Kazakhstan is a country with about 250,000 Catholics in a population of 15 million. It is the largest among central Asian countries. Altogether Christians make up about 26 percent of the population.
The Christians in the country still remember their pioneer evangelist in a special way. Nearly five decades after his death, Polish diocesan priest Father Władysław Bukowinski is remembered for preaching the Gospel to the people of Kazakhstan, defying great difficulties including war and persecution.
Bukowinski was an ethnic Pole who was born and brought up in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union. He was arrested three times and spent about 13 years in concentration camps.
Blessed Władysław Bukowinski became an active and deep root of the flowering of the living Church in Kazakhstan, and in particular, in Karaganda, Bishop Adelio Dell’Oro of Karaganda Diocese in Kazakhstan remembers him with these words and it was damn true when we go through the growth of Christianity of the country.
The missionary priest faced so many ordeals, but these failed to deter his calmness and firm resolve to evangelize and bring the message of the love of Jesus to the people he worked with.
Bukowinski who was born on 22 December 1904, was ordained a diocesan priest in Krakow Diocese, Poland on June 28, 1931.
He served as parish priest of Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral at Lutsk in Poland during World War II. On 22 August 1940, he was arrested by the Soviet Secret Police. He was sentenced to 8 harsh years in prison for his activities as a Catholic priest in a Soviet-controlled area.
The punishment was short as German forces soon overran the territory and he was released on 23 June 1941.
Father Bukowinski defied the Nazi policy of ethnic cleansing of Jews. When he resumed his pastoral work after release, he started hiding Jewish children with Catholic families.
The second arrest was on 3 January 1945, wherein he was imprisoned in Kyiv along with Bishop Adolf Szelążek of Lutsk Diocese and the diocesan priests.
He along with the other prisoners was accused of treason and sentenced to 10 years in a gulag — the Soviet equivalent of a Nazi concentration camp — first introduced by Vladimir Lenin and made worse during the Stalin era in Soviet Russia.
Even during his days in the gulag, Father Bukowinski administered the sacraments and visited the sick.
He was released on 10 August 1954 and ordered to remain in exile in Karaganda, the then Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.
During his time there he took up employment as a watchman at a construction site and engaged secretly in pastoral activities including the celebration of Mass in people’s homes.
In his memoir, the priest wrote about his experiences in secret evangelization.
“I am a peddler all the time. (…) All my ministry takes place in other people’s homes. (…) It usually goes like this: I come in the afternoon or before the evening. First of all, I am arranging an altar. It is an ordinary table, as long as it stands firm and does not wobble,” he wrote, according to Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance.
“The table is covered with a white cloth. A large box or two thick books are put on the table, covered with a white handkerchief, and on it is put a crucifix. Candles are placed in candlesticks or, if they are not, in a glass with salt. Above, one or two paintings are hung and the altar is ready. Then I confess. I celebrate Mass at 9 p.m. (…). There are cases when at Holy Mass Poles and Germans come together, I speak Russian for this sermon,” he added.
In 1955, he rejected the opportunity to go back to Poland and opted to stay in Kazakhstan.
He was arrested a third time on 3 December 1958. And accused of illegal activities and was sentenced to 3 years in prison in a gulag in Irkutsk, Russia.
On completion of his prison sentence, he returned to Karaganda and resumed his pastoral duties.
He died from a hemorrhage on 3 December 1974, and his relics were later enshrined in the Karaganda Cathedral in 2008.
Pope Francis confirmed his heroic virtues in 2015 and declared him Venerable. About a year later, a miracle attributed to him was approved by the Vatican.
On 11 September 2017, Cardinal Angelo Amato, on behalf of Pope Francis, beatified him in the Karaganda Cathedral.
The Catholic community in Karaganda is a testimony to the saintly missionary’s work.
The spiritual legacy of Blessed Władysław Bukowinski lives on through the numerous vocations and the missionary zeal among the Catholics of Karaganda.