Kamen Vitchev

Infobox Saint
name=Blessed Kamen Vitchev
birth_date=May 23, 1893
death_date=
feast_day=November 11
venerated_in=Roman Catholic Church


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birth_place=Srem, Bulgaria
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beatified_date=May 26, 2002.
beatified_place=Plovdiv
beatified_by=John Paul II
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canonized_by=
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Born May 23, 1893 at Srem, Bulgaria, Peter Vitchev came from a peasant family. He joined the Catholic congregation known as the Assumptionists, or Augustinians of the Assumption, in 1910, beginning his novitiate in Gempe, Belgium, and later taking the name Kamen. He pursued his studies of philosophy and theology in Louvain, Belgium. He was ordained a priest in Constantinople (Istanbul) on December 22, 1921. After a brief period teaching at St. Augustine College in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and at a high school seminary in Kum Kapu, Turkey, he returned to Stasbourg and Rome, to complete his studies and obtained a doctorate in theology in 1929.

Very knowledgeable in the history of the Bulgarian church, he published several articles in the review known as "Echos d'Orient". In 1930 he was appointed professor of philosophy and Dean of Studies at St. Augustine College in Plovdiv and maintained this position until the school was closed by the Communist regime on August 2, 1948.

After this prestigious institution founded and maintained by the Assumptionists was closed, Fr. Vitchev became superior of the Assumptionist seminary in Plovdiv which housed a small number of students. That same year all foreign members of religious orders were expelled and Fr. Vitchev was named Vicar-Provincial of the remaining Bulgarian Assumptionists. They numbered twenty and staffed five Oriental and four Latin rite parishes.

As a Soviet satellite, Bulgaria suffered from the wave of anti-Church legislation that swept the bloc in the years after World War II (e.g. the arrest of Bishop Stepinac in Yugoslavia in 1946, of Cardinal Mindszenty in Hungary in 1948, of Archbishop Beran in Czechoslovakia in 1950, and of Cardinal Wyszinski in Poland in 1953).

Highly esteemed and respected by the influential young graduates of St. Augustine College, Fr. Vitchev posed a threat to the Communist authorities in Bulgaria and was arrested on July 4, 1952. After what international organizations universally considered a show trial which began on September 29, 1952 and ended with a guilty verdict and a death sentence on October 3, Fr. Vitchev, two of his Assumptionists companions, Fr. Joseph Chichkov and Fr. Pavel Djidjov, and a Passionist bishop, Most Rev. Eugene Bossilkov, were shot to death, without public notice, at 11:30 PM the evening of November 11, 1952.

Fr. Vitchev was declared a martyr for the faith and beatified by Pope John Paul II in Plovdiv on May 26, 2002.

References

*Guissard, Lucien. "The Assumptionists: From Past to Present", Bayard Publications, 2002 (ISBN 1-58595-207-9).
*Gallay, Pierre. "The Martyrdom of the Three Bulgarian Assumptionists", Bayard Service Edition, 2002.
*Royal, Robert. "The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century: A Comprehensive World History", The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 2000 (ISBN 0-8245-1846-2).
*Holzer, Bernard and Michel, Jean-Baptiste, "Les Rideaux Rouges de Sofia", Editions Bayard, 2003 (ISBN - 2227472219).
*Pope John Paul II, [http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/homilies/2002/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20020526_beatification-plovdiv_en.html homily delivered in Plovdiv, Bulgaria] , May 26, 2002.