Tarsykiya Matskiv ( uk, Тарсикія Мацьків; 23 March 1919 – 17 July 1944) was an ethnic Ukrainian Greek Catholic

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

and

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

. Matskiv was born in

Khodoriv Khodoriv ( uk, Ходорів; pl, Chodorów) is a city in Stryi Raion, Lviv Oblast of western Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Khodoriv urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Its population is approximately . The city was fir ...

Lwów Voivodeship Lwów Voivodeship ( pl, Województwo lwowskie) was an administrative unit of interwar Poland (1918–1939). Because of the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in accordance with the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, it became occupied by both the Wehr ...

(now

Lviv Oblast Lviv Oblast ( uk, Льві́вська о́бласть, translit=Lvivska oblast, ), also referred to as Lvivshchyna ( uk, Льві́вщина, ), ). The name of each oblast is a wikt:Appendix:Glossary#relational, relational adjective—in Englis ...

). She entered the Sister Servants of Mary Immaculate on 3 May 1938.
Biographies of twenty five Greek-Catholic Servants of God
' at the website of the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

She took her first vows on 5 November 1940, and worked in her

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

,Beatification of the Servants of God on June 27, 2001
'' at the website of the

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , native_name_lang = uk , caption_background = , image = StGeorgeCathedral Lviv.JPG , imagewidth = , type = Particular church (sui iuris) , alt = , caption = St. George's C ...

'' sewing clothes for the sisters and teaching others the skill. Even before the arrival of the

Soviet Army uk, Радянська армія , image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg , alt = , caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army , start_date ...

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

, she took vows before her spiritual director, Volodymyr Kovalyk, that she would give up her life for the conversion of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and for the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. On 17 July 1944 at around 8 a.m., a Russian soldier rang the convent door. When Matskiv answered the door, expecting to see a priest who was supposed to celebrate the liturgy, she was shot without warning and died. It was later said that she was shot simply "because she was a nun".Alan Butler, Paul Burns. ''Butler's lives of the saints''. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005. p77 She was

beatified Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their nam ...

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

on 27 June 2001.

Quote

"Suddenly the bell rang. We thought it was the priest. Sister Tarsykiia opened the door, asked Sister Maria for the key to the front door and went to the main entrance. Then a shot rang out and Sister Tarsykiia fell down dead. The soldier who shot her dead did not really explain why he did it. Later they said that he said he killed her because she was a nun." - From the testimony Sister Daria Hradiuk.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Matskiv Tarsykiya 1919 births 1944 deaths Members of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Ukrainian beatified people Ukrainian people executed by the Soviet Union 20th-century Eastern Catholic martyrs Soviet nuns People from Khodoriv People executed by the Soviet Union by firearm Executed Ukrainian people Eastern Catholic beatified people Ukrainian nuns 20th-century Eastern Catholic nuns