Bishop Sipovich new file

30 Orthodox. It would be interesting to know what impression on him was made by the Marian Fathers who were so keen to "convert" Orthodox Russians, but could not spare one Belarusian priest to help Belarusian Catholics. The question of pastoral care for Belarusian Catholic community in Warsaw was resolved by the arrival towards the end of January or beginning of February of the well known Belarusian priest and writer, Peter Tatarynovich who had escaped from Belarus to avoid arrest and possible death at the hands of the German authorities. He organised the parish and from September 1942 was appointed teacher of religion at the Belarusian school. But that was no thanks to the Marian Fathers. The arrival of Father Tatarynovich in Warsaw was reported in a letter to Buchys by the Superior of the Polish province, Fr J. Sobczyk (the one who refused to help Belarusians). Sipovich makes a note of this letter in his Chronicle under the date of 21 March 1942. In the same letter Sobczyk wrote about the three Belarusian Marian Fathers, in particular about Father Dashuta who could not wait to go back to Druia. However the superior (i.e. Sobczyk) refused permission on the grounds that there were already some Polish priests working in Druia, and Dashuta was needed in Poland. On 22 April Sipovich received a letter, dated 10 April, from Warsaw from one of the exiled priests, Father Vitalis Khamionak, in which he wrote: "If it were possible to obtain permission to return from the exile to Druia, we all would fly there like birds. However we must subordinate our wishes to the will of God and of our superiors". In fact there were Marian Fathers in Druia at that time. One of them was Father Anthony Leszczewicz (1890-1943), a Pole who had spent most of his priestly life in the Far East, in particular in Harbin. In 1938 he returned to Poland and entered the Marian noviciate in Skurzec. In 1939, just a week before the beginning of the Second World War, he came to Druia. The other was George Kashyra (1904-1943), one of the Belarusian Fathers who were expelled from Druia by the Poles in 1938. After the outbreak of the war he made his way to Lithuania where he remained for nearly three years. In 1942 he returned to Druia. On respectively 17 and 18 February 1943 in the village of Rosica north of Druia, both those priests, together with their parishioners, whom they refused to abandon, were burned alive by the Germans. The news of their tragic and heroic death reached Rome on 10 May and was confirmed on 10 June 1943. In 1999 Pope John Paul II beatified both Fathers Leszczewicz and Kashyra. The Warsaw incident was not the only involvement of the Marians with Belarusian affairs at that time. On 12 January 1942 Buchys wrote a paper entitled "De missione orientali inter alborussos" (On the Oriental Mission among Belarusians). This he did at the request of the Oriental Congregation, most probably in connection with the establishement in the autumn of 1939 by Metroplitan Andrew Sheptycky of four Oriental Exarchates which Rome, after much hesitation and initial refusal, was forced reluctantly to recognise. One of the Exarchates was that of Belarus, with at its head Father Anthony Niemantsevich, a Belarusian Jesuit priest of the Byzantine rite who was arrested by Germans in July 1942 and died in prison during the smallpox epidemics. The greater part of Buchyss paper consists of general superficial information, taken mainly from articles in the Belarusian paper Krynica which appeared in Vilna after the outbreak of the war from autumn 1939 to July 1940, Belarusian calendars for 1938 and 1939, and similar sources. Here are his more important conclusions: "Belarus is part of Russia proper... today there is no better bridge between Catholicism and Russia than Belarus... Once converted, Belarus will be capable of supplying a sufficient number of able workers to bring about the conversion of the whole of Russia... The time is not convenient now to talk in detail