Biography

Bishop Antony Maletsky

Antony Iosifovich Maletsky (1861 – 1935). He was born in St. Petersburg into a Polish family. After receiving a good education at home, he graduated from the Annenschule Gymnasium. He chose not to complete his studies in the cadet corps, having heard a different calling.

After graduating from the Catholic Spiritual Seminary in Petersburg, in May 1884 he was ordained a priest and named the vicar of the Church of St. Antony in Vitebsk. One year later, he was made vicar of the Minsk Cathedral.

In 1886, he was arrested as a “disobeyer of the government” and sentenced to exile in Siberia (which was substituted by a stay at Aglonsky Monastery). In 1887, the young priest left Latvia and was named the vicar of the St. Stanislav Church in Petersburg.

Maletsky dedicated a great deal of his time to children, teaching them religion and prayer. The atrocious living conditions and pitiful situation facing the children from poor, working families drove Father Antony to action. He traveled to Turin to the legendary guardian of neglected children, Father Giovanni Bosco. After having lived a bit with the Salesians, Maletsky returned to Petersburg and first rented, then bought, a building in the region of Pskov, establishing a shelter for boys there. He found assistants, and the number of children being instructed increased. The shelter’s facilities included a woodworking shop, a book-binding shop, a trade school and a middle school. Soon a spacious chapel, the Sacred Heart of Mary, was built, and metal-working/mechanical, blacksmithing and forging shops were opened. Father Maletsky’s popularity was immense: this “quiet person” was frequently seen in Russian ministers’ drawing rooms, in court and at police stations. He was lobbying for the interests of his pupils at these institutions.

Father Antony had great powers of persuasion. In 1900, all of the work shops were moved into a spacious stone building equipped with all the very latest technology. In this school-factory, the children of poor Polish, Latvian and German families received not only a profession and education, but also moral support and love. In addition to their trade, the boys studied the Scripture, the Russian and Polish languages, arithmetic, painting, drawing and they even had their own orchestra.

In 1905, they acquired an estate in the suburb of Luga, where the older boys spent the summer and the younger ones lived year-round under the care of nuns. That very year, Father Antony founded a school for the children of impoverished Polish families.

In 1912, a new five-story building for Father Antony’s pupils was built on a donation from Mikhail Kerbedza, and three years later, a school to teach teenagers about agriculture was opened outside of Pskov. Father Antony was called “the Don Bosco of St. Petersburg.” He was a benefactor, a guardian, and he provided a refuge for the poor, for those oppressed by the unbearable burden of life, and for children without hope.

After October 1917, all of the institutions founded by Father Maletsky were closed; the buildings were nationalized, and the only thing that was left was the chapel, where Mass was held daily. During these years, Father Antony was catechizing children, and he founded the youth group “Christian Democrats.”

In 1921, Archbishop Jan Tseplyak appointed Father Antony rector of an underground seminary, which Father Antony led until his arrest.

In March 1923, he went through the “trial of the Roman Catholic priests” and was sentenced to three years in prison for “counter-revolutionary activity.” After surviving a heart attack in prison, Father Antony returned to Leningrad in 1925 and served in the Polish Roman Catholic Church of St. Catherine.

On August 13, 1926, in the chapel of the French Mother of God Church, Bishop Michel d'Herbigny secretly ordained Antony a bishop, appointing him the Leningrad apostolic administrator and the head of the Mogilevskaya archdiocese.

Having heard confessions, given a mass and read a sermon at one church, the 65-year-old bishop walked to another in order to once again hear confessions, deliver a mass and fulfill his duties as a priest, and then he went on to a third, for vespers and to strengthen the faithful with the word of God. He catechized children, attempted to revive his work with young people, and again he opened an underground seminary.

In October 1926, however, the State Political Directorate knew about everything, including his secret ordination. The seminary was disbanded. In April 1927, Maletsky was sent in “voluntary exile” to Arkhangelsk. “We’re powerless, absolutely powerless, and we’re losing the youth...” the bishop wrote.

In December 1928, fearing arrest, he ordained Father Teofil Matulyanis and named him his deputy. It was kept secret from even his innermost circle, after all, denunciations had become a part of Soviet life. The secret bishop was arrested, however, within a few months – much sooner than even Father Maletsky was.

Bishop Antony was arrested on November 20, 1930, after a ceremonial mass of a church holiday in the Church of St. Catherine. He was exiled to the Irkutsk region, to a Buryat village called Dubinino.

The Polish government was able to obtain permission for the exiled bishop to leave the U.S.S.R. In 1934, Maletsky was freed to leave for Poland, but it was already too late: the temperatures of 60 degrees below zero and constant hunger completely undermined the health of the 73-year-old priest. The ailing old man made it 150 kilometers to Irkutsk on foot. He was found at the Irkutsk train station starving, half-mad and not understanding why he was free.

