Saints celebrated on the 17th of May
BLESSED IVAN ZIATYK, PRIEST AND MARTYR
Ivan Ziatyk (commemorated on May 17 and June 28) was born on December 26, 1899 near Sanok in southeastern Poland. In 1919, he entered the Ukrainian Catholic seminary in Przemyśl. He was ordained a priest in 1923. From 1925 until 1935, he worked the seminary as a prefect and lecturer. In 1935, Father Ivan joined the Redemptorists. In 1941, he was made superior of the monastery dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother of God in German-occupied Tannstadt (now Ternopil, Ukraine), where he served until taking the same position at a monastery in Zboiska in 1944.
After the Second World War, the Soviet regime renewed its oppression of Catholics. In 1946, all Greek-Catholic bishops were arrested and, by spring, the Soviet secret police had arrested all Redemptorists in Ternopil, Stanislaviv, Lviv, and Zboiska, relocating them to an unheated wing of the monastery in Holosko. Members of the order gathered at the monastery had their activities constantly monitored by the secret police for the next two years.
Eventually, Father Ivan came under extreme scrutiny; Soviet leadership called for his arrest on January 5, 1950 and a warrant for his arrest was issued on January 20. He was apprehended on January 24 and withstood several interrogations before finally, on February 4, being formally accused of "promot[ing] the ideas of the Roman Pope, of spreading the Catholic Faith among the nations of the whole world and of making all Catholics". The case lasted two years, during which Father Ivan lived in prisons in Lviv and Zolochiv. During his internment, he was interrogated 72 times, all at night and often accompanied with prisoner abuse.
On November 21, 1951, Father Ivan was convicted to ten years imprisonment and forced labor at Ozerlag prison camp for "cooperating with anti-Soviet nationalistic organisation and anti-Soviet propaganda". During his imprisonment, he was repeatedly tortured. On Good Friday 1952, he was taken from his cell, beaten with sticks, soaked in water, and exposed in the Siberian wilderness. He died in the prison hospital on May 17, 1952. He was buried in "Cemetery 373 in the Lake Baikal zone, in the district of Tajshet in the region of Irkytsk."
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Ziatyk
Photo credit: www.omphip.org
PRAYER:
Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Blessed Ivan may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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