Jan Cieplak
Encyclopedia
Servant of God
Archbishop
Jan Cieplak (born 17 August 1857 in Dąbrowa Górnicza
- 17 February 1926 in Passaic, New Jersey
) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest and bishop.
in 1857 to an impoverished family of the Polish nobility. He attended the Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy
during the 1880s. After several years as a seminary instructor, in 1908 he became the auxiliary bishop
of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Mohilev
and titular bishop
of Evaria. He remained in this position until his superior, Archbishop Edward von der Ropp
, was deported after the October Revolution
.
, Bishop Cieplak was under surveillance by the Okhrana, which suspected him of Polish nationalism. On 29 March 1919 he was named the titular archbishop of Achrida
. As the highest ranking representative of Roman Catholic Church in the new Soviet Union
he was often harassed and persecuted. The Archbishop was arrested twice by the CHEKA
, but was released amidst massive protests by the Catholics of Petrograd. At the same time, he was also instrumental in arranging for the relics of Saint
Andrew Bobola
to be permanently transferred from the Soviet Union
to Rome. Otherwise, the Archbishop was certain that the remains of the Saint would have been subjected to desecration.
After Lenin's stroke in 1922, Petrograd CPSU boss Grigory Zinoviev
was determined to rid his district of organized Catholicism. With the support of a majority of the Politburo
, a political show trial
was arranged which was to be prosecuted by Deputy Commissar of Justice Nikolai Krylenko
.
Monsignor
Konstantin Budkevich
, Byzantine Catholic Exarch Leonid Feodorov
, fourteen other priests and one layman, were summoned to attend a trial in Moscow
.
According to Father Christopher Lawrence Zugger,
New York Herald
correspondent Francis MacCullagh, who was present at the trial, later described its fourth day as follows:
Archbishop Cieplak and Monsignor Budkevich were sentenced to the death penalty, all the other defendants received long sentences in the GULAG
. The news of the sentences touched off enraged demonstrations throughout the Western world.
According to Father Zugger,
In 1925 Archbishop Cieplak was nominated to serve as the Archbishop of Wilno (Vilnius
) but he died before he was able to assume the position. He was interred in the Vilnius Cathedral
.
Servant of God
Servant of God is a title given to individuals by various religions, but in general the phrase is used to describe a person believed to be pious in his or her faith tradition. In the Catholic Church, it designates someone who is being investigated by the Church for possibly being recognized as a...
Archbishop
Archbishop
An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...
Jan Cieplak (born 17 August 1857 in Dąbrowa Górnicza
Dabrowa Górnicza
Dąbrowa Górnicza is a city in Zagłębie Dąbrowskie in southern Poland, nearby Katowice. The north-east district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - metropolis with the population of almost 3 millions...
- 17 February 1926 in Passaic, New Jersey
Passaic, New Jersey
Passaic is a city in Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 69,781, maintaining its status as the 15th largest municipality in New Jersey with an increase of 1,920 residents from the 2000 Census population of 67,861...
) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest and bishop.
Early life
Jan Cieplak was born in Congress PolandCongress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
in 1857 to an impoverished family of the Polish nobility. He attended the Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy
Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy
The Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy was an institution of higher education preparing Roman Catholic theologians in the Russian Empire. The Academy granted master's and doctorate degrees in theology and was designed to prepare officers for senior positions in the Catholic Church...
during the 1880s. After several years as a seminary instructor, in 1908 he became the auxiliary bishop
Auxiliary bishop
An auxiliary bishop, in the Roman Catholic Church, is an additional bishop assigned to a diocese because the diocesan bishop is unable to perform his functions, the diocese is so extensive that it requires more than one bishop to administer, or the diocese is attached to a royal or imperial office...
of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Mohilev
Metropolitan Archdiocese of Mohilev
The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Mohilev was a territorial division of the Roman Catholic Church, covering a significant proportion of the territory of the Russian empire....
and titular bishop
Titular bishop
A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese.By definition a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop the tradition of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches is that he be ordained for a specific place...
of Evaria. He remained in this position until his superior, Archbishop Edward von der Ropp
Eduard von der Ropp
Eduard Michael Johann Maria Baron von der Ropp was a German-Polish nobleman and Russian Roman Catholic metropolitan archbishop. He was born 15 December 1851 near Līksna in present-day Latvia and died on 25 July 1939 in Poznań, Poland.-Early life:...
