by KILIAN DE LACY
In September 1952, in Bulgaria, a group of people stood accused of being “members of an espionage and conspiracy organisation . . . preparing an imperialist war against the USSR, Bulgaria and other countries of popular democracy”.
Peter Vitchev, born in 1893, belonged to an Eastern rite church. Following his schooling, he joined the Assumptionists in Gemp and received the name Kamen. In 1921, he was ordained priest in the Eastern Rite.
Following studies in Rome and Bulgaria, he served as rector, dean of studies and a lecturer in philosophy at the College of St Augustine in Plovidiv until 1948, when the communists closed it.
Fr Kamen governed with authority and engendered respect from students. Appointed provincial vicar of the Bulgarian Assumptionists, he foresaw a terrible future for priests and religious in Bulgaria and led opposition to the regime.
Joseph Djidjov was born of Latin rite parents in 1919. When, in 1938, he entered the Assumptionist novitiate, he took the name of Pavel. An outgoing young man, athletic and with a good sense of humour, he was dedicated to educating young people, something he continued after his ordination in 1945. He worked with Fr Kamen in the college and in the congregation and showed courage defending the rights of his congregation and the Church. He, too, foresaw the trials ahead.
Robert Chichov was also born into the Latin rite in 1884. After the minor seminary of the Assumptionists, he began his novitiate and took the name Josaphat. In July 1909 he was ordained priest for the Latin rite in Belgium.
Returning to his home country, he served in the college, as parish priest and chaplain. He was full of energy and learning. His life could be summed up as: “We seek to do as well as we can in order to sanctify ourselves without seeming to do so.”
The communists abused and tortured the three priests and 37 other priests, religious and laity. The sentence, in October 1952, declared the three “guilty of having organised and directed in Bulgaria, since September 9, 1944, until the summer of 1952, a clandestine
organisation, a secret service agency of the pope and of imperialists”, and condemned them to “death by firing squad with privation of their rights. . .”.
Only in 1989 was it verified that the three had been shot on November 11, 1952, in Sofia’s central prison.