Blessed Paul Gojdich Question

[Miserissima]

Dear friends,

Would you help me to understand something? I was reading a bio of Blessed Paul Gojdich and came across the following (emphasis mine):

During Bishop Gojdich’s rehabilitation in 1958, it was proven beyond any doubt that all the accusations against him at the trial were nothing more than lies made up by his prosecutors in order to keep him in prison and isolated from his faithful. A certain Ferdo Ondrushka, who attended Bishop Gojdich in the prison hospital before his death, writes: “Bishop Gojdich cherished an immense love for his clergy and people. He often spoke of Greek Catholic customs and ceremonies, and with great enthusiasm used to explain why his people must remain united with the Apostolic See. He told us how, during his long interrogations, they used to torture him and how they tried, with all kinds of promises to sway him to accept Orthodoxy.

They even promised to make him a patriarch …” And he concludes: “There is no doubt in my mind that Bishop Gojdich was a martyr for his Faith!”

So, I ask, why would the Communists offer him anything in/of the Orthodox? Weren’t there also Orthodox martyrs in the gulags, like Kolyma? I thought that the Communists were against any system of religion or metaphysics/faith.

 

[GEddie]

Dear friends,

Would you help me to understand something? I was reading a bio of Blessed Paul Gojdich and came across the following (emphasis mine):

So, I ask, why would the Communists offer him anything in/of the Orthodox? Weren’t there also Orthodox martyrs in the gulags, like Kolyma? I thought that the Communists were against any system of religion or metaphysics/faith.

They were, but were to an extent more tolerant of Orthodoxy because unlike Catholicism, it has no world center outside their territory. To their minds, this made it less of a threat.

ICXC NIKA

 

[MarcusAndreas]

Stalin permitted the Orthodox Church to operate under state control to instill nationalistic fervor during World War II. That’s why the communists would try to convert him to Orthodoxy, to make him a tool of the state.