Ignacy Jeż

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cardinal Ignacy Jeż
Bishop of Koszalin-Kołobrzeg

Enthroned	5 June 1960
Ended	1 February 1992
Predecessor	{{{predecessor}}}

Birth name	Ignacy Ludwik Jeż
Born	31 July 1914(1914-07-31) Radomyśl Wielki, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, Poland
Died	October 16, 2007 (aged 93) Vatican City

Christianity Portal

Ignacy Ludwik Jeż (July 31, 1914 – October 16, 2007) was the Latin Rite Catholic Bishop Emeritus of Koszalin-Kołobrzeg, located in Poland.Cardinal

Jeż was born in the Polish town of Radomyśl Wielki on July 31, 1914. He was ordained a Catholic priest on June 20, 1937. In 1942 he was sent first to Niemców labour camp and then interned in Dachau concentration camp as prisoner no. 37196, where he met fellow priest Joseph Kentenich.

After the camp was liberated by the American forces in 1945, he returned to priesthood, and from 1946 until 1960 he was the director of a Catholic Gymnasium in Katowice.

On June 5, 1960, under Pope John XXIII, Cardinals Stefan Wyszyński and Bolesław Kominek appointed him Titular Bishop of Alba Maritima. In 1967 he was elevated to Auxiliary Bishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Wrocław. In 1972 he was appointed Bishop of Koszalin-Kołobrzeg, in northern Poland. He held this post until February 1, 1992, when, at the age of 77, his resignation request was accepted by Pope John Paul II.

Jeż died on October 16, 2007 in Rome, Italy. Pope Benedict XVI had planned to make him a cardinal on November 24, 2007, but the Bishop died the day before the announcement.^[1]

[edit] Work

Jeż was one of the pioneers of re-initiating post-war German-Polish relations. His widespread work led him to become an honorary canon (Ehrendomherr) of the Bavarian Diocese of Würzburg, and in 2005 the President of Germany Horst Köhler awarded him Germany's federal order of merit, the Bundesverdienstkreuz. The following year the German Bundestag awarded him the Preis für Zivilcourage, "for his courageous behaviour as a young priest during the Nazi occupation of Poland".^[2] In 2007 he received one of Poland's highest orders, the Polonia Restituta.