Josyp Terelya; Ukrainian mystic was tortured by Soviets, but never denounced his Christian faith
Hyfler/Rosner
Ukrainian mystic was tortured by Soviets, but never
denounced his Christian faith
He had his first mystical experience at 5 and was known for
having visions of the Virgin Mary
RON CSILLAG
Special to The Globe and Mail
April 8, 2009
Josyp Terelya bore two kinds of scars: external ones that
filigreed his limbs, and internal pain, the searing kind
that cannot be seen.
The first came via his erstwhile Soviet captors, who had
plied his fellow inmates with liquor and razors. The drunken
prisoners gleefully acceded, and sliced Mr. Terelya's arms
and legs until he nearly bled to death.
The internal wounds arose from being a guest in the Soviet
gulag, a period his friends and supporters tended to round
off as "more than 20 years."
Mr. Terelya kept a more precise count: He was interned for
23 years, five months and four days in frigid Siberian
prisons, labour camps, psychiatric hospitals and isolation
cells the size of an outhouse. Between those were sleep
deprivation and beating after beating.
His atheist torturers just wanted to hear him renounce his
faith. He never budged. If anything, he came to love it even
more, and he spent nearly his entire life promoting the
Ukrainian Catholic Church, the largest of the Eastern
Catholic churches. From his Toronto home for the last 20
years of his life, he crisscrossed the world, bringing the
church's message to tens of thousands of people, both
Christian and not.
"I had never met anyone quite like him. No one was tougher.
No one was more dedicated to the church and his homeland of
Ukraine," said American journalist Michael Brown, who
co-wrote Mr. Terelya's 1991 autobiography, Witness to
Apparitions and Persecution in the U.S.S.R. "He was like any
human. He was not perfect. But he was a hero. It is hard to
be perfect when you have witnessed many killed and your
youth has been robbed from you."
Mr. Terelya was also known for his lifelong visions of the
Virgin Mary, but he played down that aspect of his faith. "I
try to minimize my visionary experiences," he said while on
a swing through Mormon Utah in 1994. "These are not my chief
concern."
His mystical episodes and activism did interest Pope John
Paul II, however, and the two met on several occasions.
His life would have made a ripping Russian novel. He was
born in western Ukraine in the thick of the Second World
War. His father, who was Czech, had fought for the Yugoslav
partisans under Tito, while his mother was of Greek-Jewish
heritage and a staunch atheist. Both parents not only were
loyal communists but also worked for the KGB.
But young Josyp was raised by a pious Ukrainian Catholic
grandmother who immersed the boy in the faith. He was just
three years old when Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin banned
the Ukrainian Catholic Church and imprisoned, deported or
executed thousands of its priests and bishops.
Mr. Terelya said he had his first mystical experience when
he was 5 and that it was like "a strike of lightning." The
boy's father retrieved him at 13 and within a year, Josyp
was active in the underground church, handing out leaflets
and attending clandestine services.
He studied furniture-making for a time, while his mother
questioned her son's sanity over his religious fervour. At
the age of 19 came a pivotal moment. Mr. Terelya had to
enlist in the Soviet army.
"I went to my room, put a knapsack on my back, took two
icons with me, an embroidered scarf, a catechism and the
Bible, and went to the registration centre," he wrote in his
memoirs.
Sifting through the belongings, the officer found the Bible.
"What's this for?" he asked.
The reply: "I've come to evangelize the Soviet army."
And so began his odyssey: water thrown on him outside in a
Soviet winter, pins stuck into his arms, lamps shined into
his eyes all night, bullets blasted into his feet. His
shoulders were dislocated so many times from being hung by
his arms that he became adept at popping them back into
position.
It was in a "freeze cell" in the notorious Corpus Two unit
of Vladimir Prison, a decade into captivity, where he
related his first apparition of the Virgin Mary, who he
believed rescued him by heating up his cell. His terrified
jailers accused him of practising yoga.
Mr. Terelya escaped nine times from facilities across the
vast Soviet empire. His letters to the Vatican were smuggled
out and by the early 1980s, his plight had caught the
attention of the Western powers, which pressed for his
release. He was freed in 1987 amid Mikhail Gorbachev's new
policies of openness and was offered asylum by the
Netherlands, France, the United States and Canada.
He settled in Toronto soon after with his three children and
wife, a physician in her native Ukraine who could not
practise in Canada because of professional restrictions.
Spurred by his beliefs and the Pope's entreaties, Mr.
Terelya began a bruising schedule of speaking at lectures
and conferences around the world.
"He was very warmly received everywhere," related Roman
Danylak, a retired bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church
in Toronto who travelled with him as a translator, "except
in Canada. They weren't much impressed with him here."
In 1992, Mr. Terelya was the third person in three months to
report a vision of Mary on the same rocky hillside in the
Eastern Ontario village of Marmora.
He could not entirely avoid discussing his visions. Many
people who attended his talks were interested in them. "Yes.
I know what people want to hear about," he said. "But when I
do talk about them, it always is in the framework of the
church's doctrines. What's important is not the visions or
supernatural experiences, but the message of Mary and the
effect on the spiritual lives of the pilgrims."
Mr. Terelya supported his family through private donations
and with his art. He experimented widely in media - pencil,
markers, oils and watercolour - but tended to stick to the
same religious and anti-communist themes.
"He spent most of his time travelling. He was gone often,"
said his daughter, Kalyna. "When he was home, he spent most
of his time writing and painting. Growing up, we really
didn't see that much of him."
He could also turn people off with a religious zeal that
sometimes bordered on belligerence, said Walter Melnyk, a
friend who accompanied him on several overseas missions.
"But he really knew how to inspire people. Anyone who had
the Lord in him came forward when Josyp was around. You
could say he lived his faith."
He certainly suffered for it.
Josyp Terelya
Josyp Jaromyr Terelya was born in Kelechyn, Ukraine, on Oct.
27, 1943, and died in Toronto on March 16, 2009, of heart
disease. He was 65. He was predeceased by his first wife,
Olena, in 2004. He leaves his wife, AlexSandra (Sam),
children Kalyna, Pavlo and Mariana, and three grandchildren.