Czeslaw Sokolowski

Bishop Czesław Sokołowski

Czesław Sokolowski (July 9, 1877, in Warsaw – November 11, 1951, in Michalin)[1] was a Polish Catholic priest, theologian, academic, and Nazi collaborator.

He served as rector of the Catholic University of Lublin from 1924–1925, and of the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Warsaw. He was auxiliary bishop of Siedlce from 1919 to 1940,[2] titular bishop of Pentacomia and apostolic administrator of the diocese of Siedlce from 1940–1946.[1]

After World War II, he was one of 4 bishops convicted as a Nazi collaborator for striking a deal with the Nazi occupation forces.[3][4] He was sentenced to death by the Warsaw Area Special Military Court of the Polish Home Army. The verdict was later downgraded to a sentence of loss of civil rights and public reputation.[5][6]

References

  1. ^ a b Bishop Czesław Sokolowski, Catholicheirachy.org.
  2. ^ Revue des Ordinations Épiscopales, Issue 1919, Number 57.
  3. ^ Tadeusz Piotrowski, Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947 (McFarland, 1998) page 86.
  4. ^ Jan Bank, Lieve Gevers, Churches and Religion in the Second World War (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016)
  5. ^ Leszek Gondek: Punishing Poland 1939–1945. Polish underground justice system during the German occupation . Warsaw: Pax Publishing Institute, 1988. ISBN 83-211-0973-X .
  6. ^ R. Dmowski: Bishop Czeslaw Sokolowski - sketch for biography. In: R. Dmowski, J. Gmitruk, G. Kornec, W. Wlodarkiewicz (ed.): Army and culture in the history of Poland and Europe. Jubilee book of Professor Piotr Matusak on the 65th anniversary of his birth . Warsaw - Siedlce: 2006, pp. 326–336