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Bienheureux Nicétas Budka
Évêque
et martyr (✝ 1949)
Mykyta (Nicétas),
né en 1877 à Dobromirka dans la région de Zbarazh. Il exerça son ministère
d’abord au Canada puis en Ukraine parmi les fidèles catholiques de rite
byzantin, gréco-catholique. En 1905, après avoir obtenu ses diplômes de
théologie à Vienne et Innsbruck, il est ordonné prêtre par le métropolite
Andrej Sheptytsky. Le 14 octobre 1912, il est consacré évêque à Lviv. La même
année il est nommé par le Saint-Siège premier Exarque apostolique (évêque) des
Ukrainiens catholiques du Canada. En 1928, il devient évêque auxiliaire de
l'archevêque greco-catholique à Lviv. Le 11 avril 1945, le gouvernement
communiste l'arrête et le condamne à 8 ans de prison. Il meurt martyr le 1er
octobre 1949 dans un camp de concentration à Karaganda, au Kazakhstan.
Béatifié le 27 juin 2001 à Lviv (Ukraine) par Jean Paul II.
Au camp de concentration de Karadzar dans le Kazakstan, en 1949, le
bienheureux Nicétas Budka, évêque et martyr, qui exerça son ministère d’abord
au Canada puis en Ukraine parmi les fidèles catholiques de rite byzantin et,
envoyé en déportation par le régime soviétique athée, il supporta tous les
sévices avec force d’âme jusqu’à la mort.
Martyrologe
romain
27 juin
Bienheureux Nykyta Budka
Né
en 1877 à Dobromirka (en Autriche-Hongrie à l’époque, Ukraine aujourd’hui),
Nykyta Budka est ordonné prêtre en 1905 à Lviv. Sept ans après son ordination
sacerdotale, il est ordonné évêque pour les catholiques ukrainiens immigrés et
devient ainsi le premier évêque grecque-catholique au Canada. Quand il arrive à
Winnipeg (Manitoba), en décembre 1912, la population ukrainienne au Canada
compte plus de 150 000 personnes. Durant 15 ans, il parcourt tout le vaste
pays, en visitant les différentes communautés ukrainiennes, administrant les
sacrements, enseignant, fondant des écoles, formant les catéchistes, ordonnant
des prêtres locaux pour être missionnaires et encourageant des prêtres et
laïques en Ukraine à venir au Canada. L’évêque Budka se dévoue entièrement à
soutenir les grecque-catholiques ukrainiens dans leur foi. Pendant son mandat
l’Église catholique ukrainienne au Canada connait un essor, en passant de 25 à
170 paroisses, et obtient la reconnaissance légale de la part de l’état :
les différentes églises orientales (ukrainienne, ruthénienne, slovaque et
hongroise) sont en effet incorporées dans celle qu’on appelle la Corporation
Épiscopale Ruthénienne Grecque-Catholique du Canada, reconnue en 1913.
Malgré
son dévouement à la mission au Canada, l’évêque Budka est obligé de
démissionner en 1928 à cause de sa mauvaise santé. Il retourne en Ukraine où il
sert comme chanoine et s’occupe de la rénovation d’un sanctuaire marial. Il
travaille pour 18 ans auprès des ukrainiens et sert à Lviv comme vicaire général
pour son ami, et supérieur, le métropolite Andrey Sheptytsky. Ensemble ils
traversent, avec vaillance mais aussi avec souffrance, l’occupation soviétique
en 1939 et celle des nazis en 1941. Sheptystsky meurt en 1944, à l’âge de 78
ans, non sans avoir d’abord demandé à Rome de nommer comme son successeur le
martyr blanc, Joseph Slipyj. Un an après, l’évêque Budka, le métropolite
Slipyj et tous les évêques catholiques ukrainiens sont arrêtés et jetés en
prison ou dans des camps de travaux forcés par les communistes soviétiques.
Budka a toujours gardé sa citoyenneté canadienne et, pendant son
emprisonnement, le Vatican et les fonctionnaires canadiens ont collaboré pour
essayer de négocier sa libération, mais sans succès. Il meurt dans un
hôpital-prison du Kazakhstan, le 1er octobre 1949. Le
pape Jean-Paul II l’a béatifié en 2001, avec 26 autres ukrainiens martyrisés
par le régime soviétique.
LIEN : http://archeparchy.ca
Blessed Bishop Nykyta Budka Biography
September 2, 2014
God’s Martyr, History’s Witness: Blessed Nykyta Budka the
First Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Bishop of Canada is the first complete historical biography of Bishop Nykyta Budka. The
author of the biography is Dr. Athanasius McVay.
In his commentary
the author of the biography, Fr. McVay, noted that Nykyta Budka is an important
figure in Ukrainian, Canadian and Catholic history. His appointment on 15 July
1912 was the first time the Apostolic See of Rome named an Eastern Catholic
Bishop with full jurisdiction outside the old continents of Europe and Asia.