In March 1934, the bishop arrived in Leningrad, where he spent a month, fading away. Then he left for Warsaw. By that point, the doctors couldn’t do anything to help.

On January 17, 1935, Bishop Antony Maletsky passed away in a Warsaw hospital from complete physical exhaustion. The church leader’s funeral was held ceremoniously at St. John’s Cathedral and then his body was buried in Powazki Cemetery, next to the Church of St. Charles Borromeo.
 

Background

Orfans, the Result of Soviet Ideals

Russia’s October Revolution of 1917 absolutely shattered the former peace. In order to make way for the bright building of socialism, monasteries and churches were torn down and Christian culture itself was annihilated. The murder of hundreds of thousands of laypeople and clergy did not kill faith, however. Once again, the old belief that the Church stands on the blood of martyrs was repeated. Probably those who were dying in the prisons, camps and in exile felt alone and thought that no one would ever find out the truth about their torment and death. Time, however, passes, what was secret becomes known, and the saints’ ranks are reinforced.

Unfortunately, human memory is short, and the Russian nation is particularly inclined to believe myths, even while forgetting the truth about itself. A generation has passed, and we hear that there was no holocaust, there were no Soviet prison camps, and millions of innocents were not killed at the hands of communist executioners. For that reason, documentary evidence is absolutely indispensable – generalizations about what really took place. Knowing about the past, we will not lose our way in the future or repeat our mistakes. For this very reason, the studio “Father’s House” has made nearly 20 documentary films and prepared materials for the production of several other films about the persecution of the Church in Russia during the Soviet period. Among our heroes who suffered for the glory of Christ – Patriarch Tikhon, Mother Ekaterina (Abrikosova) and the sisters of a Dominican community; the women of the Catacomb Church and secret Russian Orthodox nuns, along with Bishop Veniamin (Kazansky) and Dean Budkevich – there is also Bishop Antony Maletsky.

“I was born into an old, wealthy, noble family. My father, a former military engineer during the reign of Nicholas I, taught me to love and respect all people. When I was 12, I was an exceedingly idle child. I was extremely impolite to the guard at our house, and I called him an idiot. Soon my father, having found out about this, called me in to see him. When I went into his study, the old guard was sitting across from him, and my father said: ‘Kneel before him, kiss his hand and ask his forgiveness.’ And that’s what I did. That incident had an influence on the rest of my life. That’s what God did to call me to the priesthood and teach me to love the unfortunate.”

Antony Maletsky was born in 1861 – the year of the serfs’ liberation – into the family of a wealthy Polish nobleman. After graduating from school, he entered an engineering academy to become a military engineer like his father, but he soon left for a seminary, astonished by society’s easy manner and moral decline, and later he was ordained priest.

During the years of the persecution of the Catholics under the attorney-general of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev (nicknamed the Grand Inquisitor), the director of his office was forced to say: “I forbid you to let that priest in to see me, he’s becoming intolerable. … I’m obliged to fulfill all of his requests.”

At the time, Petersburg had the highest number of abortions and children born out of wedlock in all of Russia. Looking after children became the young priest’s primary concern. In 1889, he opened the first and only Catholic shelter for juveniles, where the more talented children received a higher education, and the less gifted ones were given vocational training. By 1917, more than 700 boys were being raised in the shelter, but in 1918, the new authorities closed it, the workshops, the agricultural farm, the school, and the Catholic gymnasium – everything that was created by Father Maletsky’s diligence.

Father Antony followed a path of suffering, a path that was followed, then, by many of the faithful. He stubbornly attempted to restore that which had been destroyed by the Godless authorities. He did not permit them to rob the church during the confiscation of valuables, and shortly thereafter, he was arrested during the “trial of the Roman Catholic priests” and sentenced to three years in prison. He worked with young people and led an underground seminary; the authorities’ reaction was to arrest him again and exile him to Arkhangelsk. In 1930, he was arrested for the last time and exiled to Siberia.

“In absolute solitude, one has the opportunity to speak with God. I had always wanted to settle down in a quiet monastery somewhere toward the end of my life. I found that little corner, but it’s so far, far away from everyone and from my parish work, which I enjoy so much. There isn’t a single Catholic here… Do the will of God!” he wrote.

Constant hunger and temperatures of down to minus 60 degrees did little to help the health of the 70-year-old priest. The Polish government was able to convince the authorities to grant the bishop the right to leave the U.S.S.R. In 1934, he returned to Leningrad, but by that time, he was already extremely ill. His strength to carry on living was waning, and on January 17, 1935 – the Day of St. Antony the Great – Bishop Antony Maletsky died in Warsaw from complete physical exhaustion. He is now a candidate for beatification, along with many martyrs of the Catholic Church in Russia of the 20th century.