Spies, Siberia, and the American Connection: Divine Mercy after St. Faustina Died

What happened after St. Faustina died of tuberculosis in 1938? While many know the general story of the saint’s life, few know of the events involved in spreading the Divine Mercy message after her death. In fact, these involved war and epic journeys across Lithuania, Russia, Japan and finally America. How did the saint’s confessor, Bl. Michal Sopoćko, against all odds, organize the smuggling of the Divine Mercy message out of Europe during World War II?

With war on all sides, and his own life under threat, Fr. Sopoćko had continued to speak about the Divine Mercy, in Vilnius. He gave sermons, ran prayer groups, and had some copies made of the Divine Mercy picture and prayers. He escaped many attempts at arrest.

The problem remained, however: How could he get these materials out of war-torn Europe? It so happened that a certain Fr. Joseph Jarzębowski (1897–1964), fleeing the invading Germans in western Poland, came eastward to Vilnius in 1940 and stayed at his order’s house in Mariampole, Lithuania, hoping to get to America.¹ His order was the Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, a Catholic male religious congregation founded in 1670, in Poland by Saint Stanisław Papcynski. It was the very first order dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. This order has spread to many countries, and is now known as the Marians of the Immaculate Conception or the MICs in the United States.² This “American connection” played a central role in the dissemination of the Divine Mercy story outside Eastern Europe and to the entire world.

How did this happen? When in Vilnius, the fleeing priest Fr. Jarzębowski heard about Fr. Sopoćko and the amazing Divine Mercy events. He went to visit Fr. Sopoćko (who along with Fr. Andrasz, had been the saint’s confessor, the former in Vilnius, the latter in Krakow) who told Fr. Jarzębowski all about it. We can safely say this listening priest was bowled over. Then there was a most dramatic twist. St. Faustina’s biographer Ewa Czaczkowska puts it this way: “Fr. Sopoćko made one of the most consequential decisions in Catholic history: giving key materials concerning Faustina’s revelations to a Marian priest who was trying to get out of Europe.”³ Fr. Sopoćko asked his fellow priest to take materials pertaining to them to America! Remember this was late 1940 with invading Soviet and German armies, bombs and uncertainty on all sides. Fr. Sopoćko gave Fr. Jarzębowski a small copy of the original image, a copy of everything he had written on the revelations and devotion to the Divine Mercy, including his statement sent to Rome in Latin, and most importantly, Christ’s request for the need for establishment of the feast of Divine Mercy. All was packed into two small bags in which, one might say, hung the fate of the devotion which was to spread around the world.

The two priests concelebrated Mass before the original Divine Mercy image in Vilnius. Then came the amazing journey worthy of a Steven Spielberg thriller. The plan was for 43-year-old Fr. Jarzębowski to go to America via Lithuania, Russia, and Japan, traveling via Siberia, Vladivostok, and Nagasaki. No mean feat! Fr. Jarzębowski left Vilnius for another major Lithuanian town, Kaunas, in early 1941, and departed from here on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 26, 1941, at 3 p.m. — the Hour of Great Mercy. He had boarded the train with an expired U.S. visa and no Japanese transit visa. Before he left, however, he managed to get an exit permit from the Soviets in what could be called an early Divine Mercy miracle. This was all the more remarkable as the Soviets were to kill nearly all the members of the MIC order in Lithuania and Latvia.

As related by Ewa K. Czaczkowska, Fr. Jarzębowski had members of the Soviet Secret Police (the old KGB, then called NKVD) nearby in every carriage of the train in which he traveled.⁴ The NKVD asked him about his not having a Japanese visa, and Fr. Jarzębowski told them it was waiting in Vladivostok, as he sincerely hoped it was. And somehow they let this pass. Just imagine the train carrying Divine Mercy materials hurtling across the Siberian vastness with Soviet officials hostile to Christianity in each carriage, who had no idea what was happening. And yet they were instruments in God’s plan in the spread of the message!

When the train reached Vladivostok, Fr. Jarzębowski found that the Japanese Consulate had closed at 3pm — he had arrived there a bit late. He was dismayed. Banging on the door, he pleaded with an official, a lawyer working there who happened to be Jewish, to be allowed in and get a visa.⁵ Fr. Jarzębowski recalls saying the Divine Mercy chaplet as best he could. As it turned out, the Jewish lawyer, Bialogorski, did let him in. And the consulate in Vladivostok decided to grant the visa for Japan after inspecting his expired U.S. visa and somehow deeming it to be in order, even though it had an expired date on it.

As he boarded the ship in Vladivostok, Customs (remember this was Communist Russia) were confiscating crosses and religious books. Again, Fr. Jarzębowski prayed to the Divine Mercy. The Customs officer who examined his luggage, took out the priest’s breviary, and somehow found its prayer cards quaint and just let them go. He did not even check the second bag containing the Divine Mercy materials! This resulted in the Divine Mercy prayers, documents, and pictures being carried on an overcrowded ship with 500 people (meant to take 80) from Vladivostok, via Japan — and then on to the U.S. After he reached Nagasaki, Fr. Jarzębowski gave a retreat to the Franciscans there, and arrived in Seattle in May 1941.

