U.S. bishop joins Slovaks honoring blessed bishop tortured by communists
Hundreds of Greek Catholic faithful gathered in Hrabské, Slovakia, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Blessed Vasiľ Hopko's death. The celebration included a hierarchical Divine Liturgy presided over by Metropolitan Archbishop Jonáš Maxim, with Bishop Kurt Burnette of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic co-consecrating. The event highlighted Hopko's imprisonment and torture under the communist regime, and his death on July 23, 1976. Bishop Burnette, serving as apostolic administrator of the Exarchate of Sts. Cyril and Methodius of Toronto for Slovaks, was on a pastoral visit to Europe.
5 months ago
Greek Catholic faithful gathered in Hrabské, Slovakia, on May 10 2026 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Blessed Vasiľ Hopko’s death. The celebration was led by Metropolitan Archbishop Jonáš Maxim and co‑celebrated by Bishop Kurt Burnette of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic, who was on a pastoral visit to Europe 1.
The hierarchical Divine Liturgy took place in Hopko’s birthplace and was attended by more than 30 concelebrating priests, religious sisters, and laypeople from the region. A separate liturgy was offered by Bishop Milan Lach in Brezno on the same day 1.
All participants joined the celebration of Hopko’s legacy 1.
Vasiľ Hopko was born on April 21 1904 in Hrabské, then part of Czechoslovakia. He was consecrated bishop of the Eparchy of Prešov on May 11 1947. After the 1950 “Sobor of Prešov,” the communist regime dissolved the Greek Catholic Church and transferred its property to the Russian Orthodox Church. Hopko was arrested on April 28 1950, imprisoned, starved, and tortured. He was released in 1964, remained in poor health, and resumed ministry after the 1968 Prague Spring restored the Church. Hopko died on July 23 1976; he was beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 14 2003 1.
Archbishop Maxim quoted Father Atanáz Pekár, emphasizing Hopko’s humility, lack of desire for personal glory, and forgiveness of his persecutors. He cited Hopko’s 1968 letter to the Czechoslovak government, which demanded the restoration of the Greek Catholic Church’s rights rather than personal justice 1.
Bishop Burnette warned that, in an era without state‑imposed religious restrictions, the pursuit of power and money can undermine true freedom 1.
The liturgy was transmitted live by the Slovak public broadcaster STVR 1.*
Assess Catholic martyrdom under communism in Eastern Europe
Catholic martyrdom under Communist regimes in Eastern Europe is best assessed as a real participation in Christ’s “martyria unto death”—not merely as political suffering, but as persecution in which hatred for the faith (or for ecclesial fidelity) violates human dignity and culminates in the sacrifice of life. The Church’s own teaching and memorial practice—especially in the witness highlighted by St. John Paul II and in official Vatican documentation—shows both the spiritual meaning and the historical concreteness of these martyrdoms.
John Paul II places Eastern Christian martyrdom within the Church’s broader religious memory: “In the new-found freedom we cannot forget the persecution and martyrdom… both Catholic and Orthodox… [which] needs to be studied in the light of the Word of God.”
Two points are central to the Catholic assessment presented in his writings:
In the later message to scholars and institutions, John Paul II extends this to the twentieth century: Christians who “persevered in their loyalty to the Gospel in situations of hostility and persecution, often to the supreme sacrifice of shedding their blood” are “a luminous beacon for the Church and for humanity.”
Thus, Catholic martyrdom under Communism is not treated primarily as an episode in political history; it is assessed as a theological event—the Gospel becoming visible through fidelity when coercion attempts to destroy that fidelity.
Catholic sources in this set repeatedly describe Communist systems as persecuting the Church’s life: clergy imprisoned, the faithful expelled or pressured, worship driven underground.
For example, the Catechism of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church states that under Communist authorities:
The same text calls this a “heroic period of martyrdom” lasting from 1946 to 1989, and it explicitly frames the experience as persecution that reached the point of imprisonment and exile among the faithful, including high Church leaders.
