Konstantin Budkevich, also known as ''Konstanty Romuald Budkiewicz''; June 19, 1867, – March 31, 1923) was a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

priest executed by the

OGPU The Joint State Political Directorate ( rus, Объединённое государственное политическое управление, p=ɐbjɪdʲɪˈnʲɵn(ː)əjə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əjə pəlʲɪˈtʲitɕɪskəjə ʊprɐˈv ...

for organizing

nonviolent resistance Nonviolent resistance, or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, construct ...

against the first Soviet anti-religious campaign. His beatification process has been opened, thus giving him the title

Servant of God Servant of God () is a title used in the Catholic Church to indicate that an individual is on the first step toward possible canonization as a saint. Terminology The expression ''Servant of God'' appears nine times in the Bible, the first five in ...

Early life

Budkevich was born June 19, 1867, to a large

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

family of ''

Szlachta The ''szlachta'' (; ; ) were the nobility, noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Depending on the definition, they were either a warrior "caste" or a social ...

'' descent in Zubry manor near the town of

Krāslava Krāslava (; , , , , ) is a town and the administrative centre of Krāslava Municipality. The town lies on the Daugava, upstream and to the east of the city of Daugavpils. Most of the town is situated on the right coast of the Daugava. As defined ...

in modern

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

. He completed his studies at the

Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy The Imperial Roman Catholic Theological Academy () was an institution of higher education preparing Roman Catholic theologians in the Russian Empire. The academy granted master's and doctorate degrees in theology and was designed to prepare clergy ...

, where he earned a doctorate in theology. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1893 and taught in

Pskov Pskov ( rus, Псков, a=Ru-Псков.oga, p=psˈkof; see also Names of Pskov in different languages, names in other languages) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in northwestern Russia and the administrative center of Pskov O ...

and, from 1896, in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

St. Petersburg

In 1903, he served the parish of St. Catherine on

Nevsky Prospect Nevsky Prospect ( rus, Не́вский проспе́кт, r=Nevsky Prospekt, p=ˈnʲɛfskʲɪj prɐˈspʲɛkt) is a main street ( high street) located in the federal city of St. Petersburg in Russia. Its name comes from the Alexander Nevs ...

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

, becoming pastor there in 1908. At the time, St. Petersburg was the center of the Empire's largest Polish community outside of

Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...

and Budkiewicz desired to prevent the children of his parish from the anti-Polish and

anti-Catholic Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics and opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and its adherents. Scholars have identified four categories of anti-Catholicism: constitutional-national, theological, popular and socio-cul ...

propaganda of the state-run school system. Therefore, despite "manifold difficulties", he maintained a

Polish language Polish (, , or simply , ) is a West Slavic languages, West Slavic language of the Lechitic languages, Lechitic subgroup, within the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, and is written in the Latin script. It is primarily spo ...

parochial school A parochial school is a private school, private Primary school, primary or secondary school affiliated with a religious organization, and whose curriculum includes general religious education in addition to secular subjects, such as science, mathem ...

attached to St. Catherine's parish. Following the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

, then Archbishop

Eduard von der Ropp Edward Ropp (; 1851–1939) was a Polish nobleman of Baltic German origins, Bishop of Vilnius and Catholic Church, Roman Catholic metropolitan archbishop of Mogilev. He was born 2 December 1851 near Līksna in present-day LatviaJānis Svilāns a ...

, decreed that all his priests would take a role in organizing a

Christian Democratic Party __NOTOC__ Christian democratic parties are political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social tea ...

to participate in the planned

Russian Constituent Assembly The All Russian Constituent Assembly () was a constituent assembly convened in Russia after the February Revolution of 1917. It met for 13 hours, from 4 p.m. to 5 a.m., , whereupon it was dissolved by the Bolshevik-led All-Russian Central Ex ...

. In this, the Archbishop was opposed by Budkiewicz and by

auxiliary bishop An auxiliary bishop is a bishop assigned to assist the diocesan bishop in meeting the pastoral and administrative needs of the diocese. Auxiliary bishops can also be titular bishops of sees that no longer exist as territorial jurisdictions. ...

