Freedom
The arrests of bishops and clergy were planned in March 1945. A month later, on April 11, coordinated raids took place in Lviv and Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankivsk). St. George’s Cathedral in Lviv was surrounded early in the morning. The NKVD conducted searches and arrested Bishops Slipyj, Budka, and Charnetsky, taking them to the prison on Lontskoho Street in Lviv and later transferring them to Lukyanivska prison in Kyiv. That same night, Bishops Khomyshyn and Latyshevsky were arrested in Stanislav and also transported to Kyiv.
Thus began a long period of physical deprivation, abuse, interrogation, and torture, lasting until the summer of 1946, when a tribunal was finally held. Bishop Hryhoriy Khomyshyn, 78 years old at the time of his arrest, could not survive the abuse. He died in Lukyanivska prison. His burial place remains unknown.
After the tribunal, the other bishops were sentenced and exiled to Siberia and Kazakhstan. Metropolitan Slipyj was sentenced to 8 years in Siberia, but his imprisonment ultimately lasted 18 years. Bishop Nykyta Budka also received an 8-year sentence in Karaganda, but reportedly died of a heart attack in the camp in 1949. His burial place, too, remains undetermined.
Bishop Mykola Charnetsky was sentenced to 6 years in prison but ended up being exiled to 30 different camps and prisons. He was finally released to Lviv in 1956. Bishop Ivan Latyshevsky was sentenced to 10 years in exile in Kazakhstan. He returned home to Stanislav in 1955, gravely ill.
These imprisonments were not just about restricting physical freedom—they were also an attempt to silence voices, crush identity, and suppress the conscience.
Dignity
By arresting the bishops, the Soviet regime not only took away their freedom—it sought to strip them of their dignity. The NKVD showed no regard for the bishops’ advanced age, academic credentials, or the deep respect they held among their faithful. They were treated as if they were nobodies—perhaps not even human beings. Starvation and sleep deprivation through nightly beatings were used to break them.
Compare this to the imprisonment of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky during the First World War. Even then, under the Russian Empire, the tsarist authorities respected his status and dignity as a metropolitan. In contrast, the Soviets showed no such regard. To them, these bishops were enemies of the state—without rights, without humanity, without dignity.
Memory
When the bishops in Lviv and Stanislav were arrested, their homes were also searched. Authorities were hunting for evidence to accuse them of treason or collaboration with the German occupation. In Lviv, the bishops’ archives were confiscated. After Bishop Ivan Latyshevsky’s arrest, his personal library was burned.
These acts were not random—they were targeted attempts to destroy both institutional and personal memory, and to cut off the ability of these Church leaders to pass down their stories, knowledge, and truth. During interrogations, the bishops were pressured to forget who they were, to renounce their Church, and to sever their ties to the Apostolic See. Their very memory was seen as a threat to the regime—because it held the truth.
This sad anniversary—April 11, 1945—reminds us that oppressive powers seek not only to take away freedom, but also dignity and memory. And yet, history shows that even when bishops and faithful were subjected to violence and repression, they endured. They safeguarded their freedom, preserved their dignity, and carried their memory forward.
Maria Ivaniv Lonchyna, PhD