John Paul II also ties Communist totalitarianism to particularly intense trials faced by Eastern Catholics: in speaking of the Greek-Catholic Church of Romania, he writes that in the “age of communist totalitarianism” the Church suffered “a very harsh trial,” earning for herself the title “Church of confessors and martyrs.”
So, in a Catholic assessment, Communist hostility is not merely “social conflict.” It is interpreted as a power struggle against what the Church calls fidelity to unity, truth, and love, and—when persecution escalates—against the concrete ability to profess the Gospel and remain united to the Successor of Peter.
A key reason Catholic martyrdom under Communism can be assessed with theological clarity is that official Vatican-style documentation (Acta Apostolicae Sedis) describes deaths and trials in very specific terms: arrest, imprisonment, and refusal to compromise Catholic (or Greek-Catholic) communion and faith.
One striking example (from a 2020 dossier) describes a Greek-Catholic bishop whose sufferings included interrogation and the attempt to forge a false “political” basis for charges; it then notes that his written declarations showed he accepted no compromise and remained firmly Catholic in faith.
Another portion of the same dossier describes an explicitly religious-spiritual refusal: a servant of God was pressured “until the last days” to abandon communion with Peter’s Successor and Catholic faith; he refused completely, and died in that state of fidelity.
A third example describes a long chain of confinement and sentence: the servant of God was repeatedly imprisoned and sentenced to “aspre sempiternis vinculis” (harsh, lifelong bonds) on fabricated political accusations, then transferred among prisons until death after “fifteen years” in camps, prisons, and custody—explicitly because of fidelity.
These texts support a Catholic assessment that martyrdom under Communism often had an identifiable pattern:
At the level of general Catholic teaching about consecrated life, John Paul II states that in the twentieth century many consecrated persons were “forced into the catacombs by the persecution of totalitarian regimes,” harassed, and lived “prolonged and heroic suffering,” “often with the shedding of their blood,” and that the Church “has already officially recognized” some of them as martyrs.
Catholic assessment here also involves how the Church remembers.
John Paul II insists that martyrdom remembrance “cannot be erased from the memory of the Church or of humanity,” explicitly including victims “of the ideologies of the East or of the West,” brought together by violence that violates the human person’s dignity created in God’s image.
He also emphasizes ecclesial breadth: the Churches of that region included both Catholic and Orthodox communities, and he treats their shared historical suffering as part of Europe’s heritage that must be studied in the light of Scripture.
In the message to participants in 2003, he likewise invites contemplation and imitation of witnesses “in the last century in the East and in the West,” who persevered under hostility and persecution, “often to the supreme sacrifice of shedding their blood.”
The thrust of this is ecclesial: martyrdom is not only a private heroism; it becomes part of the Church’s shared memory and hope, aimed at building communion and keeping the Gospel luminous “in the darkness.”
John Paul II’s homily in Bydgoszcz explicitly connects Communist totalitarianism with martyrdom in a way that is both historical and ecclesial.
He says: “And how many martyrs there were during the time of the Second World War and under Communist totalitarianism! They suffered and gave their lives in the death camps… of the Soviets.”
He then refers to his upcoming beatification of 108 martyrs who “gave their lives for the faith in the concentration camps,” emphasizing the need “to remember all these victims and to grant them the honour which is their due.”
This matters for “assessment” because it shows how Catholic martyrdom under Communism is not left as vague remembrance; it receives ecclesial recognition (beatification, canonization processes) based on the Church’s discernment of faithfulness “in spite of sufferings… by their cruelty.”
He also interprets the moral meaning of this history: persecution becomes “an authentic martyrdom of faith,” because it called for “faith to be professed before men,” and it provides a model for how the world needs courage to love without retreat before sacrifice.
One source included here notes terminology used especially in Eastern Orthodox contexts: the category “New Martyrs” is “peculiar to the Eastern Orthodox Church,” while the Roman Catholic Church “has not used this title,” even though it is sometimes used unofficially by Roman and Uniate Catholics for those killed under Communist regimes.
That same reference also warns of an interpretive risk: in Eastern Orthodox accounts, some victims were killed for political rather than religious