Blessed Michał Sopoćko (1888-1975)

Jan. 1, 2026

By Columbia staff

Jan. 1, 2026

Blessed Michał Sopoćko. (Photo courtesy of the Archives of the Archdiocese of Białystok)

On April 26, 1935 — just months before Nazi Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws — a priest-theologian in Vilnius preached a message of Divine Mercy. It was inspired by the private revelations of Sister Faustina Kowalska, who was present at the Mass and under his spiritual guidance. Christ had told her, “He will help you carry out My will on earth.”

Born to Polish parents in Nowosady, in present-day Belarus, Michał Sopoćko entered the major seminary in Vilnius in 1910 and was ordained in 1914. Amid czarist suppression of Catholicism, his faith deepened. He served first as a parish vicar, then as a military chaplain starting in 1919. He later earned a doctorate in moral theology and, in 1927, was appointed spiritual director at the Vilnius seminary.

Father Sopoćko met Sister Faustina in 1933. “She immediately told me that she knew me,” he later wrote, “and that I was to be her spiritual director.” Moved by her mystical experiences, he urged her to record them in a diary. He became the message’s greatest proponent, commissioning the first Divine Mercy image and publishing pamphlets about the chaplet.

Shortly before her death in 1938, Faustina told Father Sopoćko that Christ desired a new religious congregation devoted to Divine Mercy. Several women began formation in his home, but Gestapo raids forced him into hiding. Working as a carpenter, he corresponded secretly with the sisters by letter. In 1942, under Nazi occupation, the Congregation of the Sisters of the Divine Mercy was established.

After the war, Father Sopoćko resumed teaching in Białystok and continued to promote the Divine Mercy message. He died Feb. 15, 1975, at age 86 and was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.

Blessed Michał Sopoćko (1888-1975)

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