Blessed Omelian (Emiliano) Kovch (August 20, 1884 - March 25, 1944) was a Catholic priest of the Greek-Ukrainian rite killed in the Majdanek concentration camp.
He was born in a family of peasants in the village of Tlumach, in the Kosiv region, located in western Ukraine. He was ordained a priest in 1911 after finishing his studies at the College of S. Sergio and S. Baco, in Rome. From 1921 to 1943 he was parish priest of the church of S. Nicolás, in the village of Peremyshliany. He was married and father of six children.
In the spring of 1943, the Gestapo arrested him for harboring Jews. On March 25, 1944, he was gassed at the Majdanek concentration camp, near Lublin, Poland.
On September 9, 1999, the Jewish Council of Ukraine named him "fair of Ukraine".
His beatification took place on July 27, 2001 in Lviv, during the liturgical ceremony in the Byzantine rite presided over by Pope John Paul II.
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