Григорій Хомишин

Activity: Religion
Date of Birth: March 25, 1867
Date of Death: December 28, 1945, Kyiv
Period: World Wars

A bishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Blessed of the Catholic Church, and a victim of Stalinist repression.

Hryhorii Khomyshyn came from a modest peasant family of middle means. After graduating from the Ternopil Royal Gymnasium, he entered the Faculty of Theology at Lviv University. In 1893, he was ordained a priest and began his ministry at the cathedral in Stanislaviv (modern-day Ivano-Frankivsk). That same year, the diocesan bishop Yulian (Sas-Kuilovskyi), noting his promise, sent Khomyshyn to Vienna for five years of study, where he obtained a Doctor of Theology degree. After returning, Khomyshyn headed the theological seminary in Lviv, and on June 19, 1904, he became a bishop.
In the interwar period, Bishop Khomyshyn initiated the introduction of Catholic Action in Ukraine—a social movement aimed at the just resolution of social conflicts. He emphasized that the organization should remain apolitical while indirectly influencing political events through the moral renewal of society. To this end, Khomyshyn decided to establish the “Skala” society in the Stanislaviv diocese, which was intended to deepen people’s educational and cultural level and to develop their moral and religious life.
During World War II, Khomyshyn criticized the tendency of Ukrainian intellectuals to emigrate abroad in the face of the Bolshevik threat. A principled opponent of emigration, he believed that a shepherd’s place was with his flock, no matter how difficult the times. He even forbade the priests of his diocese from leaving abroad to escape the Bolsheviks: “It is no great feat to play the role of great patriots, to build burial mounds, to deliver lofty patriotic speeches, and then, when danger threatens, to flee like hares from cabbage. Therefore, under strict responsibility, I forbid fleeing beyond the borders of the diocese in the event of a Bolshevik invasion.”
After the Bolsheviks consolidated power in Galicia in 1944, repression against the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church intensified. On April 11, 1945, the Lviv NKVD decided to search and arrest Khomyshyn. On May 10, after a series of interrogations, he was charged with a standard set of accusations: as an alleged “agent of the Vatican,” Khomyshyn was accused of anti-Soviet activities, collaboration with “Polish and German fascists,” creating a “clerical-nationalist organization,” and supporting the idea of an independent Ukrainian state.
As testified by Father Petro Heryliuk-Kupchynskyi, an investigator beat Khomyshyn to death with his own books. “This Dubok [the investigator] himself told me how he killed the bishop. ‘You, Khomyshyn, spoke out against communism?’ The bishop, as always, answered firmly: ‘I did and I will continue to do so.’ ‘Did you speak out against the Komsomol?’ — ‘I did and I will continue to do so.’ ‘Did you oppose Soviet power?’ — ‘I opposed it and will continue to oppose it!’” After this exchange, the enraged investigator grabbed heavy books from the table and began beating the 78-year-old bishop “on the head and wherever he could” until he lost consciousness.
Bishop Khomyshyn died in a prison hospital on December 28, 1945. The official cause of death was listed as heart failure, alimentary dystrophy, and old age. The exact place of his burial is unknown: he was likely buried at Lukianivske Cemetery near the prison or in the Bykivnia forest near Kyiv.
In June 2001, during his visit to Ukraine, Pope John Paul II beatified Hryhorii Khomyshyn, proclaiming him Blessed of the Catholic Church.

Author: Olha Herasymenko