Josaphat Kuntsevych

Josaphat lived in the 16th century during a period of great inter-Christian conflict. The king of Poland was trying to drive out the Eastern Orthodox Church by having Catholic bishops, like Josaphat, arrest Orthodox priests. One autumn day, Josaphat was trying to do precisely that, until up rose a mob of Orthodox townspeople. They hit him on the head with a stick, then split his skull with an axe, then shot him in the face, then dragged his body — and the body of a dog who’d tried to protect him — through the city streets. It certainly sounds like neither side was in the right, but the Catholics had the last word: a few months later, 93 Orthodox were sentenced to death for Josaphat’s killing.

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