Saint Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr

Ivan Kuntsevych was born about 1580 at Volodymyr in Volhynia and was apprenticed to a merchant in Vilnius. In 1604 he became a monk there at the Holy Trinity monastery, which belonged to the Church that had accepted union with Rome at Brest in 1596, keeping its Byzantine rite; he took the name Josaphat. In 1618 he became archbishop of Polotsk. He worked to bring the faithful of his eparchy into the union, and many resisted fiercely, especially after an Orthodox hierarchy was restored in 1620; churches were closed and the conflict grew bitter. On 12 November 1623 a crowd killed him in Vitebsk and threw his body into the river. Catholics venerate him as a martyr for church unity, while many Orthodox remember him as a persecutor. He was canonized in 1867.