He gave his life
Saint Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr (1580-1623) from the encyclical letter “Ecclesiam Dei” by Pop Pius XI
He gave his life for the unity of the Church
In designing his Church God worked with such skill that in the fullness of time it would resemble a single great family embracing all men. It can be identified, as we know, by certain distinctive characteristics, notably its universality and unity.
Christ the Lord passed on to his apostles the task he had received from the Father: I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. He wanted the apostles as a body to be intimately bound together, first by the inner tie of the same faith and love which flows into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and, second, by the external tie of authority exercised by one apostle over the others. For this he assigned the primacy to Peter, the source and visible basis of their unity for all time. So that the unity and agreement among them would endure, God wisely stamped them, one might say, with the mark of holiness and martyrdom.
Both these distinctions fell to Josaphat, archbishop of Pollock of the Slavonic rite of the Eastern Church. He is rightly looked upon as the great glory and strength of the Eastern Rite Slavs. Few have brought them greater honor or contributed more to their spiritual welfare than Josaphat, their pastor and apostle, especially when he gave his life as a martyr for the unity of the Church. He felt, in fact, that God had inspired him to restore worldwide unity to the Church and he realized that his greatest chance of success lay in preserving the Slavonic rite and Saint Basil’s rule of monastic life within the one universal Church.
Concerned mainly with seeing his own people reunited to the See of Peter, he sought out every available argument which would foster and maintain Church unity. His best arguments were drawn from liturgical books, sanctioned by the Fathers of the Church, which were in common use among Eastern Christians, including the dissidents. Thus thoroughly prepared, he set out to restore the unity of the Church. A forceful man of fine sensibilities, he met with such success that his opponents dubbed him “the thief of souls.”
Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
Saint Josaphat was born in the Ukraine of Orthodox parents about the year 1580. Embracing the Catholic faith, he entered a Basilian monastery and in 1609, after private study under the Jesuit Fabricius, he was ordained a priest. He subsequently became superior in several monasteries and in 1617, was consecrated Bishop of Vitebsk and became archbishop in 1618. As archbishop he restored the churches; issued a catechism to the clergy with instructions that it should be learned by heart; composed rules for the priestly and assembled various synods. Throughout all his strivings and all his occupations, he continued his exemplary life as a religious and never abated his zeal for self discipline, self-mortification and prayer. He worked faithfully for the unity of the Church and the for salvation of souls. Enemies plotted his death, and he was martyred with an ax-stroke and a bullet in 1623. After numerous miracles had occurred, a commission was appointed by Pope Urban VIII in 1628 to inquire into the cause for canonization of Josaphat, and examined on oath 116 witnesses. Although five years had elapsed since Josaphat’s death, his body was still incorrupt. In 1637 a second commission investigated the life of the martyr and in 1643 — twenty years after his death — Josaphat was beatified. His canonization took place in 1867.