At Prešov in Slovakia, Blessed Basil Hopko, auxiliary bishop of Prešov and martyr. At a time when the ruling regime was hostile to the faith of Christ and to the Church, while he ministered to the faithful of the Byzantine Rite, he was cast into prison and endured cruelties and a long and grievous illness even unto death, attaining the palm of victory.
Lifespan: 1904–1976
Beatified: 14 September 2003 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 23 July
“That All May Be One”
Basil Hopko was born on 21 April 1904 in Hrabské, in the province of Bardejov. He completed his theological studies at the Greek Catholic Theological Academy in Prešov. He received priestly ordination on 3 February 1929 in Prešov. He was subsequently appointed administrator of the parish of Pakostov. Bishop P. P. Gojdič OSBM then appointed Basil Hopko as the first pastor of a new parish in Prague.
From 15 September 1936 to 31 August 1941 he served as spiritual director at the major seminary in Prešov. In April 1940 he earned his doctorate in sacred theology. From 1 September 1941 he served as secretary to the Bishop. From 1943 he taught pastoral theology and moral theology at the Faculty of Theology in Prešov. He received episcopal ordination on 11 May 1947.
Following the tragic events of the Sobor (Synod) of Prešov on 28 April 1950, the State authorities outlawed the Greek Catholic Church. The Servant of God, Bishop Basil Hopko, was placed under house arrest; he was later interned at the monastery of Báč near Šamorín, and later still at the Franciscan monastery of Hlohovec. There he was arrested on 18 October 1950, and after more than a year of extremely brutal interrogation, he was sentenced on 24 October 1951 by the State Court, Bratislava division. The sentence imposed fifteen years’ imprisonment, a fine of 20,000 Czechoslovak crowns, the loss of civil rights for ten years, and the confiscation of all his property.
Thus began a via crucis for the Servant of God through cruel and inhuman Communist prisons and penal institutions in Bratislava, Ilava, Leopoldov, Prague, Mírov, and Valdice. He was released on account of his severely deteriorated health and good conduct on 12 May 1964 at Valdice, on a conditional basis for three years. During his imprisonment, which lasted thirteen years, six months, and twenty-four days, he endured a harsh regime marked by physical pressure, moral suffering, meagre food rations, cold, and inadequate medical care. All these factors caused irreparable damage to his health.
After his release he lived until the beginning of 1968 in the care home at Osek in northern Bohemia, where he was under house arrest and the constant surveillance of the State secret police. After the Greek Catholic Church was permitted to resume activity in June 1968, the Servant of God also served as auxiliary bishop, though he was never fully rehabilitated. He died as a consequence of his imprisonment — as was also noted in the official record of the examination of the deceased — on 23 July 1976 in Prešov. During the exhumation, toxicological analysis confirmed an excessive presence of poison in his bones: arsenic which, according to the analysis, must have been administered to him in small doses over a long period of time.
The Servant of God offered his entire self out of fidelity to Christ and the Catholic Church, and accepted all his imprisonments and sufferings — both physical and psychological — with responsibility, courage, and a strong faith. His persecutors were driven by hatred of the Catholic faith. He thus became a martyr for the faith, offering his life for Christ and for the Church, and dying ex aerumnis carceris.
He fulfilled in his ministry his episcopal motto: “That all may be one.”