Jan Cieplak Jan Cieplak (17 August 1857 – 17 February 1926) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest and archbishop. Early life Jan Cieplak was born in Dąbrowa Górnicza, Congress Poland, in 1857 to an impoverished family of the Polish nobility. He attended th ...

, who both opposed any politicization of the Catholic religion.

Red October and its aftermath

In 1918, he became vicar-general to Bishop Cieplak. According to Francis McCullagh, According to princess Martha Edith Almedingen, "Sunday after Sunday at St. Catherine's he preached his simple unsophisticated sermons, and the keynote to all of them was, 'God is love, and it is given to us to be his true children.

Cieplak trial

He was arrested March 13, 1923, in connection with the case brought against the Catholic clergy, with Archbishop Cieplak at their head. The GPU feared that Cieplak was planning to unite the Orthodox Christians that followed

Patriarch Tikhon Tikhon of Moscow (, – ), born Vasily Ivanovich Bellavin (), was a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). On 5 November 1917 ( OS) he was selected the 11th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, after a period of about 200 years of the ...

with the Catholic Church. As Patriarch Tikhon was under

house arrest House arrest (also called home confinement, or nowadays electronic monitoring) is a legal measure where a person is required to remain at their residence under supervision, typically as an alternative to imprisonment. The person is confined b ...

on false charges of "

anti-Soviet Anti-Sovietism or anti-Soviet sentiment are activities that were actually or allegedly aimed against the Soviet Union or government power within the Soviet Union. Three common uses of the term include the following: * Anti-Sovietism in inter ...

and counterrevolutionary activities", this "conspiracy" implicated Cieplak, Budkiewicz, and Byzantine-rite

exarch An exarch (; from Ancient Greek ἔξαρχος ''exarchos'') was the holder of any of various historical offices, some of them being political or military and others being ecclesiastical. In the late Roman Empire and early Byzantine Empire, ...

Leonid Feodorov Leonid Ivanovich Feodorov (; 4 November 1879 – 7 March 1935) was a Studite hieromonk from the Russian Greek Catholic Church, the first Exarch of the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Russia, and a survivor of the Gulag at Solovki pris ...

anti-Soviet agitation Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (ASA) () was a criminal offence in the Soviet Union. Initially, the term was interchangeably used with counter-revolutionary agitation. The latter term was in use immediately after the October Revolution of 1917 ...

. According to Christopher Lawrence Zugger, ''

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the '' New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. Hi ...

'' correspondent Francis McCullagh, who was present at the trial, later described its fourth day as follows: Also according to McCullagh, On

Palm Sunday Palm Sunday is the Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Its name originates from the palm bran ...

, 1923, Cieplak and Budkiewicz were sentenced to death. The other fifteen defendants were sentenced to long terms in the

gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

. In the aftermath of sentencing, all were returned to their cells in Moscow's

Butyrka prison Butyrskaya prison (), usually known simply as Butyrka ( rus, Бутырка, p=bʊˈtɨrkə), is a prison in the Tverskoy District of central Moscow, Russia. In Imperial Russia it served as the central transit prison. During the Soviet Uni ...

Martyrdom

According to Christopher Lawrence Zugger, According to the priest Francis Rutkowski, who was imprisoned with Budkiewicz,

Legacy

After the execution of Budkiewicz, his body was buried in a

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may Unidentified decedent, not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of exec ...

in the forests of the

Sokolniki District Sokolniki District () is a district of the Eastern Administrative Okrug of the federal city of Moscow located in the north-east corner of the city. Population: Etymology Sokolniki derives its name from the word "" (''sokol'', meaning "falcon") ...

