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Gabriel Kostelnik

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Protopresbyter Gabriel Kostelnik (1866-1948) as a Uniate priest.

The New Hieromartyr Protopresbyter Dr. Gabriel Kostelnik, also Havryil Kostelnyk, Havriil Kostelnik or Gabriel of Galicia ((Russian)

Костельник, Гавриил Фёдорович, (Serbian)
Хавријил Костељник, June 15, 1886 - September 20, 1948) was a Carpatho-Russian priest who returned to the Orthodox Church soon after the end of World War II. He was an outstanding church leader, theologian, philosopher, religious publicist, poet, playwright and prose-writer,[1] and presided over the Reunion Council in Lviv in March 1946 (Lvov Assembly / Lviv Sobor) calling for the return of all Uniates to the Orthodox Faith, before he was assassinated during the political and religious turmoil of the late 1940s. 

Life

Gabriel Kostelnik was born on June 15, 1886 in Ruski Kerestur, now Serbia, into the Uniate Church. His father Fedor and mother Anna Kakai had six children. Besides Gabriel, there were two brothers, Michael and Janko, and three sisters, Maria, Jula, and Helena. Gabriel 's father was a member of the village government from 1895 to 1919.

He attended the local primary school of his village for the first six years of his education from 1894 to 1898. His next four years in grammar school was split, two years in Vinkovci, Croatia and two years in Zagreba, Croatia. In 1906, he enrolled in the theological faculty of the University of Zagreb. After his first year, the dean of the Faculty sent him to the Lvov Theological Seminary from which he graduated in 1911. At that time he became a member of the archdiocese of Lvov and received a scholarship for postgraduate studies.

He continued these studies at Freiburg University in Switzerland, receiving in 1913 a doctorate in philosophy. In 1915, he also received a doctorate from the University of Lvov. While an excellent academic theologian and Church historian, his interests also included poetry and philosophy. He was fluent in his local language as well as Ukrainian, Croatian, German, Polish, and Latin.

In 1913, he married the daughter of the principal of the Lvov Ruska gymnasium, Eleonora Zaricka. The couple had five children: Sviatoslava, Irene, Bohdan, Zenon, and Christina.

In 1913, Gabriel was ordained a priest in the Uniate Church in Lvov. After his ordination he served in the Cathedral of the Transfiguration in Lvov as well as a professor at the Lvov academy. In the late 1920s Gabriel emerged as a critic of the Vatican's Uniate policy and the leading representative of the ‘Eastern’ (anti-Latinization) orientation among the Greek Catholic clergy.[2]

His continuing studies of the Church Fathers convinced him of the correctness of the position of the Orthodox Church. In 1930, after expressing his views in published papers, Fr. Gabriel was dismissed from his position with the academy. Not cowered by his dismissal, Fr. Gabriel continued his critique of Catholicism throughout the 1930s. He was convinced of the error of the Unia and its wrongful effect on church life. During this time he formed a body of supporters who agreed with his position.

Lvov Assembly

In the midst of the chaos at the end of World War II, Fr. Gabriel and his supporters called for a return to the Mother Orthodox Church. As the pre-war political alignments collapsed around them, Patriarch Alexei I of Moscow welcomed their desire for the return of the Uniate clergy and faithful to Orthodoxy.

On February 23, 1946, Metr. John of Kiev received Fr. Gabriel and twelve other priests from the Unia to Orthodoxy. By the end of the month two of these priests had been consecrated bishops. Over the following months additional priests and laypeople joined Fr. Gabriel's movement.

"On 8 and 9 March 1946 a Council took place in St George's Cathedral in Lvov, presided over by Fr Gabriel. The two new bishops and the other ex-Uniat clergy were also present. Other Orthodox bishops also took part, as well as 204 Uniat priests and a few laypeople. The main speaker at the Council of Lvov was Fr Gabriel. He affirmed what all Orthodox know, that the 'Union' of Brest was the greatest catastrophe ever in the spiritual and national life of western Russia. Fr Gabriel called for the return of all Uniats to the Faith of Kiev, 'the Slav Jerusalem', the Orthodox Mother-Church and for freedom from papist tyranny and heresy. The following morning all 204 Uniat clergy renounced the Latin errors. They were united with the Orthodox Church through the sacrament of confession by the newly-received ex-Uniat clergy. This was followed by the concelebration of the Divine Liturgy. A message was sent to Patriarch Alexis, which welcomed the day of spiritual freedom that had arrived, announcing the reunion of Uniats with the Orthodox Church and the Universal Faith of the First Millennium."[3]

According to Dr. Stepan Voznyak,[note 1] in a 1986 interview, "78% of Uniate clergymen who were at the time in the western oblasts of the Ukraine joined the organising body for severing relations with the Vatican, which was led by a priest, Gavriil Kostelnik, Doctor of Theology."[4][note 2]

However this religious movement came at the same time that the political atmosphere in the area changed, as the remnants of the Nazi regimes, various nationalistic groups, the Bolshevik forces, and religious differences collided with the sincerity of the people. In that environment, many of the clergy and laypeople returning to Orthodoxy became victims of fanatics, both religious and political.

