: renewed his vows before Fr. W. Lewandowicz, and on August 20 he left Rome. He arrived in Shanghai on September 29 to find that none of the local monasteries would grant him as much as an overnight stay. On November 6, 1928, he came to Harbin. He found circumstances there, in every respect, in a totally deplorable state. Only seven people attended his first Liturgy. Contrary to information received by the Apostolic See, there was no prospect for large numbers of the Russian Orthodox converting to Catholicism. Father Fabian wrote to Rome: “If the entire matter hasn’t been already opened, it would be better not to open it at all.” In 1934, Fr. Abrantowicz went to Rome to give an account of his five years’ work. Pope Pius XI agreed to open a Marian religious house of the Eastern Rite in Harbin. Shortly afterwards three priests and four brothers were in residence and the novitiate was opened in 1937. In [August} 1939…He visited the Marians in Warsaw, [Poland] and also in Riga, [Latvia] Kaunas, [Lithuania]. He likewise saw his closest relatives in Nowogrodek. The outbreak WWII on September 1, 1939, found him still there. He made attempts to get back to Rome. In the beginning of October, he was in Lviv and visited the Metropolitan of Szeptycki, Archbishop Joseph Slipyj, and Bishop Nicholas Czarniecki. There he fell ill and was placed in a hospital on Fr. P. Skarga Street. He left the hospital when the eastern parts of the country abruptly fell under Soviet occupation, and on October 19, via Raba Ruska, [Poland] came to Uchnow, [Poland] in the company of another priest. They passed the night in an inn. On October 21, 1939 his traveling companion crossed the river Sulukija, while Fr. Fabian, led by two paid guides, arrived on the German side by land. The Germans detected him and made him go back and surrender to the Soviet border patrol. On October 22, he was arrested and transported to the NKVD quarters in Lviv. His traveling companion, not seeing him come, crossed back to the eastern side, and, risking his own safety, searched for him in Lviv. Then went to the German side again, convinced that Fr. Abrantowicz had been betrayed. The hearing began with Fr. Abrantowicz standing accused of crossing the border between USSR and Germany twice in one night: going first to the German side, and then coming back again. First, Fr. Abrantowicz believed that it would be easy to explain the entire incident to the investigator, especially in the light of his voluntary surrender to the Soviet border guards. But he learned his mistake quickly. However, he stated for the record that “he admits being guilty of crossing the border to the Polish, not the German, side.” On November 13 he was accused of “arriving in Poland from Japan with a special espionage assignment.” He resolutely rejected this accusation, but in the end he signed the protocol. During the December 21, 1939 interrogation he admitted to having “chosen an active fight against the Soviet regime, since, as a member of a Catholic religious congregation, he did not believe in the possibility of creating a Soviet society in Russia, or in any other country.” He signed this statement at 5 o’clock in the morning, after a night-long interrogation. The next night he admitted to supporting from March of 1918, the cause of uniting Belarus and Poland. To have made in 1919, an attempt to free the Belarussian people from the influence of the Communist-Bolshevik party; to have spoken in 1921 against Communism while accepting Polish citizenship; and to have founded a Belarussian Christian Association.” When questioned about his work in China, he first gave his authentic goals of being there. However, later he signed a statement declaring that his entire activities aimed at fighting Communism and the Soviet Union by word of mouth and in print. In January 1941, Fr. Abrantowicz was transported to Moscow, to the Butyrki prison. There, on May 22, 1941 he received an official accusation. He testified in response that: “Physical constraint (torture) used on me in Lviv makes this entire inquest invalid; but I was found guilty because I signed the depositions without reading them; I was made to speak under constraint, particularly from December 19, 1939 to the end of that year.” He stated further: “I have never been working for the Secret Services and I have not been a part of any organization.” The investigation was continuously prolonged in order to “completely clarify the accused’s activities abroad; to unravel the network of anti-Soviet agents among his Catholic acquaintances, and to expose the Vatican’s anti-Soviet actions.” On September 23, 1942, a special NKVD unit sentenced Fr. Abrantowicz to 10 years of forced labor. The judge made a special note in the sentence that the camp must be the one near Karaganda. The accused never arrived there. For reasons unknown, he remained in the Butyrki prison. He died there on January 2, 1946. On October 24, 1992, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation fully rehabilitated Fr. Abrantowicz. By the letter of February 9, 2021, the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints opened the process of the Servant of God Archmandrite Fabian and four companions. www.padrimariani.org Servant of God, Fr. Fabian Abrantowicz– Pray for us!
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