catholicmartyrs - Sr. Rosa of the Heart of Mary (Jentkiewicz), OPL

Galina Fadeevna Jentkievicz was born on the 24 of May 1896 in Vitebsk province, into a family of Polish origin. She completed upper-level courses of instruction for women and then professed as a nun in the Community of Third Order Dominican Sisters led by Mother Catherine Abrikosov. She took as her religious name Sr. Rosa of the Heart of Mary. In 1923, she was arrested and sentenced to five years of captivity. Subsequently, she was sentenced to three years of exile after which she was forbidden to live in the six major cities. In 1935, Sr. Rosa was arrested again in Maloyaroslavets in connection with the case against the Catholic clergy, but she was found innocent. In 1942 she was sent to care for one of the Sisters who was ill in the village of Novo-Shulba in Semipalatinsk province in Kazakhstan, where she died from a serious illness, on the 10th of January 1944.

Sr. Rosa of the Heart of Mary consciously accepted all suffering for Christ, in fulfilling the vow which she had made before her arrest. In this vow she had offered her life to God as a sacrifice for the salvation of Russia. More than once she refused the possibility of leaving to join her family in Poland, in order to fulfill her vow. To the end of her life Sr. Rosa of the Heart of Mary kept fidelity to her Catholic faith and to her monastic calling.

Among the faithful in Russia and among the Dominican Sisters in Poland there is a belief in the sanctity of Sr. Rosa of the Heart of Mary, and in her martyrdom. There are publications devoted to her.