Blessed Volodymyr Pryjma (1906-1941)

June 1, 2024

By Columbia staff

June 1, 2024

Blessed Volodymyr Pryjma

In late June 1941, two men set out from the village of Stradch in western Ukraine into a volatile landscape. The German army had attacked the Soviet Union only days before; with Soviet troops in retreat before Hitler’s forces, moving around the countryside was dangerous. But Father Mykola Konrad was determined to bring the last sacraments to a woman outside town, and Volodymyr Pryjma was determined to help and protect him if he could.

Pryjma was from Stradch, a village northwest of Lviv. Born on July 17, 1906, he was one of nine children, and his father worked at the local church. Two of Pryjma’s six surviving brothers became priests, while he, like his father, worked for the parish after graduating from a school for cantors established by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, archbishop of Lviv. Pryjma married Maria Stoyko in 1931, and they had four children.

On June 26, 1941, four days after the invasion of the Soviet Union, Father Konrad was asked to visit a sick woman in a neighboring settlement. Despite the priest’s protest — “Volodymyr, this is my duty as a priest; you should take care of your family in this uncertain time” — Pryjma insisted on accompanying him.

The two men reached the woman’s home, and Father Konrad gave her Communion and heard her confession. But as they returned, they were apprehended by members of the Soviet secret police agency, the NKVD. Their bodies were found five days later in the woods; Father Konrad had been shot, and Pryjma had been beaten and stabbed.

Volodymyr Pryjma was beatified with Father Konrad and 26 other martyrs of Ukraine by Pope John Paul II in 2001. In 2013, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church named Pryjma patron of Ukrainian Greek laity.

Blessed Volodymyr Pryjma (1906-1941)

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