Pietro Leoni was an Italian priest of the Society of Jesus and the Russian Greek Catholic Church.
24 Facts About Pietro Leoni
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Pietro Leoni was born to peasant parents in Montaltovecchio, near Forli, Emilia-Romagna, Kingdom of Italy.
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Pietro Leoni arrived at the Russicum, a Jesuit-run seminary established to train priests of the Russian Greek Catholic Church for missionary work in the Soviet Union and the Russian diaspora, in 1934.
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Pietro Leoni was drafted into the Italian Royal Army and served as a military chaplain in Albania and Occupied Greece.
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Pietro Leoni's unit was assigned to Dnipropetrovsk, as part of Operation Barbarossa.
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Pietro Leoni was granted an audience with Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
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Pietro Leoni was at first allowed, despite the stiff opposition of the Moscow Patriarchate's Eparchy of Odessa, to remain in the city and continue to minister to local Catholics.
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Pietro Leoni was allowed to register as the pastor of the Catholics of Odessa in November 1944.
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Pietro Leoni's congregation numbered about 8,000 people, most of whom were ethnic Poles.
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Pietro Leoni offered only the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy in Old Church Slavonic and preached in Russian.
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Pietro Leoni received several Orthodox Christians, including at least one priest, into the Russian Greek Catholic Church, for which he later accused local Russian Orthodox Bishop Sergei of denouncing him to the NKVD.
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Pietro Leoni refused to answer questions that might harm the Church or other underground priests, such as his former classmate Walter Ciszek.
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Pietro Leoni had no problem with telling his interrogators exactly what he thought of the Soviet Government.
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Pietro Leoni was declared guilty of espionage on behalf of the Vatican, anti-Soviet agitation, and of trying to convert the Orthodox to the Eastern Catholic Churches.
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Pietro Leoni describe being preyed upon and robbed by the Vory v Zakone.
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Pietro Leoni was again arrested on June 15,1947, and accused of, "belonging to a counterrevolutionary organisation" of fellow political prisoners which interrogators dubbed "Volya".
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Pietro Leoni was handed over to representatives of the Italian Government in Vienna, through the intervention of the Vatican.
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Pietro Leoni lived for a time at the Russicum, but, according to Fr.
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Pietro Leoni distrusted Russicum students who had lived in Soviet Russia and suspected them of being assassins for the KGB.
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Pietro Leoni sharply opposed the efforts by the Russicum's then Rector, Fr.
21.
Pietro Leoni, who believed the Moscow Patriarchate to be "a mere instrument of the Atheist State", openly heckled Fr.
22.
Pietro Leoni, who wished to work as a missionary in the Russian diaspora, was assigned to Canada.
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Pietro Leoni served as pastor of the Russian Catholic parish of the Presentation of Our Lady in Jerusalem in Montreal, where he worked at the Catholic hospital dedicated to St Frances Cabrini.
24.
Pietro Leoni died of a heart attack while swimming in a Canadian lake on July 26,1995.