Saint Józef Bilczewski

Saint Józef Bilczewski was a professor of theology, rector of the university in Lviv, and from 1900 the Latin-rite archbishop of Lviv. He is remembered as a shepherd devoted to the Eucharist and to the poor, who led his archdiocese through years of war as well. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on March 20, the day of his death.

He was born on April 26, 1860, at Wilamowice near Kęty, into a peasant family with nine children. After passing his final examinations in 1880 at the secondary school in Wadowice, he entered the seminary in Krakow, and there on July 6, 1884, he was ordained a priest by Bishop Albin Dunajewski.

In 1886 he received a doctorate in theology from the University of Vienna, and then continued his studies in Rome and Paris. In 1890 he qualified as a university lecturer at the Jagiellonian University, and a year later he became professor of dogmatic theology at the university in Lviv. He studied the monuments of Christian antiquity as witnesses to the faith, especially faith in the Eucharist, to which he devoted a separate book. He was dean of the faculty of theology and, in 1900, rector of the university.

Pope Leo XIII appointed him Latin-rite archbishop of Lviv on December 17, 1900. He received episcopal consecration on January 20, 1901, in the cathedral of Lviv from Jan Puzyna, bishop of Krakow. The co-consecrators were Józef Sebastian Pelczar, bishop of Przemyśl, today a saint, and the Greek Catholic archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky. The new shepherd summed up his program in the words: “To sacrifice oneself totally for the holy Church.”

He worked for the building of churches, chapels, schools, and day nurseries. In his pastoral letters he wrote about faith, upbringing, and social questions, and in these he always stood on the side of the people and the poor. He encouraged priests and the faithful to adore the Blessed Sacrament and to receive Holy Communion frequently. Benedict XVI said of him that he was a man of prayer: Holy Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, meditation, and the Rosary set the rhythm of his days, and he gave especially long hours to Eucharistic adoration.

His ministry fell in the time of the First World War and the war of 1920, which wore down his health. The Roman Martyrology records that in time of war he assisted the poor and the needy with every kind of help. John Paul II said that the people of Lviv loved and respected him regardless of confession, rite, or nationality. He died in Lviv on March 20, 1923. In accordance with his wish he was buried in the Janów cemetery, where the poor were laid to rest.

John Paul II beatified him on June 26, 2001, in Lviv, and noted on that occasion that Archbishop Bilczewski belongs to the line of his own apostolic succession. Benedict XVI canonized him on October 23, 2005, in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome, at the close of the Year of the Eucharist. In Poland his memorial is kept on October 23, the anniversary of the canonization.