Slovak Village Commemorates 50th Anniversary of Blessed Bishop Vasil Hopko's Death

The village of Hrabské commemorated the 50th anniversary of the death of Blessed Vasil Hopko, a Greek Catholic bishop who became a martyr under Slovakia's former communist regime. Blessed Vasil Hopko was a prominent figure in the Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia, one of the country's recognized religious minorities that follows Eastern Christian traditions while maintaining communion with Rome. He suffered persecution during the communist era, when religious leaders faced imprisonment, harassment, and worse for their faith and opposition to the atheist state ideology that dominated Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1989.