Today is the Feast of Blessed Hieromartyr Klymentiy Sheptytsky, MSU

Brother of the Servant of God, Metropolitan Bishop Andrey Sheptytsky, he died in a Soviet prison because he would not renounce Catholicism and become Orthodox.

From the Book of Remembrance, Biographies of Catholic Clergy and Laity Repressed in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1918 to 1953, University of Notre Dame

Biography of Blessed Hieromartyr Klymentiy Sheptytsky, MSU

Born in 1869 on the Prylbychi estate outside Rava Ruska. He was the younger brother of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky and the Archimandrite of the Order of Studite monks of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. He was educated at home; graduated from St. Anne Gymnasium in Kraków and then from the law department of the university in Kraków. He worked as a lawyer and later became a member of parliament. In 1909 he entered the Order of St. Benedict in Beuron, Germany. In 1910 he enrolled in Innsbruck University (Austria) where he studied philosophy and theology. In 1915 he was ordained a priest of the Eastern Rite in Krizhevci, Croatia. He made his perpetual vows taking the name “Klymentiy.” He was a priest-monk, abbot of Sknyliv Monastery of Studites outside Lviv. In 1919 – during the Civil War – the monastery was burned down. Fr. Klymentiy along with the monastic community managed to make it to Holy Dormition Lavra in Univ; in 1921, to the monastery in Zarvanytsia outside Berezhany, and then later to Lviv. In December 1939 – during the Soviet occupation of Lviv, the monastery was closed and its property confiscated. In the summer of 1941, during the German occupation, under the leadership of Fr. Klymentiy the monastery was reopened and the life of the monastic community reestablished. In October 1944, he gave communion [to the community] and on November 5 along with a group of Basilian Fathers, he took part in the funeral of his brother, Metropolitan Andrey. In the middle of November 1944 Metropolitan Josyf Slypyi appointed him archimandrite of the Studites. In 1947, after the establishment of the Soviet regime in Lviv, Fr. Klymentiy was arrested and charged with “hiding in his monastery partisans who had fought the Soviet regime.” He was transported to Vladimir, then transferred to Kiev Prison and later to Poltava Prison, where, in 1950 (?) he was sentenced to ten (?) years in corrective labor camp. He died sometime between 1950 and 1952 (exact date and place of death unknown). Translator’s Note: According to additional information now publicly available, he died May 1, 1951, in Vladimir Central Prison. Beatified June 27, 2001, by Pope John Paul II and awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel for saving Jews. Sources: von Burman, OSB, pp. 11-13, 26-29, 683-688; List compiled by R. Dzwonkowski, SAC