In the prelude to the Canonization of Acutis and Frassati, they beat in Estonia a martyr archbishop

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, on behalf of Pope Leo XIV, presided this morning the beatification mass of Eduard Profittlich, German Jesuit and first archbishop of Estonia, who died martyr in a Soviet prison in 1942.

This beatification occurred only one day before the canonization of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati, the first saints of Pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, who will be elevated to the altars this Sunday, September 7 in the Vatican.

“For his flock, his sheep, Father Profittlich was willing to give his life,” said Cardinal Schönborn in his homily today, he informs Vatican Newsand highlighted “the joy of Christ” with which the new blessed did.

In the Mass held in the Plaza de la Libertad in Tallin (Estonia), the purple cited a phrase from the Jesuit Archbishop, taken from a letter sent to his family in 1940, when the Soviet troops entered the country and restricted the activity of the Catholic Church:

“It is fair that the pastor stays with his flock and share his joys and sorrows … I am firmly convinced that, if God walks with me, I will never be alone.”

The Archbishop had the option of returning to Germany, but when staying he was arrested in June 1941 with false charges and sent to a Soviet prison, where he died in February 1942.

In those years in Europe, Cardinal Schönborn said, “the unimaginable trigger for the forces of hell” due to “perhaps the most demential war that ever existed”, between Hitler’s Nazi regime and the communist regime of Stalin in the Soviet Union.

“The concentration camps and the Gulags were the expression of the maximum contempt for humanity,” the cardinal continued, highlighting “dignity”, born of faith, with which Profittlich gave himself to his executioners.

The beatification of the archbishop, he added, occurs this September 6 “at a time when old wounds threaten to reopen”, since “war is again part of the bitter daily life” of Europe, due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Cardinal Schönborn also denounced the “World War II to pieces”, which Pope Francis mentioned so many times, and stressed that “the persecution of Christians worldwide is also part of this conflict.”

After pointing out that the testimony of the new Blessed is “particularly precious for the current time” because “it shows the path of the Christian in times of persecution,” the cardinal stressed that “personal holiness is always backed by the holiness of the Church, wife of Christ.”

Who was the martyr Eduard Profittlich?

Eduard Profittlich was a German Jesuit archbishop that was born on September 11, 1890 in the town of Birresdorf, in Rhine (Germany). He was baptized that same day.

According to the website Of the Jesuits, in 1912 he entered the Seminary of Trveris, but after two semesters he left in 1913 to enter the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in the Netherlands, following in the footsteps of his older brother Pedro, a Jesuit missionary who died in Brazil.

He was ordained a priest in 1922, and then served in Germany and Poland. In 1930 he made his last votes as a Jesuit and was sent to Estonia, where he was Apostolic Administrator and then Archbishop.

When the Soviet Union occupied Estonia in 1940, religious freedom was seriously restricted and persecution against the clergy of the Catholic Church intensified.

Although he had the opportunity to return to Germany, he decided to stay in Estonia. He was arrested in June 1941 and forced him to travel about 2,000 kilometers to the Kirov prison. He was sentenced to death on November 21 of that year, after being tried “by a court that started from charges invented from making counterrevolutionary propaganda and antisovietic agitation, and of not informing of ‘counterrevolutionary activities’.”

His appeal was already rejected from the harsh conditions of the prison, Archbishop Profittlich dies on February 22, 1942.

Pope Francis approved the decree which recognizes the martyrdom of the German archbishop on December 18, 2024.