Michael SopoÃÂko ( ; 1 November 1888 â 15 February 1975) was a Polish Catholic priest and professor at Vilnius University. He is best known as the spiritual director of Faustina Kowalska. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.
SopoÃÂko was born to Polish parents in 1888 in Yusawshchyna (also known as Navasady) near Valozhyn within the Russian Empire, now Belarus. He entered Vilnius Priest Seminary in 1910 and was ordained in 1914. He was a priest in Vilnius (1914âÂÂ1918) and then a chaplain in the army in Warsaw and Vilnius during World War I. After obtaining his doctorate in theology in 1926, he became the spiritual director at the seminary in Vilnius and, in 1928, professor of pastoral theology at Stefan Batory University, in Vilnius.
SopoÃÂko was very supportive of the Divine Mercy devotion of Faustina Kowalska and in her diary (Notebook V, item 1238) she stated: "This priest is a great soul, entirely filled with God." Since 1931 Kowalska had been trying (without success) to find someone to paint the Divine Mercy image until SopoÃÂko became her confessor in the middle of 1933. By January 1934, SopoÃÂko arranged for the artist Eugeniusz Kazimirowski (who was also a professor at the university) to paint the image.
On Friday 26 April 1935 SopoÃÂko delivered the first sermon ever on the Divine Mercy â and Kowalska attended the sermon. The first Mass during which the Divine Mercy image was displayed was on 28 April 1935, the Divine Mercy Sunday (the first after Easter). SopoÃÂko managed to obtain permission to place the painting within the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius as he celebrated the Mass that Sunday.
In the summer of 1936, SopoÃÂko wrote the first brochure on the Divine Mercy devotion and obtained the imprimatur of Archbishop Jaà Âbrzykowski for it. The brochure carried the Divine Mercy image on the cover.
In 1942 during World War II, SopoÃÂko and other professors and students had to go into hiding near Vilnius for about two years. However, he used the time to establish a new religious congregation, based on the Divine Mercy messages reported by Kowalska. After the war, SopoÃÂko wrote the constitution for the congregation and helped the formation of what is now the Congregation of the Sisters of Merciful Jesus.
In an entry in on 8 February 1935, (Notebook I, item 378), Kowalska had written that the Divine Mercy devotion would be suppressed for some time after her death but then be accepted again although SopoÃÂko would suffer for it. In 1959, the Vatican forbade the Divine Mercy devotion and censured SopoÃÂko. In 1965 Karol Wojtyà Âa, then Archbishop of Kraków and later Pope John Paul II, opened a new investigation and submitted documents in 1968, which resulted in the reversal of the ban in 1978.
After the Second World War, when the boundaries of Poland had changed so much, SopoÃÂko left Vilnius. Until 1962, he had been a professor of pastoral theology at the seminary in Biaà Âystok. Meanwhile, he wrote a book Mià Âosierdzie Boga w dzieà Âach Jego (Mercy of God in His works) in four volumes. He died on 15 February 1975 in Biaà Âystok, Poland, and was buried there. In 1988, his remains were transferred to the Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Biaà Âostoczek.
SopoÃÂko's case for beatification was started at the Vatican in 1987. In 2004, Pope John Paul II issued a decree on SopoÃÂko's virtues. In December 2007, Pope Benedict XVI approved of a miracle through his intercession. His solemn beatification took place on 28 September 2008 at the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy, in Biaà Âystok. An estimated 80,000 people attended, including the Polish president, Lech Kaczyà Âski, and the speaker of the Parliament of Poland, Bronislaw Komorowski.