, was deported after the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
.
Archbishop
During the reign of Nicholas II of RussiaNicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...
, Bishop Cieplak was under surveillance by the Okhrana, which suspected him of Polish nationalism. On 29 March 1919 he was named the titular archbishop of Achrida
Ohrid
Ohrid is a city on the eastern shore of Lake Ohrid in the Republic of Macedonia. It has about 42,000 inhabitants, making it the seventh largest city in the country. The city is the seat of Ohrid Municipality. Ohrid is notable for having once had 365 churches, one for each day of the year and has...
. As the highest ranking representative of Roman Catholic Church in the new Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
he was often harassed and persecuted. The Archbishop was arrested twice by the CHEKA
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
, but was released amidst massive protests by the Catholics of Petrograd. At the same time, he was also instrumental in arranging for the relics of Saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
Andrew Bobola
Andrew Bobola
Andrew Bobola was a Polish missionary and martyr of the Society of Jesus, known as the apostle of Lithuania and the "hunter of souls".-Biography:...
to be permanently transferred from the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to Rome. Otherwise, the Archbishop was certain that the remains of the Saint would have been subjected to desecration.
After Lenin's stroke in 1922, Petrograd CPSU boss Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...
was determined to rid his district of organized Catholicism. With the support of a majority of the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
, a political show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
was arranged which was to be prosecuted by Deputy Commissar of Justice Nikolai Krylenko
Nikolai Krylenko
Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician. Krylenko served in a variety of posts in the Soviet legal system, rising to become People's Commissar for Justice and Prosecutor General of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic.Krylenko was an...
.
The Cieplak Trial
During the spring of 1923, Archbishop Cieplak, his Vicar GeneralVicar general
A vicar general is the principal deputy of the bishop of a diocese for the exercise of administrative authority. As vicar of the bishop, the vicar general exercises the bishop's ordinary executive power over the entire diocese and, thus, is the highest official in a diocese or other particular...
Monsignor
Monsignor
Monsignor, pl. monsignori, is the form of address for those members of the clergy of the Catholic Church holding certain ecclesiastical honorific titles. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian monsignore, from the French mon seigneur, meaning "my lord"...
Konstantin Budkevich
Konstantin Budkevich
Konstanty Romuald Budkiewicz was a Roman Catholic priest executed by the Soviet Union as part of their repression of religion. He remains under investigation for possible Sainthood...
, Byzantine Catholic Exarch Leonid Feodorov
Leonid Feodorov
Blessed Leonid Ivanovich Feodorov was Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church, in addition to being a survivor of the GULAG. After painstaking investigation, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II on June 27, 2001.-Early life:...
, fourteen other priests and one layman, were summoned to attend a trial in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.
According to Father Christopher Lawrence Zugger,
"The Bolsheviks had already orchestrated several 'show trials.' The Cheka had staged the 'Trial of the St. Petersburg Combat Organization'; its successor, the new GPU, the 'Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries.' In these and other such farces, defendants were inevitably sentenced to death or to long prison terms in the north. The Cieplak show trial is a prime example of Bolshevik revolutionary justice at this time. Normal judicial procedures did not restrict revolutionary tribunals at all; in fact, the prosecutorProsecutorThe prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
N.V. Krylenko, stated that the courts could trample upon the rights of classes other than the proletariatProletariatThe proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
. Appeals from the courts went not to a higher court, but to political committees. Western observers found the setting -- the grand ballroom of a former Noblemen's Club, with painted cherubsCHERUBSCHERUBS is a Non-Profit Organization. It was founded in February, 1995 for families of children born with Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, a severe and often lethal birth defect. It was founded and currently led by Dawn M...
on the ceiling -- singularly inapropriate for such a solemn event. Neither judges nor prosecutors were required to have a legal background, only a proper 'revolutionary' one. That the prominent 'No Smoking' signs were ignored by the judges themselves did not bode well for legalities."
