Blessed Klymentiy Sheptytsky

Klymentiy Sheptytsky (Polish: Klemens Szeptycki, Ukrainian: Климентій Шептицький; 17 November 1869 – 1 May 1951) also known as Klymentiy of Univ (Ukrainian: Климентій Унівський) was the archimandrite of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Order of Studite Monks and a hieromartyr. He was also the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarch of Great Russia and Siberia. Klymentiy has been beatified by the Catholic Church, as well as awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel for saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust in Ukraine. Sheptytsky was arrested and died a political prisoner of the Soviet Union in the Vladimir Central Prison. Sheptytsky was born as Kazimierz Maria Szeptycki on 17 November 1869 in the village of Prylbychi, Yavorich Region, near Lviv in Galicia to an old Polish-Ruthenian noble family. The Szeptycki family lived in the eastern part of Poland, near Zamość, in Labunie's Palace. At that time, the area was of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was a younger brother of the future Venerable, Metropolitan Bishop Andrey Sheptytsky, and received his education first at home and starting in 1882 at Kraków. Sheptytsky later also studied in Munich and Paris. In 1892 he became a doctor of law at the Jagiellonian University. After finishing his studies, he returned home to manage the family estates and look after his aging parents. In 1900 Casimir Sheptytsky was elected to the Austrian parliament, and a member of the National Council, however after its dissolution in 1907 he decided to withdraw from politics. In 1911 Sheptytsky decided to become a monk and entered the Benedictine (Latin Rite) Beuron Archabbey (Baden-Württemberg), Germany. After a year he decided to follow the example of his older brother, returning to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church of their ancestors and entered the Studite Monastery at Kamenica, near Čelinac, Bosnia-Herzegovina.