Vira
(Ukrainian: a Ukrainian walker, born 31 August 1970 in Hvardiyske, Ternopil Oblast), who competed in three consecutive Summer Olympics for her native country, commencing in 2000.
Kovalyk
Kovalyk (Ukrainian: often written Zenon or Zenobius) was a Greek Catholic priest and martyr from Ukraine.
Family background
Kovalyk was born in Ivachiv Dolishniy, near Ternopil in Galicia (western Ukraine). His family were peasant labourers, and like many of them, they were devoted Christians. Perhaps because of the dedication of his family, Zynoviy formed a desire to the Catholic priesthood while still young. He was known to have a beautiful singing voice, a pleasant temperament, and to be a strong character person.
Ministry as a Redemptorist
He entered the novitiate of the Redemptorists (Congregation of the Holy Redeemer) when he was 25 years old, making him older than usual novices of that age; he made his first religious profession on 26 August 1926.
After he studied philosophy and theology in Belgium. He returned to Ukraine and was ordained a priest on August 9, 1932, on September 4, 1932, in his town of Ivachiv.
Kovalyk then travelled to Volhynia with Bishop Nicholas Charnetsky (who was also to become a martyr) to work among Orthodox Church Ukrainians to promote ecumenism. Kovalyk was a great singer and preacher.
It's told he had a golden mouth, and his preaching gathered hundreds of people, leading them to greater devotion to Jesus and Mary. After several years, he proceeded to Stanislaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk) to take up the office of provincial bursar, while also being extremely involved in the traditional Redemptorist practise of conducting missions around the region.
Immediately before the 1939 Soviet invasion, he travelled to Lviv's Redemptorist monastery and gained bursar status. Because of the Communist presence, many clergy emphasised on spiritual things when giving homily and avoiding topics of freedom and justice.
As a preacher, Kovalyk displayed no reluctance to publicly criticise the ideology and atheistic habits then established by the Soviets and to preach subjects impacting people's daily lives. Although his friends advised him that the Communist authorities were suspicious of him and that he should be less vociferous, he said,
"If it is the will of God, I am ready to die, but I cannot be quiet in the face of such injustice." [5] On Mother of God's Dormition Feast, August 15, 1940, he offered a homily that allegedly drew some ten thousand devout.
Arrest and death
On 20 December 1940, the Soviet secret police abducted Kovalyk from his monastery because of his sermon on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (8 December). He was accused of spying. He was interrogated and tortured for the six months of his confinement at Brygidki Prison, like many others.
He continued his ministry in jail, praying with other convicts, hearing confessions, offering spiritual exercises, conducting catechism classes, and soothing them with Bible religious tales and anecdotes. [6]
On June 22, 1941, German troops began their onslaught against the Soviet Union and Lviv's city fell seven days later. As the German army neared, Soviet guards killed 7,000 inmates before escape.
Witnesses allege he was crucified on a jail corridor wall, pulled his stomach open, and inserted a dead human foetus instead of just shooting Kovalyk. Official Soviet statements suggest Kovalyk was shot, not crucified.
On 24 April 2001, like numerous other Redemptorists, the Holy See recognised Kovalyk as a martyr. Pope John Paul II beatified him on June 27, 2001 during his pastoral tour to Ukraine. June 27 is Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Redemptorists' patron saint.
Legacy
Yaroslav Levytskyi's memoirs recalls Kovalyk's sermons and the peril they aroused. '[His] sermons impressed his audience incredibly. But this was highly dangerous in a preacher's prevalent system of denunciations and intimidation.
So I regularly attempted to tell Father Kovalyk... that he needed to be more careful about the content of his sermons, not to provoke the Bolsheviks, since there was a matter of his personal safety. But all was in vain. Fathey Kovalyk had only one answer:
"If that is God's will, I will joyfully embrace death, but I will never act against my conscience as a pastor.
Oleksandr
(Real name Oleksandr Kandyba) (Ukrainian) (1878–1944), a notable Ukrainian writer and poet. He is the father of another Ukrainian poet and activist, Oleh Olzhych, who died in the 1944 Nazi labour camps.
Life
Born in 1878 in Khutir (small village) Kandyba (now Kandybyne village, Bilopillia raion, Sumy Oblast), Kharkiv province. He studied at Kharkiv Farm School, afterwards at Kharkiv Veterinary Institute.
He's one of Kandyba's Ukrainian Cossack family representatives.
He married Svadkovska in 1907. They have a son, a famous Ukrainian poet Oleh Olzhych.
Collections
Among his poetic collections are "Z zhurboyu radist obnymalas" — With Sadness a Joy was Embracing, "Komu povim pechal moyu" — To whom I will tell about My Woes, and others (nine poetry books altogether). Oleksandr Oles also composed dramatic works
Death
Oles died in Prague's 1944 emigration. He was buried there until early January 2016, when his remains and his wife were excavated and replaced by Volodymyr Mykhailyshyn's body, the guy who paid for the family cemetery.
On 29 January 2017, Oles and his wife Vera were reburied in Kiev Lukyanivske Cemetery, financed by the Ukrainian government.
Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko and his wife Maryna Poroshenko attended this function.
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