Franciscan Borivoj Mioč
Fr. Borivoj Mioč
He was born in Livno on November 20, 1907 to father Pero and mother Anđa née Deronja. He graduated from the classical Franciscan gymnasium in Visoko and Franciscan theology in Sarajevo. In 1932 he was ordained to the priesthood. He served as parish vicar in Rama, Šćit and Tuzla. He was a pastor in Žeravac near Derventa, Vidoš near Livno and finally in Ljubunčić. In May 1944, Partisans shod him like a horse, tortured and then killed him.
Borivoj Mioč became a martyr in May 1944, which means that the Independent State of Croatia existed for a whole year after that, in which numerous newspapers were published, which also wrote about martyred priests. Hence, we present the report that the Vrhbosna (1944) published from the pen of Franciscan Father Vjekoslav Zirdum:
New victims of the Bosnian Franciscans
History will record their names. Names of people who are victims of love and loyalty to the Croatian people and the Catholic Church. They stayed with their people in the hard times to share their fate and to be witnesses and evidence of their suffering. Their presence refreshed and encouraged the wavering and the weak, and their deaths are the pinnacle of unadulterated compassion and sympathy.
Franciscan Father Borivoj Mioč, parish priest in Ljubunčić near Livno
At the height of his powers, at the age of 37, he disappeared from among his confreres and his flock. This man of God always came to all to comfort and strengthen them, to heal them with the medicine that our holy faith provides for the sick of soul.
Like his shadow followed him, so his Christ followed him in his soul everywhere and at every turn; in the village and at home, in the church and in the school, at the bedside of the sick and at the coffin of the dead, wherever he went.
He always saw the Savior before him, carrying the cross and constantly encouraging him to follow him. He was aware of the fact that he had a mission from the Church, which sent him as its representative among the faithful to pay the debt by offering the chalice of redemption…
Although enemies repeatedly stormed his parish apartment and sought his head, he always providentially avoided it, but only for a short time, for he was drawn by an irresistible longing to return to his flock, like a good shepherd. Love and duty called him back.
On the night of May 7, 1944, he was captured by the guards of the Partisan detachments and his fate is unknown to this day… In May 1944, Fr. Borivoj was taken from his parish in Ljubunčić to Glamoč and there he was tortured so cruelly by the Partisans, who were known in Glamoč for their bestiality, so that they shod him like a horse before he died.
When he was still a parish priest in Vidoši, he again experienced an attack by Chetniks and Partisans on the rectory in May 1942. They forcibly entered the rectory, smashed and robbed everything they could take. They could not take the new harmonium that was in the rectory, so they destroyed it. Fr. Borivoj managed to escape from the rectory. They shot at him, but he managed to hide and somehow get to Livno. The Italians detained him there, and when they found out that he was a priest, he was released. Very quickly he was transferred from Vidoš to Ljubunčić.
But even that was not a safe zone. When Livno fell for the first time, on August 5, 1942, the Partisans shot thirty-two Croats. In Priluka, in the immediate vicinity of Ljubunčić, his new parish, the Partisans, led by Koča Popović from Belgrade, shot more than 70 Croatian men on December 15, 1942. Fra Borivoj knew that enemies were waiting for him there as well.
He was aware that his life was in danger. He lived in constant fear that they would kill him. Nevertheless, his spirituality prevailed, so he stayed with his flock like a good shepherd until the last moment, until the night of May 7, 1944, when he was arrested by the Partisans.
In the magazine Svjetlo riječi (1998), Fr. Marijan Karaula writes, “They took him along with a servant, some Bijader, towards Bosansko Grahovo. According to witnesses, he was led through the villages of the parish of Ljubuški, beaten and mangled; some even say they shod him like a horse! In this way they brought him to the village of Sajkovići, where he was interrogated by a Partisan…
It was finally established he had been murdered. According to one opinion, he was killed in May, according to another even in November 1944, in a forest near the village of Sajković, near the house of a certain Božo Ivetić. Several of his co-sufferers were killed with him. Their graves are not known to this day.
Fr. Borivoj was kind and friendly to everyone, and those who knew him have the best memories of him. And they were not few! In fact, this man of God came to many people to comfort and refresh them: in the village and at home, in church and at school, at the bedside and at the coffin.
He is always aware that the Church sends him as its representative to the faithful: to be with them in their difficult moments and to share their hard fate, to encourage the wavering and to comfort the weak with his presence. And at the time of his martyrdom he was only 37 years old!
Sources and literature:
Don Anto Baković, Hrvatski martirologij XX. stoljeća, Zagreb, 2007.
Editorial/crimesofcommunism.net
