Antoni Stankiewicz JCD (1 October 1935 – 4 January 2021) was a Polish Roman Catholic Bishop and Dean Emeritus of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota. He was born in Oleszczenice near

Wilno Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

(now Lithuania). He studied for and was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are Consecration in Christianity, consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the religious denomination, denominationa ...

to the priesthood on 20 December 1958 at the age of 23.

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

appointed him on 31 January 2004 as Dean of Roman Rota within the

Roman Curia The Roman Curia () comprises the administrative institutions of the Holy See and the central body through which the affairs of the Catholic Church are conducted. The Roman Curia is the institution of which the Roman Pontiff ordinarily makes use ...

. On 15 November 2006, he was appointed to the

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

of Nova Petra, and on the following 16 December he was ordained a bishop by

Tarcisio Bertone Tarcisio Pietro Evasio Bertone (born 2 December 1934) is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church and a Vatican City, Vatican diplomat. A Cardinal (Catholicism), cardinal since 2003, he served as Archbishop of Vercelli from 1991 to 1995, as S ...

Cardinal Secretary of State The Secretary of State of His Holiness (; ), also known as the Cardinal Secretary of State or the Vatican Secretary of State, presides over the Secretariat of State of the Holy See, the oldest and most important dicastery of the Roman Curia. Th ...

, with Cardinals James Francis Stafford and Jean-Louis Tauran as co-consecrators.Catholic Hierarchy
/ref> The Rota, of which Stankiewicz was Dean, acts as a third (and higher) instance appellate tribunal, reviewing decisions of lower courts, mainly on marriage annulment cases, but including other non-administrative cases also. On his 75th birthday in 2010 he submitted his resignation to Pope

Benedict XVI Pope BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, his resignation on 28 Februar ...

. His resignation was accepted on 22 September 2012 and Pio Vito Pinto was appointed as his successor. He died in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, aged 85.

References

1935 births 2021 deaths Clergy from Vilnius 21st-century Roman Catholic titular bishops Roman Rota Polish Roman Catholic titular bishops Canon law jurists Bishops appointed by Pope Benedict XVI {{Poland-RC-bishop-stub