Death

 
Protopresbyter Gabriel's monument and gravesite.

On September 20, 1948, after the Divine Liturgy Fr. Gabriel was attacked on the steps of the Cathedral of the Transfiguration in Lvov and killed by one, Vasily Pankiv a political terrorist, who killed himself immediately after his deadly assault. He was a member of a terrorist group, led by Roman Shukhevich, chief of the Ukrainian Rebel Army (UPA).[5][note 3] Fr. Gabriel was buried in the Lychakov cemetery in Lvov. His funeral was attended, at least according to some Soviet authors, by around 40,000 people. Church leaders decided to inform the highest Soviet administrators of "the great loss" they suffered. Among others, J.V. Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev were contacted.[6]

On September 20, 1998, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the demise of Protopresbyter Gabriel Kostelnik, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated in St. George’s church, followed by a Panikhida at the tomb of Father Gabriel at the Lychakov cemetery conducted by Archbishop Augustine of Lvov and Drogobych. Later, a historic conference was held on the theme ‘Protopresbyter Gabriel Kostelnik and His Role in the Revival of Orthodoxy in Galicia’.[1]

On September 19-20, 2008, the Lvov Diocese of the Ukraine Orthodox Church celebrated the 60th anniversary of the death of Father Gabriel.

Glorification

Fr. Gabriel has been under consideration for glorification. According to Archbishop Augustine of Lvov and Galicia, the Church has already begun to work on the appropriate documents.[5][note 4]

Holy Hieromartyr Gabriel, pray to God for us!

Works

Father Gabriel's early poetry and prose were written in his native dialect, and he is considered the creator of the Bačka literary language.[2]

  • Idyllic Sequence - From My Village, 1904.
  • Dissertation: De Principiis Cognitionis Fundamentalibus (About the Basic Principles of Cognition), Leopoli, 1913.
  • Arise Ukraine, a poem in Ukrainian, 1918.
  • Boundaries of Democracy, Lvov, 1919.
  • Song for God, a poem of fifty eight homilies, 1922.
  • Grammar of Bach-Rusyn language, 1923.
  • Jephthah's Daughter, a play, 1924.
  • Dew Drops and the Sun, contains thirty one lyrical essays, 1931.
  • Christian Apologetics, where he considers reality and correctness of Christianity; the book consists of seven chapters including: 1.Religion 2.God 3.Genesis 4.Soul 5.Epiphany 6.The Church of Christ 7.Causes of atheism.

Notes

  1. Professor of History of Philosophy and Vice-Director of Scientific Library at the PreCarpathian National University, Galicia, Ukraine.
  2. According to Dr. Voznyak:
    "The Lvov Assembly constituted the most democratic forum in the entire, let us say, history of the Greek Catholic Church. And therefore all sorts of fabrications abroad alleging that the Uniate Church was abolished, that the decision of the Lvov Assembly was against canon law, and so on, all these things do not reflect the truth. Because the Assembly was attended by representatives from every deanery of the Greek Catholic Church, including two bishops and 214 priests. There were also representatives of believers who were not clergymen. Thus the decision of the Lvov Assembly on the self-abolition of the Uniate Church was canonical, it was democratic, it was representative and expressed not just the requirements of the time but it also expressed the spiritual requirements of the entire population of the western oblasts of Ukraine." (BBC Summary of World Broadcasts. "Anti-Communist and Anti-Soviet Link Between Uniatism, Nationalism and Fascism." November 18, 1986, Tuesday.)
  3. On the other hand, according to the Encyclopedia of Ukraine:
    "He was killed under mysterious circumstances; while Soviet authorities have blamed his murder on the Vatican and Ukrainian nationalists, the evidence suggests that the assassination was masterminded by the Soviet police." (Bohdan R. Bociurkiw. Kostelnyk, Havryil. Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vol. 2 (1989).)
  4. "According to our procedure of canonization, a martyr really had to suffer for Christ or for the Church, but not to die by chance. Moreover he shouldn't be a heretic or a schismatic. As for the pious, the Reverend Fathers, there should be the sanctity of life and authority. Kostelnik is somewhere in between a martyr and a pious," the Archbishop said.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Russian Orthodox Church: Official Website of the Department for External Church Relations. 50th anniversary of the martyrdom of Protopresbyter Gabriel Kostelnik. 8.12.1998.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Bohdan R. Bociurkiw. Kostelnyk, Havryil. Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vol. 2 (1989).
  3. Orthodox England. Hieromartyr Gabriel of Galicia (1886-1948): A Carpatho-Russian Martyr for Christian Unity in Western Russia. St John's Orthodox Church, Colchester.
  4. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts. "Anti-Communist and Anti-Soviet Link Between Uniatism, Nationalism and Fascism." November 18, 1986, Tuesday.
  5. 5.0 5.1 Interfax-Religion. The initiator of elimination of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church could be canonized. 23 September 2008, 12:16.
  6. Havriil Kostelnik (1886-1948).

Sources

Russian Wikipedia: Костельник, Гавриил Фёдорович.
  • (Serbian)
Serbian Wikipedia: Хавријил Костељник.