Blessed Nicholas Charnetsky

Nicholas Charnetsky, Mykolai Charnetskyi or Mykolay Charnetsky (Ukrainian: Миколай Чарнецький; December 14, 1884 – April 2, 1959) also known as Nicholas of Volyn ((Ukrainian: Миколай Волинський) was a member of the Redemptorists (Congregation of the Holy Redeemer), a religious congregation in the Byzantine Rite of the Catholic Church; he is considered a martyr by the church. Mykolai Charnetskyi was born in the village of Semakivtsia, a hamlet in Kolomyia Raion in western Ukraine, on 14 December 1884. He came from a large family and was the eldest of nine children. Alexander and Parasceva Charnetsky and their children were devout members of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church which is in communion with the Bishop of Rome and is distinct from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. From a young age, Charnetsky had expressed a desire to become a priest and when he was 18 years of age, the Ukrainian Catholic Bishop Hryhory Khomyshyn (who was himself to be martyred) sent him to study at the Ukrainian College in Rome. In Rome he was known for his love of the Eastern Fathers and tradition. After his ordination to the Catholic priesthood in 1909, Charnetsky returned from Ukraine to Rome so that he might complete a Doctorate in Theology, which he did the following year. Upon completion of his doctorate, Charnetsky returned to his homeland in order to teach dogmatic theology and philosophy at the Ukrainian Catholic seminary in Ivano-Frankivsk (then called Stanislaviv) where he remained for the next nine years, also serving as spiritual director to any student who wished. For some time, Charnetsky had desired to live a more austere life than that of a seminary professor. In 1913 the Belgian province of the Redemptorists had established a mission in Ukraine and this included a novitiate near Lviv for those interested in joining the congregation. Like Ivan Ziatyk who was to follow him some years later, Charnetsky entered the novitiate in 1919.