The Marian Martyrs of Rosica

CHAPTER THREE BIOGRAPHY OF BLESSED GEORGE KASZYRA (1904-1943) George Kaszyra was born on April 4, 1904, in the village of Aleksandrovo on the Zablocie estate. His parents, Taddeus and Maria, belonged to the Orthodox Church. He was baptized on the same day in the Orthodox Church in the village of Czeressy. His parents were farmers. In 1907 George’s mother converted to Catholicism. She probably came from a family of Uniates, forcibly impressed by Czarist authorities into Orthodoxy. After the Ukase of Tolerance was promulgated by Czar Nicolas II in 1905, she could return to Catholicism, as many did at that time. HIS CONVERSION AND VOCATION At the age of 18, George converted to Catholicism. Ac- cording to a document, he was accepted “into the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church on October 22, 1922” by Fr. Francis Hladki of the Congregation of St. Vincent de Paul in Vilnius, in the parish church in Miory where Fr. Hladki was probably preaching to the parishioners as a missionary. According to one account, Fr. Witalis Chamionek, who had just come to Druja to become a vicar following his ordi- nation, met the abandoned adolescent farmhand by chance and took him under his care. Father Chamionek, who used to be a farmhand, probably did this because he had pursued priesthood himself due to the personal interest of the local pastor and the mistress of an estate. Probably by meeting Fr. Chamionek, George became inspired to join the Marians in their monastery that had been established in Druja in 1923. In the fall of that year, George procured copies of his certifi- cates of baptism and of conversion to Catholicism and,