Bishop Tomáš Galis of Žilina, Slovakia, inaugurated a jubilee year in honor of Father Vendelin Javorka, S.J. (1882-1966) as his beatification process begins
In 1925, the Jesuit superior general summoned Father Javorka to Rome to prepare for missionary work in Russia. Father Javorka became the first rector of the Russicum College and subsequently ministered to Russian émigrés in China and Greek Catholics in Romania, where he was captured by the Red Army.
Following ten years in the Gulag for the crime of being a “Vatican spy,” Father Javorka spent the rest of his life under police surveillance in his native land.