← All saints
Saint Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński
Image: Ignacy Podolski · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Saint Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński

Archbishop of Warsaw exiled by Russia for twenty years after the 1863 uprising

Rank
Saint
Kind
Bishop, Founder
Life
1822 – 1895
Era
19th century
Feast
17 September
Countries
Poland, Ukraine, Russia
RussiaUkrainePoland

Life story

Zygmunt was born on 1 November 1822 at Wojutyn in Volhynia, then part of the Russian Empire and now in Ukraine. He studied mathematics at the University of Moscow from 1840 to 1844 and in 1847 studied French literature at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France in Paris. He returned to Poland in 1851, entered the seminary at Zhytomyr and studied further at the Catholic Academy in Saint Petersburg. He was ordained a priest on 8 September 1855.

In 1857 he founded the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary. On 6 January 1862 Pope Pius IX named him archbishop of Warsaw; he was consecrated in Saint Petersburg and arrived in Warsaw on 9 February 1862. After the Russian repression of the January Uprising of 1863, he resigned from the Council of State and urged Tsar Alexander II to end the violence. On 14 June 1863 he was deported to Yaroslavl.

He was held there for about twenty years and released on 15 March 1883. Pope Leo XIII transferred him to the titular see of Tarsus, and he lived in semi-exile as parish priest at Dźwiniaczka in south-eastern Galicia. He died in Kraków on 17 September 1895. His remains were moved to Warsaw in 1920 and placed in the crypt of Saint John's Cathedral in 1921. Pope John Paul II beatified him in Kraków on 18 August 2002 and Pope Benedict XVI canonized him on 11 October 2009.

Works and witness

  • Studied mathematics in Moscow and French literature in Paris; ordained on 8 September 1855
  • Founded the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary in 1857
  • Archbishop of Warsaw from 1862
  • Exiled to Yaroslavl from 14 June 1863 until 1883 after the January Uprising
  • Died in Kraków on 17 September 1895; canonized on 11 October 2009

Saints from the same country

Saint Stanislaus of Kraków, Saint John Paul II, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Saint Faustina Kowalska

References

  • Vatican, 'St Zygmunt Szczesny Felinski (1822-1895) - Biography' (canonization, 11 Oct 2009)

Written by Anawim from documented history. Some details about ancient saints rest on tradition and are marked as such.