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12History
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DOI: 10.17223/23451785/1/3
Prisoner of Dachau Hieromonk Feodosii (Rosokha)
Ju. V. Danilets
Uzhgorod National University 3 Narodna Sq., Uzhgorod, 88000, Ukraine E-mail: jurijdanilec@rambler.ru
BtoeHb Aaxay iep0M0Hax 0eodociu (Pocoxa)
№. B. P,aHuneu,b
Published in: Rusin. 2011. Vol. 24. Is. 2. pp. 87-103 (In Ukrainian).
URL: http://journals.tsu.ru/rusin/&journal_ page=archive&id=1222&article_id=20700
Hieromonk Theodosius was born on April 11, 1903, the son of Ivan and Anna Rosokha in the village of Nyzhniy Bystry in Khust district. In 1913 - 1914, the Hungarian government began to prepare a lawsuit against the Orthodox Transcarpathians. Toma Rosokha's family did not avoid persecution either. The boy's father and mother were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, his grandfather was killed by gendarmes.
During World War I Toma had to be a farm hand and since 1918 he worked in forestry in the villages of Gumennoye, Dragovo, Dolgoye, Svaliava and Nizhny Bystry. On April 26, 1924, he became a novice monk at St. Nicholas monastery in Iza village. On July 9, 1927, T. Rosokha took monastic vows under the name of Theodosius, in honor of the Venerable Theodosius, Father Superior of Kiev-Pechersk. On October 7, 1928, he was elevated to the rank of the Hierodeacon, and on March 2, 1929 to the priesthood (Hieromonk). The first parish which was served by Father Theodosius, was in v. Rebrin near Michalovce in Slovakia. In 1931 he was transferred to v. Volovets to serve the parish of v. Kanora. In Volovets he held two posts: of the parish priest and a teacher in the local school. He taught geography, history and mathematics in 5th and 6th grades, and his monthly salary was 650 Slovak korunas (krones).
In March 1939, Transcarpathia was occupied by Hungary. Magyars arrived in Volovets on March 15 in the evening. The priest was arrested
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and then put under house imprisonment due to his refusal to greet the Hungarian troops.
In October 1939, Father Theodosius wrote a letter to the Commander of the Soviet border guards and offered his assistance. The priest was nicknamed Daniil. He had to pass intelligence information to the guerrillas on the 20th of every month. The underground group collected information on the movements of Hungarian troops and the location of their facilities.
On May 24, 1941 he was arrested and sent to Budapest to prison Morgitkerut. Then they transferred him to the town of Vac where he was court-martialed and sentenced to death. Later the death penalty was commuted to hard labour for life. In case of amnesty he was prohibited to live in borderland; besides, for ten years he lost the right to serve and was deprived of his political rights for good.
After that he was sent from Vac to the Dachau concentration camp. The food ration in the camp was very scanty: the morning portion consisted of 100 grams of bread with impurities and 200 grams of straw tea without sugar. Lunch consisted of half a litre of potato peel soup or pea soup.
Prisoners worked all the time, they used to weave rugs of 25 - 30 cm width.
On April 29, 1945, American soldiers entered the camp. All the atrocities committed in the camp by German soldiers and their collaborators are described in Theodosius' (Rosokha) memoirs.
After his release from the camp, Father Theodosius (Rosokha) left the monkhood. He held various offices, including the position of the head of the "Carpaty" spa resort.
Father Theodosius died in Uzhgorod on Apri 14, 1983.
Keywords
Subcarpathian Rus', hieromonk, prisoner, camp, Dachau.
