Theodore George Romzha (; ; 14 April 1911 – 31 October 1947) was a Rusyn prelate who served as Bishop of the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo from 1944 to 1947. Assassinated by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

, he was beatified as a

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', 'witness' Word stem, stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In ...

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

on 27 June 2001.

Early life

Theodore Romzha was born on 14 April 1911 in Nagybocskó, a village in Subcarpathia,

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

(today Velykyi Bychkiv,

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

), inhabited by

Rusyns Rusyns, also known as Carpatho-Rusyns, Carpatho-Russians, Ruthenians, or Rusnaks, are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group from the Carpathian Rus', Eastern Carpathians in Central Europe. They speak Rusyn language, Rusyn, an East Slavic lan ...

and

Hungarians Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are an Ethnicity, ethnic group native to Hungary (), who share a common Culture of Hungary, culture, Hungarian language, language and History of Hungary, history. They also have a notable presence in former pa ...

. In his baptism certificate, his name is recorded as Tivadar György. His father, Pavel Romzha, worked as an official of the railroad. His mother, born Maria Semack, was a full-time homemaker. Like many ambitious families in the region, the Romzhas spoke the

Hungarian language Hungarian, or Magyar (, ), is an Ugric language of the Uralic language family spoken in Hungary and parts of several neighboring countries. It is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Out ...

at home. In the presence of others, however, they switched to the

Rusyn language Rusyn ( ; ; )http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2781/1/2011BaptieMPhil-1.pdf , p. 8. is an East Slavic language spoken by Rusyns in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, and written in the Cyrillic script. The majority of speakers live in Carpathian Rut ...

. After his graduation from the Gymnasium in Chust (today Khust), and with the help of Péter Gebé, Theodore left to study for the priesthood in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. He began as a seminarian at the Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum, and later switched to the Russicum. He finished his theological studies at the Papal Gregorian University in Rome. Theodore was ordained a priest by Bishop Alexander Evreinov of the Russian Greek Catholic Church on

Christmas Day Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A liturgical feast central to Christianity, Chri ...

, 1936 in the Basilica of St Mary Major. After completing his compulsory military service in the Czechoslovak Army, he served briefly as a pastor in several Subcarpathian parishes in Berezovo and Nizhny Bystriy before being assigned as professor of philosophy at the Eparchial Seminary in Ungvár (today

Uzhhorod Uzhhorod (, ; , ; , ) is a List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality on the Uzh, Uzh River in western Ukraine, at the border with Slovakia and near the border with Hungary. The city is approximately equidistan ...

) in 1939.

Episcopate

These were difficult years for the Church in Subcarpathia as the region, having been a part of

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

since 1920, was returned to

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

in 1938 as the result of the

First Vienna Award The First Vienna Award was a treaty signed on 2 November 1938 pursuant to the Vienna Arbitration, which took place at Vienna's Belvedere Palace. The arbitration and award were direct consequences of the previous month's Munich Agreement, whic ...

, then briefly occupied by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

before the arrival of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

, eventually becoming part of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. During these turbulent times, Theodore Romzha treated nationalities and languages as equal. To all his priests he spoke in their native language, and he used his name in the form of Tódor in Hungarian texts. On 24 September 1944, with the region was under Nazi occupation, at the young age of 33, Romzha was consecrated bishop and appointed apostolic administrator of the Eparchy of Munkács (now Mukacheve) in the cathedral of Ungvár by Bishop Miklós Dudás, O.S.B.M., in co-consecration by János Scheffler, Hungarian Roman Catholic bishop of Szatmár (today Satu Mare), and István Madarász, Hungarian Roman Catholic bishop of Kassa (today

Košice Košice is the largest city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary. With a population of approximately 230,000, Košice is the second-largest cit ...

). He chose as his episcopal motto: “I love you, O Lord, my strength; you are my stronghold and my refuge!”, from Psalm 18.Barillas, Martin. "The faithful servant of Christ and the Church who was assassinated by Soviet communists", CNA, October 22, 2023
/ref> He immediately had to face the Soviet Red Army, which occupied the churches, assigned them to the

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

, and arrested priests. Bishop Romzha refused to break with the Pope in front of General Petrov. He organized a celebration of the Feast of the Assumption with the participation of more than 80,000 pilgrims but this was not tolerated by the

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

officials who now began plotting to dispose of the young bishop. On 27 October 1947, on the way home from a parish visitation, Bishop Romzha's horse-drawn carriage was purposely rammed by a Soviet military truck and pushed off the side of the road. The soldiers, who were dressed as civilians, jumped from the truck and beat the bishop and his companions. Soon after the brutal assault began, a civilian truck came upon the scene and the assailants fled. Romzha and his companions were taken to

, where they were hospitalized. Romzha was making good progress when, late on the night of 31 October, the nuns who were nursing him were suddenly dismissed and a new nurse was assigned to him by the regime. A little after midnight Moscow Time, Romzha was found dead. The nurse had poisoned Romzha with an injection of curare provided by the head of

Laboratory 12, Dr Grigory Mairanovsky.Vadim J. Birstein. ''The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science.'' Westview Press (2004); According to research in Soviet archives by Yevgenia Albats, the Bishop's murder was personally ordered by

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

.According to the KGB archives, "By order of Khrushchev,... Romzha, head of the Greek Catholic Church, who actively resisted the incorporation of the Greek Catholic Church into Russian Orthodoxy, was eliminated", from Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. ''The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia - Past, Present, and Future'', 1994; , p. 33 On 4 November 1947, a large crowd attended Romzha's funeral, despite Soviet efforts to shut down and block public transportation. He was buried in the crypt of the Holy Cross Cathedral in Uzhhorod. The Ruthenian Catholic Church was relentlessly persecuted and in 1949, it was officially suppressed. All of its properties were allocated to the

Feast day and relics

Romzha was beatified as a Martyr for the Faith by Pope John Paul II in

Lviv Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

on 27 June 2001, with 1 November assigned initially as his feast day. At the request of the Eparchy of Mukacheve, the Congregation for the Oriental Churches transferred the feast day to 31 October, effective 2009. Romzha died shortly after midnight 1 November, according to Moscow Time, the Soviet-imposed time zone throughout Ukraine from 1930 to 1990; however, according to local time, Romzha died before midnight on 31 October. In 1998, the relics of Blessed Theodore were found in a tomb in the crypt of Holy Cross Cathedral in Uzhhorod, and then transported to Budapest, Hungary for medical examination.

beatified Theodore Romzha in 2001. On 27–28 June 2003 his relics were translated and carried in solemn procession back to Uzhhorod, where they are enshrined in a side chapel at Holy Cross Cathedral. In commemoration of the event, a second feast day, the Translation of the Holy Relics of Blessed Theodore Romzha, is celebrated on 28 June.

Pavlo Sudoplatov's letter

In a letter from Pavlo Sudoplatov, General of state security, to delegates of the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he stated that, "According to the instructions of Khruschev, a member of the Politburo (Central Committee of the Communist Party) of Ukraine and the first secretary in Ukraine and approved by Khruschev, Romzha was eliminated in Mukachiv. The head of the Greek Catholic Church, he had actively opposed the uniting of Greek Catholics to Orthodoxy."

Notes

External links