. According to Christopher Zugger, News of Budkevich's execution caused turmoil in France, whose Catholic population deplored the incident and saw it as an example of the

police state A police state describes a state whose government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the exec ...

tactics of the new Soviet Union. On 7 April 1923, a

requiem mass A Requiem (Latin: ''rest'') or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead () or Mass of the dead (), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the souls of the deceased, using a particular form of the Roman Missal. It is u ...

was offered for Budkiewicz at St. Catherine's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Several foreign diplomats were in attendance. On 10 April 1923, Soviet Foreign Commissar

Georgy Chicherin Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin (or Tchitcherin; ; 24 November 1872 – 7 July 1936) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and a Soviet politician who served as the first People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the Soviet government from March 1918 ...

wrote a letter to fellow

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the highest organ of the central committee in communist parties. The term is also sometimes used to refer to similar organs in socialist and Islamist parties, such as the UK Labour Party's NEC or the Poli ...

member

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

, in which he described the political fallout from the death of Budkiewicz. In America, France, and the United Kingdom, efforts to gain diplomatic recognition for the USSR had suffered a major setback. In Westminster, Labour MPs had been flooded by petitions "demanding the defense of Cieplak and Budkiewicz", by "worker's organizations", "dying socialists", and "professionalists". In the United States, Republican Senator

William Borah William Edgar Borah (June 29, 1865 – January 19, 1940) was an outspoken Republican United States Senator, one of the best-known figures in Idaho's history. A progressive who served from 1907 until his death in 1940, Borah voted for A ...

had been about to discuss possible recognition of the USSR with U.S. Secretary of State

Charles Evans Hughes Charles Evans Hughes (April 11, 1862 – August 27, 1948) was an American politician, academic, and jurist who served as the 11th chief justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

. Due to Budkevich's execution, the meeting had been cancelled and the senator had been forced to indefinitely postpone the founding of a committee to press for diplomatic negotiations. Chicherin explained that the outside world saw the continuing anti-religious campaign "as nothing other than naked religious persecution." Chicherin expressed fear that, if Russian Orthodox Patriarch Tikhon were also sentenced to death, the news would, "worsen much further our international position in all our relations." He concluded by proposing "the rejection in advance of the death sentence on Tikhon". Budkiewicz's cause for sainthood was opened in 2003 and remains under investigation. His current title is

. At St. Catherine's Cathedral, his stole is preserved as a

relic In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains or personal effects of a saint or other person preserved for the purpose of veneration as a tangible memorial. Reli ...

. A street in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, Poland, is also named for him.

In popular culture

* In 1924, McCullagh published the full text of the Cieplak show trial within a book entitled ''The Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity'', which was swiftly translated into French, German and Spanish. * Also in 1924,

Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna (6 August 1892 – 16 February 1983) was a Polish poet, prose writer, playwright and translator. She was one of the most acclaimed and celebrated poets during Poland's interwar period. Life and work She was born o ...

, a highly important figure in

Polish poetry Polish poetry has a centuries-old history, similar to the Polish literature. Prominent Polish poets include *Marcin Bielski (1495–1575); Polish historian, chronicler, writer and Renaissance satirical poet, first to use Polish, hence his design ...

, published a book of poems in honor of Budkiewicz's life and death. Modeled after the traditional oral poetry of the Polish peasantry, the collection was titled ("The Story of the Moscow Martyr")."A New Polish Martyrology"
''

The Tablet ''The Tablet'' is a Catholic Church, Catholic international weekly review published in London. Brendan Walsh, previously literary editor and then acting editor, was appointed editor in July 2017. History ''The Tablet'' was launched in 1840 by ...

'', 12 April 1924. Page 4.

References

External links

Fr. Constantine Budkiewicz
*
Servant of God Constantine (Romuald Julianovich) Budkiewicz
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Budkevich, Konstantin 1867 births 1923 deaths 19th-century Polish Roman Catholic priests Catholics executed by the Soviet Union Executed Polish people Latvian people executed by the Soviet Union Latvian Roman Catholics People executed by the Soviet Union by firearm People from Dvinsky Uyezd People from Krāslava Municipality 19th-century Polish nobility Polish people executed by the Soviet Union Polish Servants of God Soviet show trials Executed Roman Catholic priests 20th-century Polish nobility