1. Theodore George Romzha was a Ukrainian Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo from 1944 to 1947.
14 Facts About Theodore Romzha
1. 2.
Theodore Romzha was born on 14 April 1911 in Nagybocsko, a village in Subcarpathia, Austria-Hungary, inhabited by Rusyns and Hungarians.
3.
Theodore Romzha's mother, born Maria Semack, was a full-time homemaker.
4.
Theodore Romzha began as a seminarian at the Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum, and later switched to the Russicum.
5.
Theodore Romzha finished his theological studies at the Papal Gregorian University in Rome.
6.
Theodore Romzha was ordained a priest by Bishop Alexander Evreinov of the Russian Greek Catholic Church on Christmas Day, 1936 in the Basilica of St Mary Major.
7.
On 24 September 1944, with the region was under Nazi occupation, at the young age of 33, Theodore Romzha was consecrated bishop and appointed apostolic administrator of the Eparchy of Munkacs in the cathedral of Ungvar by Bishop Miklos Dudas, OS.
8.
Theodore Romzha immediately had to face the Soviet Red Army, which occupied the churches, assigned them to the Russian Orthodox Church, and arrested priests.
9.
Bishop Theodore Romzha refused to break with the Pope in front of General Petrov.
10.
Theodore Romzha organized a celebration of the Feast of the Assumption with the participation of more than 80,000 pilgrims but this was not tolerated by the Communist officials who now began plotting to dispose of the young bishop.
11.
Theodore Romzha was buried in the crypt of the Holy Cross Cathedral in Uzhhorod.
12.
Theodore Romzha was beatified as a Martyr for the Faith by Pope John Paul II in Lviv on 27 June 2001, with 1 November assigned initially as his feast day.
13.
Theodore Romzha died shortly after midnight 1 November, according to Moscow Time, the Soviet-imposed time zone throughout Ukraine from 1930 to 1990; however, according to local time, Theodore Romzha died before midnight on 31 October.
14.
In 1998, the relics of Blessed Theodore Romzha were found in a tomb in the crypt of Holy Cross Cathedral in Uzhhorod, and then transported to Budapest, Hungary for medical examination.