PRESOV, SLOVAKIA -- The pastor of a Hermitage church was in Slovakia last month for a beatification conducted by Pope John Paul II that had a local connection.

The pope on Sept. 14 beatified Bishop Basil Hopko, a Byzantine Catholic-Ruthenian Auxiliary Bishop of Presov, Slovakia, in Bratislava.

The Rev. Frank A. Firko, pastor of St. Michael Byzantine, 2230 Highland Road, attended the liturgical ceremony of the translation of the relics (the mortal remains) of the hierarch, who died a martyr's death in July 1976. The Byzantine Catholic Church in Eastern Europe was the target of Soviet Communist aggression and suppression that began in April 1950.

Presov is the mother eparchy, or diocese, of the founders and benefactors of St. Michael's Byzantine Catholic Church, Hermitage. The church's ancestors immigrated to America from the Carpathian Highlands of Eastern Europe around 1885. It was in 1905 that St. Michael Church was founded on Spearman Avenue, Farrell.

The church will mark its centenary milestone in 2005.

"It was a humbling experience as an American being in my ancestral homeland representing our church," said the Rev. Firko. "Paying tribute to the extraordinary life of the heroic virtue of this saintly bishop who so loved Christ and was loyal to his vicar, the bishop of Rome, to the point of consummating his life by martyrdom was truly inspirational and overwhelming."

Rev. Firko's grandparents were from Zemplin County in Slovakia before immigrating to America at the turn of the 20th century. He was appointed as the first postulator, whose charge is gathering information on the proposed candidate, of the Case of Beatification and Canonization of Bishop Hopko.

Beatification canonization can only begin five years after the candidate's death.

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