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Pope beatifies two victims of communism in Slovakia
Bratislava, Sept 14: In a farewell mass today winding up his visit to Slovakia, Pope John Paul II beatified two Catholic martyrs who were persecuted by the country`s former Communist regime.
Bratislava, Sept 14: In a farewell mass today winding up his visit to Slovakia, Pope John Paul II beatified two Catholic martyrs who were persecuted by the country's former Communist regime.
The repression started in February 1950 when the Communists in Prague, the capital of then-Czechoslovakia, banned the Catholic church.
Priests had to be ordained in secret. Monasteries and convents were closed, many believers and clerics sent to jail. Among them was bishop Vasil Hopko, a leader of the unitarian Greek church, which recognises the Pope's authority but worships in the Byzantine rite.
He was incarcerated for 15 years under the Communists.
The other martyr beatified today was sister Zdenka Cecilia Schelingova, a nun, who was jailed for helping a priest escape from prison.
"Both shine before US as radiant examples of faithfulness in times of harsh and ruthless religious persecution," the Pope said. "Both faced up to an unjust trial and an ignoble condemnation, to torture, humiliation, solitude and death."
Hopko, born in 1904 into a poor peasant family in eastern Slovakia, was only one year old when his father was killed by lightning.
He was made an auxiliary bishop in 1947, a year before the Communists took power.
When the church was banned in 1950, Hopko was arrested, placed in solitary confinement and maltreated.
Bureau Report
Priests had to be ordained in secret. Monasteries and convents were closed, many believers and clerics sent to jail. Among them was bishop Vasil Hopko, a leader of the unitarian Greek church, which recognises the Pope's authority but worships in the Byzantine rite.
He was incarcerated for 15 years under the Communists.
The other martyr beatified today was sister Zdenka Cecilia Schelingova, a nun, who was jailed for helping a priest escape from prison.
"Both shine before US as radiant examples of faithfulness in times of harsh and ruthless religious persecution," the Pope said. "Both faced up to an unjust trial and an ignoble condemnation, to torture, humiliation, solitude and death."
Hopko, born in 1904 into a poor peasant family in eastern Slovakia, was only one year old when his father was killed by lightning.
He was made an auxiliary bishop in 1947, a year before the Communists took power.
When the church was banned in 1950, Hopko was arrested, placed in solitary confinement and maltreated.
Bureau Report