Father Christopher Zugger

Our martyr Bishop Theodore was not shot by a firing squad on October 31, 1947, nor was he killed after giving a brave defense before a hostile tribunal. He had survived an assault on October 27 so violent that the survivor who I interviewed years later said that he never saw so much blood in his entire life. But Romzha survived that attack, and he survived surgery in the Mukachevo city hospital. Because he survived, he had to be killed. Neither the Soviet Union’s dictator Josef Stalin nor Nikita Khrushchev, the communist head of Soviet Ukraine, wanted the last Greek Catholic bishop in the entire Soviet Union to live. So it was that after three years of harassment and intimidation by the secret police, repeated interrogations that were so harsh that he would come out of the room soaked in sweat, and numerous false reports abroad that he was dead, that the youngest known bishop in the Catholic world was murdered in his hospital bed by a secret agent who poisoned him.

Why kill Blessed Theodore in 1947? He could have been arrested and deported into the labor camps of the gulag. That is what had been done to the bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in 1945 – those who survived interrogation and prison were sent off to the harsh conditions of those camps, where nearly all of them died far from the eyes of the world. But Romzha could not be publicly martyred, as was his secret successor Blessed Petro Oros in 1953, or dispatched to permanent exile as was his other successor, Venerable Alexander Chira who died in 1983. The dictators were afraid of Romzha. They were afraid of his popularity with both Catholics and Orthodox. They were afraid of his sermons, given in every village throughout the Carpathian Mountains that he could reach by train, bus, carriage or on foot. They were afraid of his commitment to Christ, that commitment that we renew at every public baptism. Above all, I think, they were afraid of his motto: To die for Christ is to live forever. Communist atheism does not believe that there is any life after this one. The only post-death existence of a person in communist atheism is that of history and the glories of the revolution. But they could not tolerate the continued existence of a bishop who did not waver, a bishop who did not fear death, a bishop who could actually weaken the power of Russian Orthodox, the client church of the Soviet state, by his reasoned and charitable approach to the work of reconciliation between Catholic and Orthodox. They could not accept a bishop who spoke the truth about God and His care for humanity, a bishop who promoted the message of Fatima and who had consecrated the eparchy of Mukachevo to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He had to die.

Halloween has taken on an ugly characteristic lately. It is presented as a neutral holiday, one with no Christian or Jewish qualities, a holiday that everyone can celebrate. The amount of money spent now on Halloween decorations and costumes is about equal to what Americans spend on Christmas, which is a bad sign. It is not rooted in paganism or demons, it was of course an opportunity for Christians to dress up on the evening of All Saints Day in Roman Catholic countries, and for Catholics to commit to pray for the souls of their benefactors’ deceased relatives when people received soul-cakes as a treat. But look at what has happened to the fun holiday of my childhood when we dressed up as princesses and soldiers and cowboys and pirates or cartoon characters. The fronts of far too many houses are covered in skeletons and cobwebs and witches and devils and tombstones. Death is emphasized, instead of the saints and their promise of eternal life, and Death is presented as something fearful, not as a graduation into eternity with God. Every year there are big debates about whether or not Christians can even observe Halloween.

Romzha was murdered in his bed by that agent late on Halloween night, a night that has become so synonymous now in western countries with death or ugliness or even evil. It is rather appropriate, really, that one of the most wicked regimes that has ever existed in human history ordered the murder of a holy young bishop who spoke truth and opposed atheism and communism alike should do so on what has become as night that is now associated with bad things. Young Romzha was only thirty-six years old, but in his three years as a bishop he had disturbed one of the most powerful men in the world, Josef Stalin, and he had defied all attempts to get him to break the union with the holy see of Rome. He himself said that it was only through the protection of the Mother of God that he was able to resist in some of those frightening interrogations. I encourage you to read the book by Father Puskas, Theodore Romzha: His Life, Times, and Martyrdom in order to get to know Blessed Theodore better. I first encountered Blessed Theodore 57 years ago in a book by Donald Attwater Martyrs of the Church, and the photograph of that young man has been in my mind ever since as he looked off into the distance, like a biblical prophet, as if he foresaw what was coming his way.

We live in such a challenging time, where political leaders who should be presenting their hopes for the future of the country are instead throwing mud at one another with television ads or in their speeches. Our country is politically divided almost 50-50, and terrible wars have erupted in Africa, the Middle East, and poor suffering Ukraine. God and His Church are routinely mocked, and 30% of Americans now claim to be spiritual but not religious, as Christianity declines. Romzha faced tremendous obstacles of hatred, atheism, lies, slander, and the murders of his priests – but through it all he remained faithful, in love with God, and committed to being a Catholic. He put his trust in the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her rosary, and in the end, his vision of life won out over that of communism. In the end, our vision of life will win out, but it is up to us to be strong, faithful Catholics, rooted in the sacraments, Marian devotion, with a living faith in Jesus Christ to go forward and proclaim the gospel once again to the world.