A Catholic of the Ruthenian rite, St. Josaphat was an apostle of the return of the Orthodox schismatics to the Church of Rome. At the age of twenty he became a Basilian monk, and while still young was made superior of his monastery, then archimandrite of Vilna and finally Archbishop of Polotsk. The young Archbishop’s zeal for the cause of the “uniates” aroused the hatred of the schismatics, and he was murdered by a mob at Vitebsk in 1623 at the age of forty-three. His prayer obtained the conversion of his murderers. He is one of the patrons of Poland.