BISHOP’S LAST HOURS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18851, 2 May 1923, Page 7

BISHOP’S LAST HOURS

SHOT IN A CELLAR.

SECRET POLICE VICTIM,

LONDON, April 16.

How the Bishop of Budkiewicz went to his death at Moscow, where he was sentenced by a Soviet Court for seeking to embroil Russia with the V atican and with foreign countries, is told by the Riga correspondent of The Times. After sentence the Archbishop Tzieplak and the bishop were conducted to isolated cells in the Cheka (secret police) prison. Both requested permission to see other condemned priests before their death, but the commandant said that the sentences would probably be commuted and therefore refused the request. When Archbishop Tzieplak learned that his sentence was commuted he inquired as to the bishop’s fate, but the secret police roughly told him to mind his own business.

The commandant- next told the bishop that his, sentence had been confirmed, and he then asked permission to see the archbishop to receive the sacrament. The commandant arranged a meeting for the next morning, but the secret police appeared evening and said that their orders were to execute the sentence immediately. They gave the bishop 10 minutes’ solitude and then took him to cellar, warning him that if he raised his voice other priests would be shot. The bishop crossed himself and whispered prayer on the way to the cellar, •where lie was placed facing a wall and bullets from a revolver fired into his head.