TY - JOUR AU - Białkowski, Michał PY - 2021/06/07 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Biskup Michał Klepacz jako członek Episkopatu Polski: Część I. Wprowadzenie biograficzno-problemowe JF - Łódzkie Studia Teologiczne JA - lst VL - 30 IS - 1 SE - Artykuły DO - UR - https://ojs.academicon.pl/lst/article/view/3675 SP - 19-36 AB - <p>This paper, opening a series of publications dedicated to activities of Bishop Michał Klepacz at the Episcopal Conference of Poland, is an introduction to his biography and to the subject. Its first part presents the life and activities of the Bishop. The future Łódź ordinary was born on July 23, 1893, in the village of Wola, a suburb of Warsaw. He was ordained in 1916. He was a graduate of the Roman Catholic Theological Academy in Saint Petersburg and the Catholic University of Lublin, at which he defended his PhD dissertation in 1932. In 1936, he was appointed an Associate Professor of the Christian philosophy at the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius. The years he spent in Vilnius under Soviet, Lithuanian and, again, Soviet occupation, were dedicated to conspirational educational and research activities. During the German occupation in 1942–1944, he was held in prison and in labour camps. Following changes in state borders imposed after the end of the World War II, he was forced to leave Vilnius and settle in Białystok. And it was there where he received his appointment as a bishop of Łódź in 1947. Rev. Michał Klepacz was ordained a bishop on April 13, 1947, and his ingress to the Łódź cathedral took place one week later. During twenty years of his rule as the bishop, the most important events in the life of the Łódź Diocese included regulation of relations with the government, renewal of the priestly formation, reorganisation and development of the Church structures, and convoking of two Diocese Councils in 1948 and 1958. Bishop Michał Klepacz died on January 27, 1967, on a day preceding the millennial celebrations in the Łódź Diocese.</p><p>The subsequent part of this work briefly presents the legal and structural basis of the Episcopal Conference of Poland and its specialist committees, focusing in particular on Bishop Michał Klepacz’s participation in those bodies. Furthermore, the importance of the office of the Primate of Poland was emphasised, as a person also being a chairman of the Plenary Conference and the Main Committee of the Episcopate of Poland.</p> ER -