New York Herald
New York Herald
The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
correspondent Francis MacCullagh, who was present at the trial, later described its fourth day as follows:
Archbishop Cieplak and Monsignor Budkevich were sentenced to the death penalty, all the other defendants received long sentences in the GULAG
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
. The news of the sentences touched off enraged demonstrations throughout the Western world.
According to Father Zugger,
"The VaticanHoly SeeThe Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
, Germany, Poland, Great BritainGreat BritainGreat Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, and the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
undertook frantic efforts to save the Archbishop and his chancellor. In Moscow, the ministers from the Polish, British, Czechoslovak, and Italian missions appealed 'on the grounds of humanity,' and Poland offered to exchange any prisoner to save the archbishop and the monsignor. Finally, on March 29, the Archbishop's sentence was commuted to ten years in prison, ... but the Monsignor was not to be spared. Again, there were appeals from foreign powers, from Western Socialists and Church leaders alike. These appeals were for naught: PravdaPravdaPravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
editorialized on March 30 that the tribunal was defending the rights of the workers, who had been oppressed by the bourgeouis system for centuries with the aid of priests. Pro-Communist foreigners who intervened for the two men were also condemned as 'compromisers with the priestly servants of the bourgeoisieBourgeoisieIn sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
.' ...Father Rutkowski recorded later that Budkiewicz surrendered himself over to the will of God without reservation. On Easter Sunday, the world was told that the Monsignor was still alive, and PopePopeThe Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
Pius XI publicly prayed at St. Peter's that the Soviets would spare his life. Moscow officials told foreign ministers and reporters that the Monsignor's sentence was just, and that the Soviet Union was a sovereign nation that would accept no interferance. In reply to an appeal from the rabbiRabbiIn Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
s of New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to spare Budkiewicz's life, Pravda wrote a blistering editorial against 'Jewish bankers who rule the world' and bluntly warned that the Soviets would kill Jewish opponents of the Revolution as well. Only on April 4 did the truth finally emerge: the Monsignor had already been in the grave for three days. When the news came to Rome, Pope Pius fell to his knees and wept as he prayed for the priest's soul. To make matters worse, Cardinal Gasparri had just finished reading a note from the Soviets saying that 'everything was proceeding satisfactorily' when he was handed the telegram announcing the execution. On 31 March 1923, Holy SaturdayHoly SaturdayHoly Saturday , sometimes known as Easter Eve or Black Saturday, is the day after Good Friday. It is the day before Easter and the last day of Holy Week in which Christians prepare for Easter...
, at 11:30 PM, after a week of fervent prayers and a firm declaration that he was ready to be sacrificed for his sins, Monsignor Constantine Budkiewicz had been taken from his cell and, sometime before the dawn of Easter Sunday, shot in the back of the head on the steps of the LubyankaLubyanka (KGB)The Lubyanka is the popular name for the headquarters of the KGB and affiliated prison on Lubyanka Square in Moscow. It is a large building with a facade of yellow brick, designed by Alexander V...
prison.
Release and later life
Under international pressure, Cieplak was released from prison and taken to Poland in 1924. After reaching Poland, he left for Rome, and then to the United States, where he visited with Chicago's Polish Community at St. Hyacinth Basilica. On 10 November 1925 he arrived in Passaic, New Jersey. He died of an illness a few months later.In 1925 Archbishop Cieplak was nominated to serve as the Archbishop of Wilno (Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
) but he died before he was able to assume the position. He was interred in the Vilnius Cathedral
Vilnius Cathedral
The Cathedral of Vilnius is the main Roman Catholic Cathedral of Lithuania.It is situated in Vilnius Old Town, just off of Cathedral Square. It is the heart of Lithuania's Catholic spiritual life....
.
See also
- Persecution of Christians in the Soviet UnionPersecution of Christians in the Soviet UnionThe history of Christianity in the Soviet Union was not limited to repression and secularization. Soviet policy toward religion was based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which made atheism the official doctrine of the Soviet Union...
- Vatican and Eastern Europe (1846–1958)
Further reading
- Father Joseph Ledit, S.J.Society of JesusThe Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
, "Archbishop John Baptist Cieplak," Palm Publishers, MontrealMontrealMontreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, 1963. - Father Christopher Lawrence Zugger, "The Forgotten: Catholics in the Soviet Empire from Lenin through Stalin," University of Syracuse Press, 2001.