Pope Francis on Friday, August 5, gave the green light to the beatification of Péter Orosz, a Ukrainian bishop shot in the Soviet Union in 1953.
The pope recognized the cleric's "
heroic virtues
" and authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate him "
venerable
", a first step towards beatification, the Vaticans News agency reported.
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The Vatican also recognizes the martyrdom "
in hatred of the faith
" of the prelate, born in 1917 in Hungary in a Greek-Catholic family.
Appointed a priest in 1942 in Mukacevo, in western Ukraine, he was secretly ordained auxiliary bishop in 1944. After the war, he was ordered to join the Russian Orthodox Church, but refused.
On August 27, 1953, he was arrested in Siltse (at that time in the USSR, now in Hungary) while “
bringing the Eucharist to a sick
person ”, and shot.