Blessed Omelyan Kovch

 Hello again. Today for our Saint post, we feature the letter 'O' and Blessed Omelyan Kovch. Omelyan was born in Western Ukraine in 1884. His family was full of priests - his father was a priest and his mother was the daughter of a priest. Eventually two of his sons would become priests as well as a grandson. (The family was Ukranian Greek-Catholic - an Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church in which married priests are common)

In 1910, Omelyan married Maria-Anna Dobrianska and the following year he was ordained to the priesthood in the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. At the time of his childhood, seminary studies and ordination, western Ukrainian Galician lands were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Over a period of thirty years, Omelyan was a spiritual Father to his flock under Austrian, Ukrainian, Polish, Soviet and Nazi rule. 

In 1919, he was a field chaplain for the Ukrainian Galician army. He then served as a parish priest from 1921 to 1943. The pastor's rectory was known to be a special place. Fr. Omelyan and Maria-Anna had six children of their own, but they still found room in their hearts and their home for orphans and children abandoned due to extreme poverty. Fr. Omelyan was an ardent supporter of his Jewish neighbors and exhorted his parishioners not to give in to the anti-sematic propaganda when the German advance sent occupying Soviets into retreat from the region. When the Nazis firebombed a local synagogue,  Fr. Omelyan rushed to the synagogue and pulled the terrified Jewish congregants from the flames. 

When the Nazis began deporting the Jewish population to death camps, many from that community pleaded with the Priest to baptize them in the hope that this would increase their chance for survival. Although he initially had misgivings about administering the sacrament under these circumstances, in the end he could not refuse the insistent request of his neighbors. Fr. Omelyan began catechesis classes and conducted mass baptisms of hundreds of Jews. Unfortunately, most of the newly baptized still suffered the same fate as other Jews in the death camps.

On December 30, 1942, Fr. Omelyan was arrested due to his systematic protection of the Jews. The Germans sent him to Majdanek concentration camp near Lublin, Poland. In a letter written from the camp, he wrote:

“I understand that you are making efforts for my liberation. But I ask you to do nothing. Yesterday they killed 50 people. If I am not here who will help them endure these sufferings? They would go into eternity with all of their sins and in deep despair, which leads to hell. Now they go to their deaths with upraised heads leaving their sins behind. And thus they cross the bridge to eternity.

Fr. Omelyan died in the camp infirmary on March 25, 1944, three months before the camp was liberated. For more information on this remarkable man, check out this website:

https://risu.ua/en/besides-heaven-this-is-the-only-place-where-i-would-want-to-be-the-witness-of-the-greek-catholic-priest-martyr-of-majdanek-blessed-omelian-kovch_n56552