Blessed Bronisław Markiewicz

Blessed Bronisław Markiewicz was a Polish priest of the Diocese of Przemyśl who, after several years with the Salesians in Italy, returned to his homeland and at Miejsce Piastowe near Krosno created a home for orphans and poor boys. He gave rise to two religious congregations of Saint Michael the Archangel: the Michaelite Fathers and the Michaelite Sisters. His memorial falls on January 30.

He was born on July 13, 1842, in Pruchnik near Jarosław, the sixth of eleven children of Jan Markiewicz, the town’s mayor, and Marianna, née Gryziecka. At the secondary school in Przemyśl, in surroundings hostile to religion, he went through a period of wavering in faith, but he regained his inner peace fairly quickly. After his final examinations he entered the Przemyśl seminary, and on September 15, 1867, he was ordained a priest.

For six years he was a curate at Harta and at the cathedral in Przemyśl. He then studied pedagogy, philosophy, and history for two years at the universities of Lviv and Krakow, in order to prepare himself better for work with young people. He was parish priest at Gać and at Błażowa, and from 1882 he taught pastoral theology at the seminary in Przemyśl.

Feeling called to religious life as well, in November 1885 he left for Italy and entered the Salesians. There he came to know Saint John Bosco, and on March 25, 1887, he made his religious vows in the saint’s hands. In 1889 he fell gravely ill with tuberculosis and was close to death. In 1892, with his superiors’ consent, he returned to his homeland and took charge of the parish of Miejsce Piastowe.

Alongside his pastoral work he devoted himself, following the example of Don Bosco, to the education of poor and orphaned youth. He opened an institute in which boys found their keep, spiritual care, and training in a trade. In 1897 he resolved to found two new religious congregations based on the spirituality of Saint John Bosco, and he returned to the clergy of the Diocese of Przemyśl. To his work, established in 1898, he gave the name “Temperance and Work.” He used to say: “I would like to gather millions of children and young people from all countries and nations, to feed them free of charge and to clothe them in soul and in body.”

His work had the support of the bishop of Przemyśl, Saint Józef Sebastian Pelczar. At Miejsce Piastowe Father Markiewicz gave a home and an upbringing to hundreds of boys, and in August 1903 he opened a second institute at Pawlikowice near Krakow, for more than four hundred orphans. Work beyond his strength strained a health already weakened by the illness he had suffered in Italy. He died at Miejsce Piastowe on January 29, 1912.

The congregations he had striven for were approved only after his death: the men’s congregation in 1921 and the women’s in 1928. Pope Benedict XVI enrolled Father Markiewicz among the blessed by an apostolic letter that Cardinal Józef Glemp read out in Warsaw on June 19, 2005, at the close of the Eucharistic Congress. The letter set his memorial on January 30, the day after the anniversary of his death.