Today, October 14, is the memorial of Blessed Roman Lysko.
Roman Lysko was born in 1914 in Horodok, a city in the Lviv Oblast region of Ukraine. He studied theology and graduated from the Lviv Theological Academy. In 1941 he was ordained a priest.
He became administrator for the parish in the Kotliw Village and, in 1944, he was assigned to a parish in Belzets Village. He was also a member of the underground Ukrainian youth organization.
Lysko was also active in working with youngsters. He was assisted by his wife (ordaining married priests are common in the Eastern Churches).
The NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union) arrested Roman on September 9, 1949 and jailed him in Lviv. His arrest and torture were heard across the city. After Roman was tortured, he was singing the Psalms loudly and praising God for the opportunity to die for the faith. The torturers thought he had lost his mind.
Roman’s torturers cemented him alive into the prison walls until he starved to death in 1949.
He was beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 2001.