he thought was “destroyed” – his hand was “trembling” and he was “forgetful”. He also remembers celebrating Divine Liturgy as a Deacon with Bishop Vasyl and relates that often the bishop would not remember which part of the liturgy he was celebrating. He felt that this forgetfulness was caused by the medications given to him while he was in prison. Bishop Velychkovski, with His Beatitude Josyf, ordained Raphael Turkonyak and shortly afterwards left Rome to travel to Canada.
While in Rome Bishop Velychkovsky was invited to live in Winnipeg by the Redemptorist Metropolitan Maxim Hermaniuk, Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada. Blessed Vasyl accepted the Metropolitan’s invitation and arrived in Winnipeg on June 15, 1972 – the suffering servant truly in exile – over 7,000 kilometers away from Lviv.
Maria Matwichuk, Bishop Vasyl’s niece and her husband Dr. Zenon Matwichuk were overjoyed and excited that their uncle was coming to Winnipeg. Accompanied by their two sons Paul and George, they met and welcomed him at the Winnipeg Airport. George remembers him as being very quiet, moving very slowly and walking with a cane. George also remembers Blessed Vasyl staying at the home of a neighbour on Hartford Avenue in the North Kildonan area of Winnipeg for a short time. George remembers that Bishop Vasyl would visit his parents’ home almost every day and then his father would drive him back to where he was staying in the evening. He shared a brief conversation that he had with the bishop in late September 1972.
At the time the Russia/Canada hockey series was being played and George informed Blessed Vasyl (his mother translating) that Canada had defeated Russia in a dramatic come-from-behind series victory in the final game in Moscow. Blessed Vasyl smiled gently but had nothing to say. As Zenon and Maria helped Bishop Velychkovsky settle in to his new surroundings, it was clear to them that he had been through terrible times and they immediately identified that he needed some decent clothing as a first step in making him comfortable. At first, he felt that the clothes he wore were perfectly fine. But after some discussion he agreed to having a suit made.
Zenon then called his old friend and tailor Romolo Fracassi and asked for “a big favor”. Could Romolo tailor a suit for his uncle the bishop? Romolo immediately and enthusiastically agreed to Zenon’s request. So it was that Romolo gathered up some samples, picked up Maria and they made their way to Vasyl’s home in the Chancery of the Archeparchy of Winnipeg.
When they arrived, Romolo was introduced to Bishop Velychkovsky by Maria who also translated. Romolo was immediately struck by how “very frail” the bishop appeared and by the fact that he projected a deep sadness. Romolo and Vasyl looked at each other and Romolo was mesmerized by the bishop’s eyes. There were tears in the bishop’s eyes and it was as if Romolo was able to take the measure of the man and recognize the pain and agony searing his heart. It seemed that Blessed Vasyl was sharing with Romolo the painful road that he had travelled for the past 47 years – Stalinist oppression; false accusations; fabricated charges; famine used as a weapon of subjugation; wartime conditions; hunger; atrocities; long-term imprisonment; constant and consistent pressure of being discovered; torture to the point of death; and at the end, exile.
Bishop Velychovsky was clearly feeling the pain of a pastor ripped apart from his people and his flock in Ukraine and the pain was complex – part guilt, part frustration, part loneliness and part a sense of powerlessness. Romolo Fracassi was moved to his very core.
To be continued… Part 4 arrives in November