Part 17 - Trial of Jan Cieplak, Archbishop of Vilnius

Black and white print

An image of the trial of Jan Cieplak, the Archbishop of Vilnius, and other Russian Catholic priests, at a revolutionary tribunal in Moscow in March 1923. The photograph was taken and captioned (below) by Francis McCullagh (1874-1956), an Irish journalist who reported on the trial for the ‘New York Herald’. The caption is taken from a letter from McCullagh extant in letter book at CA CP/3/1/1/5. Several of McCullagh’s photographs relating to the Russian Civil War and the foundation of the Soviet Union are extant in the photographic volume.

The caption reads ‘Archbishop Cieplak and the Catholic priests in their trial before the Red Revolutionary Tribunal in Moscow. The three judges are sitting together at the end of the court and the priests are on their right. Monsignor Budkiewicz is standing up and being interrogated / Francis McCullagh’.

Monsignor Konstantin Budkiewicz served as Archbishop Cieplak’s vicar general. Both clerics were convicted of conspiracy and anti-Soviet agitation by the tribunal and were sentenced to death. While Archbishop Cieplak was released following an international campaign, Budkiewicz was executed in Lubyanka Prison in Moscow on 31 March 1923. Cieplak and Budkiewicz are now venerated by Catholics particularly in Eastern Europe. Both have been declared Servants of God by the church while their causes continue to be investigated for possible canonization as saints.

For biographical information on Francis McCullagh (1874-1956) see https://www.dib.ie/biography/mccullagh-francis-a5634