St. Josaphat Kuntsevych
Martyr with Beads in Hand
Josaphat's journey to the episcopacy was marked by intensive prayer and penance, practices that he never abandoned even after his consecration as Archbishop of Polotsk. The Rosary accompanied him through his days of pastoral visitation, through his nights of prayer, through his efforts at reform and reconciliation. He understood that each mystery of the Rosary told a story of unity: the Annunciation, where divine and human nature prepared to be united in Christ's incarnation; the Visitation, where Mary brought Jesus to Elizabeth and John, uniting two generations in holy joy; the finding of Jesus in the Temple, where divine wisdom and human searching met. These mysteries were not abstract theological concepts for Josaphat but living realities that shaped his ministry. He preached that just as Mary bore the unity of God and man in her womb, so the Church must bear the unity of all believers in her maternal heart.
The archbishop's devotion to Our Lady was tested in the crucible of opposition and misunderstanding. Many Orthodox Christians viewed Catholic devotions like the Rosary with suspicion, seeing them as Western impositions on Eastern spirituality. Yet Josaphat demonstrated that the Rosary was simply a structured way of doing what Eastern Christians had always done, meditating on the mysteries of Jesus’ life through the intercession of His Mother. He promoted the Rosary not as a replacement for Eastern prayers to the Theotokos but as a complement, another way to honor the woman whom all generations would call blessed. His cathedral's practice of praying the Rosary in the context of Byzantine liturgy was revolutionary, showing that diverse expressions of faith could coexist in harmony under Mary's mantle.
When violence and opposition intensified against Josaphat's reforms, he turned ever more fervently to the Mother of Sorrows. He had long meditated on her standing at the foot of the Cross, watching her Son die for the unity of all people, and he understood that his own suffering for Christian unity made him a sharer in her sorrows. The Rosary became his constant companion in these dark days, and witnesses report that he was praying with his beads when assassins entered his residence on that fateful November morning in 1623. As the first blows fell, Josaphat is said to have called upon the names of Jesus and Mary, his final prayers echoing the Hail Mary’s he had prayed countless times. His blood, shed for the unity of the Church, mingled with the tears of the Mother of God, who wept for all her divided children.
Today, Wednesday, November 12th, as we commemorate St. Josaphat's martyrdom, let us take up our Rosary with renewed commitment to pray for Christian unity. His legacy reminds us that Mary's role as Mother of the Church is to draw all her children together around her Son. Each mystery we pray should become a meditation on unity, the unity of heaven and earth, of divine and human, of all believers in Christ. Through Josaphat's powerful intercession and Mary's maternal care, may our Rosary become an instrument of reconciliation, first in our own hearts and relationships, then in the wider Church and world. Let us pray that the division that cost Josaphat his life might be healed through the very devotion he cherished, and that all who call upon Mary's name might one day be truly one, as Jesus Christ and the Father are one.
©2025 James Dacey, Jr., OFS
