The Marian Martyrs of Rosica

120 The Marian Martyrs of Rosica “Well, Henry,” said Fr. Czeczott. “We will have to do a lot of work to prepare the church for Christmas. First of all, we have to clear out the choir loft. Tomorrow people will come to help with the work, and then we can look for the holy vessels that are walled in somewhere in the sacristy.” Father Czeczott was an active, energetic young man. He looked into many matters. A few days after our arrival, we moved from a small house where we had been staying up until then into a spacious building that was the former Bolshevik school. There were stoves in the rooms, so it was not going to be cold. Father Laszewski left Rosica and went to Zaszczyryn where Fr. Leszczewicz had organized a large chapel in Zastawa. Zaszczyryn is close to the former Latvian border. It is from there that there is access to Zamosze. In the old days, there was a parish there, but the pretty brick church was blown up by the Bolsheviks. Only remnants of the walls remained, giving painful testimony to so-called Soviet “freedoms.” Thus, there is a chapel in Zastawa. Father Leszczewicz often used to go to Oswieja on Sundays. He celebrated Holy Mass there in a beautiful oval palace salon, apparently once belonging to the Lopacinski family. The peo- ple hungering for God, for freedom of prayer, for the Holy Sacraments, for the bloodless Sacrifice, eagerly came to church. The Sisters helped us to teach religion. Most of the 20- year-olds had already had their first Holy Communion. The children still had not. They were taught in the villages. They congregated in one of the houses to learn about God. But quite a few of the younger people also came to partake of the Holy Sacraments because as late as 1937, there was a Catholic priest here, Fr. Wojciechowicz. The former pastor, Fr. Kapusta, who had been taken away a few years earlier, had disappeared with- out a trace. Father Wojciechowicz, who had expected to be arrested, locked himself up in the church at night and hid the holy vessels behind the brickwork. Nobody knew exactly where they were. Carpets and some church robes and church linen were slowly