From an early age he became an educator and supporter of the Ukrainian people
and supported their political and cultural freedom. He became one of hundreds
of thousands of Ukrainian immigrants and encouraged Ukrainian immigration to
Canada throughout his life; his mission being to sustain Canadian Ukrainian
Greek-Catholics in their faith. Budka achieved government recognition for the
Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada as a legal entity. Facing the reality of
assimilation, he encouraged his flock to become good Canadians but dedicated
himself to preserving Ukrainians’ religious and cultural identity. Bishop
Budka’s story is one of endurance. For fifteen years he traveled unceasingly,
visiting the Ukrainian settlements and church communities scattered across
Canada, celebrating the sacraments, teaching, preaching and comforting the
faithful. He invited many Ukrainian priests from Europe and ordained local
recruits to serve as missionaries in Canada. He relied upon religious sisters,
brothers, and priests to promote Catholic and bilingual education. He sponsored
lay people in higher education so that they would become conscientious and
self-sacrificing community leaders. He was a poor administrator but a fantastic
missionary. He did not receive sufficient financial support from his flock and
was forced to rely on grants from Roman Catholic bishops and organizations. He
faced bankruptcy on several occasions. In a climate of intense proselytism he
battled with many political and religious opponents who sought to draw his
flock away from their Catholic Faith. His overwork, stress, and harsh
conditions destroyed his delicate health. After requesting an assistant bishop,
he was finally asked to resign. For the next seventeen years he provided moral
support and ministered to Ukrainians under oppressive Polish, Nazi and Soviet
regimes. Together with his fellow Ukrainian Catholic bishops, clergy, religious
and laity, he was condemned by Soviet authorities. He died in a prison camp in
far-away Kazakhstan. The Catholic Church numbers him among the heavenly martyrs
and confessors of the Faith. His story can be described as a life of obedience,
work and love of the Lord Jesus Christ and God’s pilgrim people.
God’s Martyr, History’s Witness has been published by the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of
Edmonton and the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian
Studies.
A private launch
for contributors and benefactors took place on August 22, 2014.
The first public
launch will take pace at Verkhovyna, St. Josaphat Cathedral Hall, Edmonton
Friday, 24 October 2014.
For the time being,
the book is available only through the Edmonton Eparchy Chancery office for
$25. Later, it will be available for purchase in other eparchies.
Blessed Budka's Birthday into Heaven
Blessed
Nykyta Budka was arrested in Lviv by the Soviets on 11 April 1945 and
transported to Kyiv the following day. For the next twelve months he was
interrogated and tried for 'crimes' against the Soviet Union and the Communist
Party. A military tribunal sentenced him to five-years imprisonment on 29
May 1946. After that he vanished and, for over ten years, no one knew his
whereabouts or even if he was alive. It was rumoured that Budka was being
held in Siberia. Instead, he was among the many innocent people who had
been sent to prison camps near Karaganda, Kazahstan. After Stalin's
death, Soviet authorities began to release the survivors. These men and women
were finally able to tell the stories about those who had lived and died in the
gulag. Among the survivors from Kazakhstan were Blessed Bishops Ivan
Liatyshevsky and Aleksander Khira, and future-archbishop, Father Volodymyr
Sterniuk. In 1958 Soviet authorities finally confirmed that Nykyta Budka had
died close to 1 October 1949, but more precise dates and details are still
lacking to this day.
Budka
and other Ukrainian Catholics who had been criminalized by a criminal regime
were politically rehabilitated in September 1991. This occurred less than
a month after Ukrainian independence, with the Soviet 'Union' still officially
in existence and the Communist Party having been declared illegal. Yet no
official follow-up to the case has ever occurred, even though Canadian
Ukrainians had asked their government for a redress to the Budka
case in 1989.
Kazahstani authorities have only recently confirmed that Budka served out his sentence at the Karadzhar prison camp near Karaganda, where he died of heart disease on 28 September 1949. Additional documentation, obtained unofficially in 1995, further specifies that Budka arrived at the camp on 5 July 1946 and was admitted to a nearby hospital on 14 October 1947, the feast-day of his patron, the Protection of the Mother of God according to the Julian calendar. That day was also the forty-second anniversary of his priestly ordination and the thirty-fifth of his episcopal ordination. Even the date of his death occurred on the forty-second anniversary of his ordination to the diaconate.
Kazahstani authorities have only recently confirmed that Budka served out his sentence at the Karadzhar prison camp near Karaganda, where he died of heart disease on 28 September 1949. Additional documentation, obtained unofficially in 1995, further specifies that Budka arrived at the camp on 5 July 1946 and was admitted to a nearby hospital on 14 October 1947, the feast-day of his patron, the Protection of the Mother of God according to the Julian calendar. That day was also the forty-second anniversary of his priestly ordination and the thirty-fifth of his episcopal ordination. Even the date of his death occurred on the forty-second anniversary of his ordination to the diaconate.
In
1988 Archbishop Stereniuk recounted a story that he had heard in the camps
about Budka dying at a hospital and his remains being left in the forest never
to be found. The documents we now possess are
contradictory: one states that he died in the Dzhartas hospital and his body
was transported back to the prison camp to be examined and buried at the prison
cemetery on 2 October. This version would explain the origin of some of
the legends about the disappearance of his remains from the hospital.
Other documents state that he died at the prison camp itself, still
classified perhaps as a hospital outpatient.
Resolving
the discrepancies in the existing data and verifying existing documentation
requires better cooperation between Ukrainian Catholic representatives and
government institutions in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia. The best way to obtain the truth would be for the Government of
Canada to request a full investigation into the details of the
imprisonment and death of a Canadian citizen now honored as a blessed-martyr by
13 million Catholics throughout Canada and 1 billion Catholics throughout the
world.
