BISHOP ROMZHA'S MARTYRDOM
On November 1, 1947, Bishop Theodore G. Romzha of Mukachevo was secretly executed with the approval of the supreme Soviet authorities and died as a martyr for his loyalty and adherence to the Catholic Church. The Soviets tried to conceal their carefully planned assassination and officially announced that Bishop Romzha died of a brain hemorrhage in consequence of his previous car accident. But after the fall of the Soviet Union, as the secret archives became accessible, the truth about the cruel assassination of the Bishop came to light. He was poisoned because he was the main obstacle in the liquidation of the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo by the Soviets.
The conspiracy of the Soviet leaders to murder Bishop Romzha was recently described in the memoirs of the Soviet spymaster, Lieutenant General Paul A. Sudoplatov, the executioner of the plot against Bishop Romzha (cf. P. Sudoplatov-A. Sudoplatov, SPECIAL TASKS - The memoirs of an Unwanted Witness, a Soviet Spymaster, Publ. by Little-Brown Co., Boston-New York-London, 1994, p252-253).
General P. Sudoplatov headed a special department of the Soviet State Security, known as "Diversion and Terror," the main task of which was to liquidate all political or military personalities that were considered by the Soviet authorities "dangerous to Communism." In 1953 Sudoplatov himself was arrested for "collaboration" with then Soviet Minister of Interior, the infamous head of the Soviet State Security (KGB), Lavrentij Beria, who was condemned to death and executed for "treason and conspiracy against the Soviet Union" on December 23, 1953. Allegedly, Beria made some secret contacts with post-war Germany, and Sudoplatov, as a collaborator of Beria, was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment.
Serving his sentence in the strict security prison of Vladimir, Sudoplatov tried several times to appeal to the Soviet Supreme Court, but without success. Finally in 1966, he appealed directly to the Presidium of the Communist Party, claiming his innocence. And precisely Sudoplatov's appeal to the Presidium was recently revealed and published by the Moscow paper, "Moskovskie Novosty" (August 2, 1992, No 31, p. 10). To impress the members of the Presidium, Sudoplatov described his swift career in the Communist Party, working as a secret agent in foreign countries, where he by the order of the Soviet leaders executed several political personalities, branded as "enemies of the Communist Party and Soviet Union." Among his victims he described the execution of Bishop Romzha in the following way (translated by the author from the Russian original):
"Following the instructions of the Member of Politburo, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of Communist Party in Ukraine, Krushchev, according to the plans designed by the KGB in Ukraine and approved by Krushchev himself, in the town of Mukachevo the head of the Greek Catholic Church, Romzha, was liquidated - since he vigorously opposed the reunion of the Greek Catholics with the Orthodox Church."
In 1994, the same Sudoplatov, with the assistance of his own son Anatoli, published his memoirs in which he described the liquidation of Bishop Romzha in more details. According to Sudoplatov, the Soviet Secret Agent Grulevich, working in the American zone of occupation in West Germany, in 1947 informed Krushchev that the Vatican was trying to influence the American and British officials to give assistance to the Greek Catholic Church and its underground activities in Transcarpathia. Considering the Mukachevo Eparchy, headed by Bishop Romzha, as a stronghold of anti-Soviet activity presenting a serious threat to the political stability in the Carpathian region, Krushchev immediately asked Stalin to approve the liquidation of the Bishop. Having received a green light from Stalin, Krushchev then entrusted the head of State Security (KGB) in Ukraine, Savchenko, to design a concrete plan of Bishop Romzha's assassination. It was decided to stage a car accident in which the Bishop was suppose to be killed.
The attack on Bishop Romzha on his return from the dedication of a newly decorated church in the village of Lavky, near Mukachevo, was very badly executed. In the staged accident the Bishop was only seriously injured and taken to the hospital in Mukachevo.
Krushchev panicked and appealed to Stalin for help since, allegedly, Romzha was about "to receive top-level secret couriers from Germany and from the Vatican." According to Sudoplatov, it was then that the head of the Soviet State Security, Abakumov, under the orders of Stalin, dispatched his team to Uzhorod. The following day the head of the toxicological laboratory in Moscow, Gregory Maironovsky, arrived in Uzhorod and brought with him a vial of deadly "curare poison." Thus the plan to poison Bishop Romzha while he was recuperating in the hospital, was devised by Sudoplatov and received Krushchev's "blessing."
On Wednesday, October 29, 1947, a secret agent Odarka (her real name remains unknown) was accepted by the hospital's Director, Dr. Isaac Bergman, who immediately appointed her to the surgical ward and accommodated her in the drug supply room on the same corridor, where the Bishop's room was located. For the next two days Odarka didn't do anything else, but watched who was visiting Bishop Romzha and when.
On Friday evening, October 31, two Basilian Sisters, Irena and Innocent, who were working in the hospital as nurses, were assigned for the night duty to guard the Bishop. But several minutes before midnight, Dr. Bergman unexpectedly appeared and ordered the Sisters to come and with him and make a night round in the women's ward. When the Sisters hurried back to the Bishops room they heard him moaning: "Oh. Jesus!" His entire body was shaken by a strong convulsion, which instantly put him to his final rest. It happened ten minutes after midnight on Saturday, November 1, 1947.
As the Sisters were making rounds with Dr. Bergman, who was participating in the conspiracy against the Bishop, Odarka, a KGB agent, hastily rushed into the Bishop's room and administered him a dose of lethal curare poison, supplied by Moscow toxicologist Maironovsky, as mentioned by Sudoplatov. Notified by Dr. Bergman about the Bishop's death Sudoplatov immediately telephoned to the head of Soviet State Security, Abakumov, in Moscow who congratulated him and ordered him to remain in Uzhorod in order to trace Bishop Romzha's contacts with foreign agents, especially with those from the Vatican.
After two weeks of thorough investigation Sudoplatov was unable to discover any conspiracy against the Soviet Union. And yet, according to him, Krushchev, with approval of Stalin, decided to liquidate the "terrorist nest of the Vatican in Uzhorod," meaning the Eparchy of Mukachevo.
Now, based on the first hand testimony, we can tell with all certainty that Bishop Romzha, as a Good Shepherd, was executed by the Soviet authorities in hatred of his stout adherence to the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church," founded by our Lord, Jesus Christ. Being compelled by the Soviets to deny his allegiance to the Holy See and to join the Russian Orthodox Church, Bishop Romzha had only one answer: "Rather death than to betray my faith!" And indeed, he died for his faith and thus achieved the crown of the Martyrs.
