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The Most Reverend

Marek Kordzik
The Most Reverend; Marek Kordzik
Archbishop
Church	National Old Catholic Church in Poland
In office	2006–2016
Orders
Ordination	3 October 1977; by Piotr Filipowicz
Consecration	30 March 1983; by Piotr Filipowicz
Personal details
Born	1 March 1955; Jelenia Góra
Died	10 December 2016 (aged 61); Łódź

Grave of Kordzik in the Evangelical-Augsburg Cemetery in Łódź

Marek Jan Kordzik (1 March 1955 – 10 December 2016) was a Polish priest and bishop of the Old Catholic Church in Poland from 2006 to his death in 2016.^[1]

Life

Kordzik was born on 1 March 1955 in Jelenia Góra. After graduating from high school, he decided to enroll in at the Metropolitan Seminary for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Wrocław. In 1977, he joined the Polish Old Catholic Church, and on 4 April 1977, he was ordained a deacon in Wrocław by Archbishop Piotr Filipowicz. On 3 October 1977, he was ordained a priest in Wrocław again by Filipowicz.^[2]

On 30 March 1983, during the Extraordinary Synod of the Polish Old Catholic Church, he was elected an auxiliary bishop of the Pomeranian diocese.^[3] The date of the episcopal consecration ceremony was shifted many times in fear of being arrested and harassed by the communist security apparatus. Eventually, the ceremony took place on 29 June 1983 in Warsaw. The consecrator was the then head of the Old Catholic Church in the Polish People's Republic, archbishop Piotr Filipowicz, while bishops Jan Kazimierz Banach and Andrzej Rokita served as co-consecrators.^[4]

Kordzik spent much of his years as a bishop in Germany, where he performed as pastoral minister in an Old Catholic parish in Hamburg. However, he eventually had to leave because of problems in extending his residence visa. Later he lived in Wojcieszów. From 2000, he was the vicar general of the Old Catholic Church in Poland. On 11 November 2006, Kordzik was elected bishop-head of the Old Catholic Church in the Republic of Poland by the Third National Synod of the Church and officially recognized as the Head of the Old Catholic Church in the Republic of Poland.^[3] From 2005 to 2013, he was a pastor of the cathedral parish of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Łódź, and in 2013 he moved permanently to Działy Czarnowskie and functioned as a parish priest.^[3] In 2016, together with other Old Catholic clergy, he participated in the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the city of Aleksandrów Łódzki.^[5]

On 18 August 2016, Kordzik signed an agreement of mutual recognition and Full communion with Willian Dorea, the archbishop of the Old Catholic Apostolic Church in Brazil. Both churches see the source of their apostolic succession with Bishop Jan Perkowski, who belonged to Bishop Wladyslaw Faron's political sympathizers. Bishop Marek Kordzik was the Primate of the Diocese of the Old Catholic Apostolic Church. Under the agreement, Kordzik was to become the primate of the dioceses of the Old Catholic Apostolic Church - including in Brazil, Cameroon, Congo, Spain and Italy.^[6]

Kordzik died of cardiovascular failure on 10 December 2016.^[7] A funeral and Christian burial took place on 22 December 2016 at the Evangelical-Augsburg Cemetery on Ogrodowa Street in Łódź.

References

^ V Synod of the Polish Old Catholic Church in the Republic of Polska,Minutes of the II Session of the V Synod of the Polish Old Catholic Church in the Republic of Poland, (in Polish) accessed March 29, 2018
^ M. Hasiński, Information about the Old Catholic Church, Łódź 2012, p. 2.
^ ^a ^b ^c Act of Election for Bishop Elect Marek Kordzik of March 30, 1983, [in:] A. Jemielita, Polish Old Catholic Church in 1945–1993 - historical study (master's thesis written under the supervision of Prof. JM Kula at the Historical Institute of the University of Warsaw in 2014), p. 97.
^ "Kościół Starokatolicki w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej". szkolnictwo.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 20 June 2020.
^ "Aleksandrów Łódzki obchodzi 200-lecie istnienia" (in Polish). 18 September 2016. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
^ "Veteros do Brasil na Polônia" (in Portuguese). 19 August 2016. Archived from the original on 15 February 2012. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
^ "Zmarł bp Marek Kordzik". ekumenizm.pl (in Polish). 15 December 2016. Retrieved 20 June 2020.