Blessed Zynoviy Kovalyk

Zynoviy Kovalyk (Ukrainian: Зиновій Ковалик – sometimes spelled Zenon or Zenobius; 18 August 1903 – 1941) was a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Redemptorist priest and martyr. Zynoviy Kovalyk was born in the village of Ivachiv Horishnii, near Ternopil in Austrian Galicia (modern-day western Ukraine). His family were peasant workers and were devout Christians. He was known to have a good singing voice, a joyful temperament, and to be a person of strong character. Zynoviy developed a vocation to the Catholic priesthood while he was still young. After teaching in a primary school for a short period, he entered the novitiate of the Redemptorists (Congregation of the Holy Redeemer). He was 25 years old, older than most novices of that period. He made his first religious profession on 26 August 1926. After the novitiate, he studied philosophy and theology in Belgium. He returned to Ukraine and was ordained a priest on 9 August 1932, celebrating his first Liturgy in his village of Ivachiv on 4 September 1932. Kovalyk then travelled with Bishop Nicholas Charnetsky (who was also to become a martyr) to Volhynia to work amongst the Ukrainians of the Eastern Orthodox Church in order to promote ecumenism. Kovalyk was a good singer and a preacher. It is said he had a golden voice, and that his preaching drew thousands of people and led them to a greater devotion to Jesus and Mary. After several years he went to Stanislaviv (today Ivano-Frankivsk) to take up the post of provincial bursar, while being also very engaged in the traditional Redemptorist practice of conducting missions throughout the area. Immediately before the Soviet invasion of 1939 he traveled to the Redemptorist monastery in Lviv and assumed the position of bursar. Due to the Communist presence many clergy concentrated on spiritual matters when they gave a homily and avoided issues of freedom and justice.