Walter Ciszek

Walter Ciszek

Walter Ciszek was born on November 4, 1908 in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

He was the 7^th of 13 Children.

His Parents were Polish Catholic Immigrants who came to the US in the 1890s.

Ciszek entered the Jesuit nNovitiate in Hyde Park, New York in 1928.

The following year, he Volunteered to serve as a Missionary to the Soviet Union where the Communist Bolshevik Revolution had taken place 12 years before.

Christians were being openly persecuted there, and few Believers had access to a Priest.

Pope Pius XI made an appeal to Priests from around the world to go to the Soviet Union as Missionaries.

In 1934, Ciszek was sent to Rome to study Theology, Russian, the History of Russia and Liturgy at the Pontifical Russian College (or 'Russicum'), a Jesuit-run Seminary established to train Priests of the Russian Greek Catholic Church for Missionary Work in the Soviet Union and the Russian Diaspora.

In 1937, Ciszek was ordained a Priest in the Byzantine Rite (Orthodox Christian) in Rome and took the name Vladimir.

In 1938, Ciszek was sent to the Jesuit Mission in Albertyn in eastern Poland.

With the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland and forced him to close his Mission.

Arriving in Lwów, Poland (Present-Day Lviv, Ukraine) he realized that it would be easy for a Priest to enter the Soviet Union amid the streams of Exiles going east.

 After securing the permission of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, he crossed the Border in 1940 under the assumed identity of Władymyr Łypynski.

 With two of his fellow Jesuits, he traveled 1,500 miles by train to the logging town of Chusovoy, in the Ural Mountains.

For one year, he worked as an unskilled Logger while discreetly performing Religious Ministry.

Ciszek was arrested in 1941 under false accusations of Espionage for Nazi Germany and the Vatican.

To his shock, the NKVD (the USSR's Secret Police before the KGB) already knew his real name and that he was an American Citizen and a Catholic Priest because one of his Fellow Seminarians at the Vatican, Alexander Kurtna, was a Soviet Spy.

He was then sent to the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, the NKVD's National Headquarters.

 He spent 5 years there, most of them in Solitary Confinement.

 In 1942, he signed a Confession of Espionage under severe Torture and was sentenced to 15 years of Hard Labor in the Gulag.

In 1946, he was sent by train to Krasnoyarsk then 20 days by boat north on the Yenisei River until reaching 300 miles above the Arctic Circle at the City of Norilsk, the center of the Labor Camp Complex known as Norillag.

 There, Ciszek was forced to load coal onto Freighter Vessels and later transferred to working in coal mines located in the Permafrost.

A year later, he was sent to work on the construction of a Nickel, Copper, Cobalt, Platinum, and Palladium Ore Refinery.

From 1953 to 1955, he worked in the Mines.

Throughout his lengthy Imprisonment, Ciszek continued to Pray, to offer both the Tridentine Mass (Latin Catholic Mass) and the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy (Orthodox Christian Mass), to hear Confessions, conduct retreats and perform secret and illegal Parish Ministry.

By April 22, 1955, Ciszek's Sentence was complete, and he was released with the Restriction to live only in the City of Norilsk. At this time, he was able to write to his Sisters in the US.

Until he was allowed to write to the US in 1955 (due to loosening of Restrictions dur to Stalin’s Death in 1953) , he was presumed dead by both his Family and the Society of Jesus.

After setting up a Catholic Parish in Norilsk, Ciszek was ordered by the KGB in 1958 to move to Krasnoyarsk, where he secretly established several nearby Mission Parishes.

 After the KGB learned of this, he was forcibly transferred to Abakan, 99 miles to the south, where he worked as an Automobile Mechanic for 4 more years.

In 1963, he received a Letter from his Sisters in the US.

Several months later, the Soviet Union decided to return him (and American Student Marvin Makinen) to the US in exchange for two Soviet Agents.

Ciszek was not aware that 2 US Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, had both been demanding his Repatriation since the arrival of his first letter to his Sisters in 1955.

 He remained oblivious until he was flown to Moscow and delivered to a US State Department Official, who told him that he was still an American Citizen.

After nearly 23 years of Imprisonment, Ciszek was released with American Student Marvin Makinen on October 12, 1963. In exchange, the Soviets received GRU Agents Ivan Dmitrievich Egorov and his Wife Alexandra Egorova, whom the FBI had arrested for Espionage in July 1963.

In 1965, Ciszek began working and Lecturing at the John XXIII Center at Fordham University (now the Center for Eastern Christian Studies at the University of Scranton in Scranton, Pennsylvania), counseling and offering Spiritual direction to those who visited him.

Ciszek wrote two books about his experiences, “With God in Russia” and “He Leadeth Me”.

“With God in Russia” was the book of his experiences he wrote in 1964 at the request of his Superiors” “He Leadeth Me” was his book of Spiritual insights from his time in Russia that he wrote and released on his own initiative in 1973.

On December 8, 1984, Ciszek died in New York City, New York after many years of declining health and was buried at the Jesuit Cemetery in Wernersville, Pennsylvania.

He was 80 years old.