Bishop Antoni Adamiuk in the memories of the School Sisters de Notre Dame

Antoni Maziarz

University of Opole

Abstract

Bishop Antoni Adamiuk worked closely together with the School Sisters de Notre Dame who, before 2000, worked in the diocesan Curia in Opole and in the Holy Cross Publishing House. Bishop Adamiuk is remembered by the sisters as an exemplary priest, an excellent catechist and a courageous preacher, a good, modest and upright man, a guardian of memories about the Polish eastern frontier, and a defender of truth and justice (of the trade union “Solidarity”). Within the framework of providing help to the anticommunistic opposition, Sister Angela Orłowska SSND, acted at the side of the Bishop. The sisters could count on the Bishop’s help in the difficult years of communism in Poland. At that time
he organized catechetical courses, preparing the School Sisters to work with children and youth. He taught the sisters not only how to conduct classes in religion, but also in the history of Poland. To them he was an example of a patriot. In the opinion of all sisters, Bishop Adamiuk was a “warm, good father”, always kind-hearted towards the Congregation of the School Sisters de Notre Dame. Due to a meager autobiographical legacy, left after that auxiliary bishop of Opole, the sisters’ reminiscences are an important historical source for his curriculum vitae.

Keywords:

bishop Antoni Adamiuk, School Sisters de Notre Dame, the Diocese of Opole, Catechesis