Andrzej Piotrowski reflects on Fr Konstantin Budkiewicz, 100 years after his murder.
With his balding pate, pince-nez spectacles and boy-like face, Konstantin Budkiewicz may not look much like a hero, and even less a martyr who shed his blood for Christ. And yet 100 years ago this month he met his terrible fate at the hands of the Soviet authorities as part of their violent persecution of the Catholic Church in Russia. But such was the fortitude of his witness that his cause for canonisation was opened in 2003, in the closing years of the pontificate of his fellow Pole Pope John Paul II.
