Polski
MenuINFORMATION ABOUT FATHER MARIAN ŻELAZEK SVD
- Born on the 30th January 1918 in the village of Palędzie near Poznań. In 1926 the family moves to Poznań, where Marian attends the middle school of Saint Mary Magdalene. As an alter boy he encounters friar Jan Bayerlein-Mariański, an old missionary from Argentina. He decides to become a student of the missionary middle school. He is accepted at the school in Górna Grupa and having graduated he begins his noviciate in the Society of the Divine Word Missionaries in 1937. On the 4th of September 1939 he takes his first vows.
- In January 1940 he is interned by Gestapo and on the 22 nd May taken away to the concentration camp in Dachau together with many priests. He spends the Second World War as a prisoner of the concentration camps in Dachau and Gusen until the camp liberation on the 29th April 1944.
- From November 1944 to 1948 he studies theology at the Anselmianum Institute in Monte Aventino in Rome. On the 18th September 1949 he takes holy orders in Rome. In that year he visits Poland for a little while and meets his mother for the last time. Having returned to Rome he applies for the work assignment in India.
- On the 1st March 1950 he sets sails to India from Genoa on the board of the Dutch " Laurenskerk " freighter. He arrives in Bombai on the 21st March and gets to the missionary station in Kesramal on the 1 st April. He learns sadri - the local dialect and oriya - the official language. After several months he starts working among members of the Adiba tribe in Sambalpur in the northern part of the Orissa state. Between 1951 and 1963 he is a principal of a middle school. From 1963 to 1975 as a secretary of the Catholic Schools Committee he takes care of 175 primary schools in the area subordinated to the mission of the Society of the Divine Word Missionaries in Sambalpur. In 1968 he becomes the parish priest of Bondamunda. Among his alumni there are tens of local priests, including two bishops.
- In 1975 he takes over a post in Puri, one of the holiest Hindu towns where he has been working up to the present. He organizes life in the colony of over 600 lepers providing them with shelter, treatment and work. For the children of leper families he founds the " Beatrix " integration school. The school teaches the leper kids to live together with the healthy ones. The first incredible thing happens when the parents of healthy children send them to the school together with the children of the leper families. F. Marian introduces the lepers to the local community. The first invisible wall starts cracking. Families and organisations from many countries are invited by F. Marian to cooperate in those activities. With a significant help of Poles he builds a new church consecrated on the 11th December 1985. In 1989 the church receives a pottery of J. Karczewska-Konieczna. He also builds and equips, but first of all breathes spirit into a dialog centre called " Truth Search Centre ". He makes friends with Bitarchha Madhusudhan Mahapatra, one of the most important figures of Hinduism and a principle priest of the Jagannatha temple in Puri. After 25-year long presence of f. Marian in one of the most important centres of hinduism another miracle happens : one of the top Hindu priests crosses the boundries of the Catholic mission. The second invisible wall starts falling down. Of " impure " in Hindu perception f. Marian becomes " a saint " - he is awarded the title of a Brahmin. For several years f. Marian has been living in an ashram near the lepers' colony. He is now starting to construct a spirituality centre for pilgrims.
- The achievements of this modest person are noticed by other people:
- in 1997 in Bhubaneswar (Orissa, India) he is awarded the "Isaac Santra Award '97 " medal, and in 1998 " For those who do good" medal of the Redemptoris Missio Fundation from Poznań. In that year he is also awarded a medal from the Upper House of the Polish Parliament. In 2000 he receives a medal of Karol Marcinkowski from the President of the Medical Academy in Poznań and the Knight Cross of the Order of the Rebirth of Poland brought to Puri by the ambassador K. Mroziewicz in the name of President A. Kwaśniewski.
- Films about father Marian: " So little needed for joy " by f. F. Poćwiardowski SVD, SVD-Video Film Laskowice 1977; " A missionary from Puri " by R. Piasek, Poznań; 3 films by A. Pietraszek: " A missionary " (1982), " The ambassador of lepers " (1998) and the most beautiful of the three - " Hunger for love " (1998). And in " The New Face of Leprosy " - a BBC - produced documentary on lepers' situation in the world, the centre in Puri is given a special attention.
- In the late eighties J. Krasicki, a Cracow writer, writes "In the holy town of Puri" - a book about f. Marian, and " On the paths of mercy " together with A. Sujka in 2000.
- In 1999 a photography exhibition about f. Marian is shown for the first time at the House of Polish Diaspora of the "Polish Community" Association in Warsaw and then many other Polish towns and in 2000 in Germany.
- In November 2001 friends of f. Marian set up a Committee launching his nomination to the Nobel Peace Prize 2002. On the 31st January 2002 during the " Touch and understand " concert, organised for the benefit of lepers in the Congress Hall of the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, his nomination is made public. Afterwards, it is supported by thousands of signatures of prominent persons from Poland, India and other countries. Only the Launching Committee itself received more than 1000 crucial signatures.
- After his nomination tens of articles are published in the Polish and foreign press, new films about him are shot, including the second one of the Polish TV2 directed by A. Mroziewicz; also new webpages devoted to the priest appear in the Internet.
- On Sunday, 30th April after near 2 P.M. Father Marian went to Father Home. In the evening his corpse was presented the s in church under the invocation of . Later the coffin with Father Marian's corpse was carried to Eastern of Divine Word Missionaries's church-yard in Jharsuguda.
On Tuesday, 2nd May Father Marian's corpse was buried in Jharsuguda. The funeral solemnity was conducted by Father Marian's pupil, Raphael Cheenath SVD from Cuttack-Bhubaneswar.
JW