It had taken four months and Fr. Jarzębowski was exhausted and somewhat worse for wear. He had prayed Divine Mercy prayers every day. And through this connection of Saint Faustina, Fr. Sopoćko, and Fr. Jarzębowski, the Divine Mercy devotion had arrived in America and was ready to be launched to the world. Father Jarzębowski traveled to Washington, D.C., and then to Michigan. After a retreat he conducted for the Felician Sisters at their Motherhouse in Enfield, CT, he asked the Sisters if they would print, in Polish, the Divine Mercy Novena, Litany, and Chaplet. This modest, black-and-white edition — 2,000 copies in all — quickly sold out, and not long after, as Fr. Michael Gaitley puts it in his compilation of Congregation history, “thanksgivings to Divine Mercy began to pour in.”⁶

At the Immaculate Conception novitiate in Stockbridge, the Mercy of God Apostolate was established, which grew into today’s National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, the spiritual home of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception in the U.S. and recognized as the headquarters of Divine Mercy in America.

The Divine Mercy devotion continued to arouse interest and several people helped in the early stages. Fr. Walter Pelczynski, MIC (then a seminarian) spread the devotions. By Oct. 8, 1942, the MICs had received an Imprimatur from Archbishop Michael J. Curley of Baltimore, MD, to print a Polish edition of the Chaplet, Novena, image, and an article by Fr. Jarzębowski. An English translation, called “Novena to the Mercy of God,” was published in 50,000 copies in 1943. The Felician Sisters in Michigan and Connecticut continued to help with the printing and copies of the Novena and prayers.

Meanwhile in Poland, in 1947. Fr. Andrasz (who, as previously noted, had also been St Faustina’s confessor and was still in Poland) published “Mercy of God, we trust in you” with an early biographical note about the future saint. This contained firsthand accounts of meeting Sr. Faustina and how the devotions to the Divine Mercy had spread in Poland, to Bavaria, Lithuania, Germany, France, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Iran, Palestine, and Egypt. Fr. Andrasz makes a comment that it even reached Mexico and Australia!

Then it all stopped! In 1959, from the Vatican, there came a total ban on the Divine Mercy devotion and writing about it. An Italian nun had done an early translation of Sr. Faustina’s writings, which was faulty, as the translator did not know how to render many of the relevant theological expressions into Italian. But in 1965, toward the end of the second Vatican Council, a certain Bishop Karol Wojtyła asked the Congregation of the Holy Office if this ban precluded looking into the life and virtues of this sister. Would it prevent her becoming a saint? Cardinal Ottaviani replied by encouraging the gathering of information and the initial informative process into Sr. Faustina’s life.

Interestingly, Pope St. John XXIII also played a great role in encouraging it. Father Chris Alar, MIC, tells the story of opposition within the Vatican to the events and devotion to the Divine Mercy. He relates that a pile of documents was left on the Pope John XXIII’s desk and the ones pertaining to the Divine Mercy were placed at the bottom by those dealing with his mail. The Pope would be tired and less likely to read it all through. But then a strange event occurred — the Holy Spirit blows where and when He will. The Pope came into his office and turned the pile upside down on his desk, and read of the Divine Mercy events first. He thought the whole matter was significant and merited more investigation.⁷

In 1967, Bishop Karol Wojtyła submitted a number of documents about Sr. Faustina to the Vatican and requested the start of the official process of her beatification. That was begun in 1968 and concluded with her beatification on 18 April 1993 and canonization in 2000.

Meanwhile, throughout the 1970s, copied pages of the original diary were smuggled out of Poland by Father Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, who became deeply involved with the Divine Mercy movement and helped get an accurate translation done. Recall that in Soviet times the promoting of any such religious work in Poland would have been prevented. The MIC order bought the copyright from the Polish Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, as the latter saw to it that the original documents would be accurately printed and protected.

Then events moved quickly. The Vatican ban was lifted in April 1978, by Pope St. Paul VI, before St. John Paul II became Pope. With an accurate account of the diary, the first edition was published in Poland in 1981, then in Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, German, Russian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Arabic, Chinese (in the works), Croatian, Finnish, Tagalog, Thai, Ukrainian, and Slovenian. The English translation was published in 1987.

There were many American priests and members of the laity who helped in these early days of the Divine Mercy devotion and still do to this day. More recently Fr. Chris Alar has given many talks (available on YouTube) on several aspects of the Divine Mercy story, from its earliest days. They are well worth listening to.

It had been a long process, but without Fr. Jarzębowski risking his life, it would not have happened. About him Bishop Ciereszko wrote:

Thanks to him and his participation the translated works on Divine Mercy by Fr. Sopoćko were published in the West. Among these works was the memorandum “De Misericordia Dei deque eiusdem festo instituendo” (the establishment of the feast of mercy) and “Tractatus dogmaticus ac liturgicus” (treaty, dogmatic and liturgical) published in Detroit in 1943.⁸

The extraordinary escape by the Marian priest Fr. Jarzębowski from war-torn Europe to America in 1941 echoed the miraculous events, ongoing drama, and unfathomable mercy surrounding Christ’s visible appearance to a simple nun during the previous decade. And the role of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception is a grand part of the story. Their Divine Mercy center has become what one can call the world epicenter for the spread of Divine Mercy. They are the publishers of St. Faustina’s diary, Divine Mercy in My Soul, in many languages. Their printing presses produce religious artwork, pamphlets, magazines, prayer cards, books, and appeals — some 50 million pieces of literature and images a year.

It was only three years after the death of Saint Faustina that the Divine Mercy came to America. Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, was later to claim, “The Divine Mercy message and devotion is the largest grassroots movement in the history of the Catholic Church.” From Poland and America, the sparks flew to every corner of our world yearning for mercy and healing. And the sparks continue to fly without ceasing.