Kotsylovsky, Yosafat

Kotsylovsky, Yosafat [Коциловський, Йосафат; Kocylovs’kyj, Josafat] (secular name: Йосиф; Yosyf), b 3 March 1876 in Pakoshivka, Sianik county, Galicia, d 17 November 1947. Uniate bishop. He studied at the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome (PH D 1903, d th 1907). After ordination (1907), he was a professor of theology and prorector of the seminary in Stanyslaviv. He entered the Basilian monastic order (1911) and taught theology in the Lavriv Saint Onuphrius's Monastery before serving as rector of the evacuated Ukrainian seminary in Moravia (1914–16). In 1917 Kotsylovsky was appointed bishop of Peremyshl (see Peremyshl eparchy). He established several eparchial clerical organizations and funded the weekly Ukraïns’kyi Beskyd. In 1921 he revived the Peremyshl Greek Catholic Theological Seminary as a complete seminary (from 1845 it had only offered one year of study). In 1945 he was arrested by Polish authorities and handed over to the Soviets; released briefly, he was rearrested in 1946 and sent to a Siberian labor camp, where he died.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]