Michael Sopocko

Blessed Michael Sopoćko
Father Michał Sopoćko
Priest
Born	1 November 1888 Juszewszczyzna, Ashmyany, Poland
Died	15 February 1975(1975-02-15) (aged 86) Białystok, Poland
Beatified	28 September 2008, Białystok, Poland by Cardinal Angelo Amato
Attributes	Cassock
Patronage	Białystok

Blessed Michael (in Polish: Michał) Sopoćko ([mʲiˈxaw ˈsɔpɔt͡ɕkɔ]; November 1, 1888 – February 15, 1975) was a Roman Catholic priest and professor at Vilnius University. He is best known as the spiritual director of Saint Faustina Kowalska.

He was born in 1888 in Juszewszczyzna (also known as Nowosady) near Valozhyn in present-day Belarus. He entered Vilnius Priest Seminary in 1910 and was ordained in 1914. He was a priest in Vilnius (1914–1918), then a chaplain in the army in Warsaw and Vilnius during World War I. After obtaining his doctorate in theology in 1926 he became the spiritual director at the seminary in Vilnius. and 1928 professor of pastoral theology at Stefan Batory University in Vilnius.

Father Sopoćko was very supportive of the Divine Mercy devotion of Faustina Kowalska and in her diary (Notebook V, item 1238) she stated: "This priest is a great soul, entirely filled with God." Since 1931 Faustina had been trying (without success) to find someone to paint the Divine Mercy image until Sopoćko became her confessor in the middle of 1933. By January 1934 Sopocko arranged for the artist Eugeniusz Kazimirowski (who was also a professor at the university) to paint the image.

On Friday April 26, 1935 Sopoćko delivered the first sermon ever on the Divine Mercy - and Faustina attended the sermon. The first Mass during which the Divine Mercy image was displayed was on April 28, 1935, the Divine Mercy Sunday (the first after Easter). Sopoćko managed to obtain permission to place the Divine Mercy image within the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius as he celebrated the Mass that Sunday.