In Memory of Rev. Fr. Zenon Hentosz

Fr. Zenon was raised on a small farm in Poland. He always dreamed of coming to Canada and when the communist regime fell, he left Poland to start a new life there. While waiting to get his Canadian visa approved in Vienna, Austria, he met the love of his life, Maria and they later got married. He arrived in Canada as a young immigrant with only $200 in his pocket, a small suitcase, and no knowledge of English but a lot of enthusiasm and motivation. He overcame many obstacles, both cultural and financial, and went on to earn a master’s degree in Pastoral Theology from St. Paul University.

He was ordained a Ukrainian Catholic priest in 1996 and served the St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Shrine community in Ottawa as assistant to the pastor for over 20 years. He helped parishioners, visited the ill, and comforted the dying and their families. He also worked as a chaplain for the Ottawa Catholic School Board, serving at St. Pius X’s, St. Patrick’s, St. Matthew’s, and St. Mark’s High Schools, and St. Patrick Intermediate and Frank Rian. Throughout his life, he touched the hearts and lives of countless families and individuals.

In addition to his pastoral work, Fr. Zenon was a gifted and skilled craftsman. He was always helping his friends and neighbours with plumbing disasters, leaking roofs, broken windows, crumbling stairs to name a few of the projects he worked on. Fr. Zenon was a jack-of-many-trades; he did everything.

As his retirement approached, Fr. Zenon and his wife decided to sell their home in Ottawa and buy a small farm in the country. They were very excited to embark on this new adventure together and moved into their new home in June 2022. Fr. Zenon found a lot of peace and joy working on the farm. He was so happy.

Tragedy struck when one night Fr. Zenon woke up and found that he couldn’t move his hands and feet. The ambulance took him to the ICU at the Civic Hospital in Ottawa and within 3 days, he was completely paralyzed. He could not move a single muscle, not even his eyes. The doctors diagnosed him with a very rare and severe form of Guillain-Barré Syndrome called AMSAN.* His condition continued to deteriorate until he passed away on April 26, 2023, in the presence of his loving family. His retirement dream with wife was cut short after only 8 months.

To make a tragic situation more difficult, Fr. Zenon's life insurance expired two weeks before he got sick and something went wrong when he retired and his death benefits were canceled. This leaves his heart-broken wife, Maria and her three children, two of which are studying music in Europe and the younger who is in her last year of high school, in an incredibly difficult place.

This fundraiser has been set up to help Maria pay for Fr. Zenon's funeral and get through immediate and significant financial needs arising from this unforeseen tragedy to care for her family and the small farm. Please donate any amount you can in his memory to help support his family just when they need it most at this critical time.

* GBS is an autoimmune disorder where the immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system. Nerves are made of two principal parts: the myelin sheath and the axon. It may help to think of nerves as an insulated copper wire. The axon is the copper wire and the myelin sheath is the plastic around the copper. In the most common cases, only the myelin gets affected which can regenerate. In AMSAN, it is the axons themselves that are damaged and they cannot regenerate.