Kazimierz Cardinal Świątek (; 21 October 1914 – 21 July 2011) was a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who was most known for his resistance to Cold War-era Soviet communism and for his service in Minsk,

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

. Cardinal Swiatek was the former Metropolitan

Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

of Minsk-Mohilev, and

Apostolic Administrator An apostolic administration in the Catholic Church is administrated by a prelate appointed by the pope to serve as the ordinary for a specific area. Either the area is not yet a diocese (a stable 'pre-diocesan', usually missionary apostolic admi ...

Pinsk Pinsk (; , ; ; ; ) is a city in Brest Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Pinsk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. It is located in the historical region of Polesia, at the confluence of t ...

Świątek was born to

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

parents in the municipality of Walk, in what was then the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, the present-day municipality of

Valga, Estonia Valga is a town in southern Estonia and the capital of Valga County and Valga Parish. Until their separation in 1920, Valga and the town of Valka in northern Latvia were one town. They are now twin-towns. The area of Valga is and that of Val ...

. His family was deported to

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

during the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

. His father died fighting in the Polish-Soviet War. The future Cardinal lived in newly independent Poland from 1922. After completing his philosophical and theological studies at the

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as cle ...

in Pinsk, Świątek was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1939, and then was sent to the parish of

Pruzhany Pruzhany is a town in Brest Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Pruzhany District. The town is located at the confluence of the Mukha River and the Vets Canal, where the Mukhavets River rises. As of 2025, it has a popu ...

. The

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

occupied Pinsk after the Nazi-Soviet Pact divided Poland in 1939. Świątek was arrested by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

in April 1941, and held on

death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting executio ...

in Brest for two months. Father Świątek escaped from prison, taking advantage of the confusion caused by the

Nazi German Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

invasion An invasion is a Offensive (military), military offensive of combatants of one geopolitics, geopolitical Legal entity, entity, usually in large numbers, entering territory (country subdivision), territory controlled by another similar entity, ...

of the

on 22 June 1941, and returned to Pruzhany. In December 1944, the NKVD arrested Swiatek for a second time. The following year he was sentenced to 10 years

hard labor ''Hard Labor'' is the eleventh album by American rock band Three Dog Night, released in 1974. For this album, the band replaced long-time producer Richard Podolor with Jimmy Ienner, who was known for his production work with the Raspberries ...

in a

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

, and spent nine years in

and the north of the Soviet Union, working in the

taiga Taiga or tayga ( ; , ), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. In North A ...

and in the mines. After his release in June 1954, he returned to Pinsk. In 1988, he was made a

Monsignor Monsignor (; ) is a form of address or title for certain members of the clergy in the Catholic Church. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian ''monsignore'', meaning "my lord". "Monsignor" can be abbreviated as Mons.... or Msgr. In some ...

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 ...

, who in 1991 appointed him Metropolitan Archbishop of Minsk-Mohilev and

of Pinsk, and on 26 November 1994 created him

Cardinal-Priest A cardinal is a senior member of the clergy of the Catholic Church. As titular members of the clergy of the Diocese of Rome, they serve as advisors to the pope, who is the bishop of Rome and the visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. ...

of San Gerardo Maiella. He was elected as the first President of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Belarus, which according to the church's website "underlines his leading role in the Church in Belarus." In July 2006, Świątek, then aged 91, his resignation for reasons of age and declining health from the offices of Metropolitan Archbishop of Minsk-Mohilev was accepted by

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 his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as p ...

, but he remained Apostolic Administrator of Pinsk until 30 June 2011, when

Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz (; born 3 January 1946) is a Belarusians, Belarusian prelate of the Catholic Church who served as Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Minsk-Mohilev, Archbishop of Minsk–Mohilev from 2007 to 2021. He has been a bishop since 1989, ...

, his successor as Metropolitan Archbishop of Minsk-Mohilev, replaced him also as Apostolic Administrator of Pinsk.

Death

On 21 July 2011, Świątek died in Pinsk after a long illness, aged 96. At the time of his death, he was the second oldest member of the

College of Cardinals The College of Cardinals (), also called the Sacred College of Cardinals, is the body of all cardinals of the Catholic Church. there are cardinals, of whom are eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope. Appointed by the pope, ...

sent a telegram to Archbishop Kondrusiewicz and the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Belarus expressing his condolences for the Cardinal's death and praising him for his lengthy service as Cardinal Archbishop and his continuing fidelity and loyalty to the Church and to Christ during his periods of imprisonment back in the early years of the Cold War, in the post-war period, when the Church in the Soviet Union had to be largely clandestine.

References

External links

Website of the Catholic Church of Belarus

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120308204855/http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1335793?eng=y Autobiographical remarks by Kazimierz Cardinal Świątek (in Italian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Swiatek, Kazimierz 1914 births 2011 deaths Belarusian cardinals Cardinals created by Pope John Paul II 20th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Belarus Escapees from Soviet detention Prisoners sentenced to death by the Soviet Union Soviet people of Polish descent Belarusian people of Polish descent Belarusian anti-communists Polish people of World War II Polish anti-communists People from Valga, Estonia Polish people detained by the NKVD Polish Roman Catholic archbishops Polish prisoners sentenced to death