Zynoviy Kovalyk - Ministry As A Redemptorist

Ministry As A Redemptorist

After teaching in a primary school for a short period of time, he entered the novitiate of the Redemptorists (Congregation of the Holy Redeemer) when he was 25 which made him older than most novices of that period; he made his first religious profession on 26 August 1926.

After the novitiate, he studied philosophy and theology in Belgium. He returned to Ukraine and was ordained a priest on 9 August 1932, celebrating his first Liturgy in his village of Ivachiv on 4 September 1932.

Father Zynoviy then travelled with Bishop Nicholas Charnetsky (who was also to become a martyr) to Volhynia to work amongst the Ukrainians of the Orthodox Church in order to promote ecumenism. Father Zynoviy was a good singer and a preacher. Indeed, it is said he had a golden mouth, and that his preaching drew thousands of people and led them to a greater devotion to Jesus Christ and His mother the Virgin Mary. After several years he went to Stanislaviv (today Ivano-Frankivsk) to take up the post of provincial bursar although he was also very engaged in the traditional Redemptorist practice of conducting missions through the area.

Immediately before the Soviet invasion of 1939 he travelled to the Redemptorist monastery in Lviv and assumed the position of bursar. Due to the Communist presence many clergy concentrated on spiritual matters when they gave a homily and avoided issues of freedom and justice. As a preacher, Father Zynoviy showed no reluctance to publicly condemn the falsehoods and atheistic customs then being introduced by the Soviets, and to preach on matters affecting the every day lives of the people. Even though he was warned by his friends that the Communist authorities were suspicious of him and that he should be less vocal, he is said to have replied,”If it is God’s will, I am ready to die, but I cannot be quiet in the face of such injustice.” On the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God 1940 (August 15), he gave his last homily, which reportedly drew some ten thousand faithful.