GIOSAFAT, saint. — Archbishop, martyr, born in 1580 at Vladimir in Volhynia, died on 12 November 1623 at Vitebsk.
S. G. (whose family name was Giovanni Kuncewicz) was born into a noble but impoverished “Orthodox” family. He worked as a merchant’s clerk in Vilna, where he joined the ecclesiastical union concluded at that time at Brest. In 1604 he took the monastic habit, adopting the name G., in the Basilian monastery of the Most Holy Trinity at Vilna, as the first novice of the first Basilian monastery opened after the union. In 1609 he was ordained a priest and became superior of the new monasteries at Byten, Żyrovice, and finally Vilna.
On 12 November 1917 the united metropolitan Veljamin Rutskij, his fellow novice, consecrated him bishop of Vitebsk and appointed him coadjutor to Gedeone Brolnichi, archbishop of Polock, whom he succeeded the following year. He devoted himself to the reform of the clergy and to the instruction of the people with such great success that he aroused the hatred of the dissidents led by the schismatic archbishop Melezio Smotryckij. During a pastoral visit to Vitebsk, the crowd, incited by the schismatic demagogues, attacked Archbishop G. in his palace and killed him with blows from clubs and axes.
His desecrated body was thrown into the Dvina River. When it was recovered, it was buried in the cathedral of Polock. G. was beatified on 16 May 1643 and canonized on 29 June 1867, precisely while persecution against Catholics of the Eastern rite was raging in Russia. Because of the wars, his body was transferred first to Biala (Poland) and then to Vienna, to the church of S. Barbara of the united. The martyrdom and cult of S. G. contributed greatly to the spread and consolidation of the ecclesiastical union of Brest. His feast is celebrated on 12 November.