Charnetsky, Mykola

Charnetsky, Mykola [Чарнецький, Микола; Čarnec'kyj], b 14 December 1884 in Semakivtsi, Horodenka county, Galicia, d 2 April 1959 in Lviv. Religious leader of the Ukrainian Catholic church, from 1919 a member of the Redemptorist order, bishop. Charnetsky studied at Saint Josaphat's Ukrainian Pontifical College and later received his doctorate in theology in Rome (1909), was ordained in 1909, and from 1910 to 1919 was a professor at the Stanyslaviv theological seminary. In 1926 he was appointed hegumen of the Kostopil and Kovel monasteries in Volhynia. In 1931 he was appointed apostolic visitator for Byzantine-rite Catholics in Poland and was consecrated bishop of Kovel. Because of opposition from the Polish government Charnetsky lacked jurisdiction, yet he ministered to the Greek Catholics from Galicia who settled in Volhynia. In 1939 the Soviet authorities prohibited Charnetsky from living in Volhynia, and until 1945 he lived in Lviv and taught at the Greek Catholic Theological Academy. In 1945 he was arrested and exiled to Siberia for 10 years. From Siberia he returned in 1956 to Lviv, where he died.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]