Josaphat Kotsylovsky

Blessed Josaphat Joseph Kotsylovsky () was a Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishop and martyr.
Kotsylovsky was born 3 March 1876 in the village of Pakoszowka (then Austria-Hungary, now Poland), of the Lemko Region.Biographies of twenty five Greek-Catholic Servants of God at the website of the Vatican Kotsylovsky was of Lemko origin, and Ukrainian national orientation.Paul R. Magocsi, Ivan Ivanovich Pop. Encyclopedia of Rusyn history and culture. University of Toronto Press, 2002. p 252 He studied theology in Rome and graduated in 1907, later that year on 9 October he was ordained to the priesthood.'Beatification of the Servants of God on June 27, 2001 at the website of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Soon after, he was made vice-rector and professor of theology at the Greek-Catholic seminary in Stanislaviv.
On 2 October 1911 he entered the Order of Saint Basil the Great. On September 23, 1917, Kotsylovsky was ordained bishop in Peremyshl. As bishop, he worked to improve the church's educational system and supported monastic orders. He also took steps to combat the rising Russophile movement by appointing Ukrainian priests and funding Ukrainian language journals.
At the end of World War II, Communist Poland assisted the Soviet Union with the liquidation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. In September 1945 the Communist regime in Poland arrested Kotsylovsky, then released him and arrested him again in 1946. Alan Butler, Paul Burns. Butler's lives of the saints. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005. p78 They then handed him over to the Soviet Union. He died on 17 November 1947 in a prison camp near Kyiv.
He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on June 27, 2001.Basilian Martyrs and Confessors. St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church, Winnipeg Canada. 
== References ==
Category:1876 births
Category:1947 deaths
Category:Ukrainian Greek Catholics
Category:Beatified people
Category:Eastern Catholic victims of Soviet repressions
Category:20th-century Roman Catholic martyrs
pl:Jozafat Kocyłowski
uk:Коциловський Йосафат Йосиф