Bishop of Ełk
Bishop Jerzy Mazur, S.V.D., Bishop of Ełk, was born on August 5, 1953, in Hawłowice, in the Diocese of Przemyśl. In July 1972 he began his novitiate in the Society of the Divine Word and his studies at the Divine Word Missionary Major Seminary at Pieniężno. He made his first profession on September 8, 1972, and his perpetual profession on September 8, 1978. He obtained a magister degree at the Catholic University of Lublin, and studied missiology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome (1980-1982), where he obtained a licentiate. He was ordained a priest on April 22, 1979, by the then Archbishop of Przemyśl, Tadeusz Tokarczuk. He served as parochial vicar at Nysa (1979-1980) and worked as a missionary in Ghana (1982-1986). On returning to Poland he taught missiology at the major seminary of Pieniężno, where he was also vice-prefect of the theologate (1989-1992). From 1989 to 1992 he was a member of the council of the Polish province of the Society of the Divine Word, charged with preparing and then coordinating the Society's apostolate in the former Soviet Union. From 1992 to 1998 he was the first superior of the Society's district for the countries of the former Soviet Union at Baranovichi, Belarus, serving at the same time as parish priest and as director and teacher at the catechetical college of that city. On March 23, 1998, he was appointed Titular Bishop of Tabuica and Auxiliary Bishop of Siberia. He received episcopal ordination on May 31, 1998, with John Bukovsky as principal consecrator and Joseph Werth and Julian Gbur as co-consecrators. On May 18, 1999, he was appointed Apostolic Administrator of Eastern Siberia, and on November 10, 2000, Apostolic Administrator of Karafuto. On February 11, 2002, he was appointed the first Bishop of San Giuseppe a Irkutsk. On April 17, 2003, he was appointed Bishop of Ełk, ceasing on the same day to hold the administratorship of Karafuto, and he was installed on June 9, 2003.