Archbishop Wojciech Polak

Archbishop Wojciech Polak, Archbishop of Gniezno, was born on December 19, 1964, in Inowrocław, in the Archdiocese of Gniezno. Having passed his secondary school examinations, he was admitted to the major seminary of Gniezno in 1983. He was ordained a priest for Gniezno on May 13, 1989. From 1989 to 1991 he was parochial vicar of Ss. Martin and Nicholas in Bydgoszcz. He studied at the Alphonsian Academy, where he obtained a licentiate and, in 1996, a doctorate in moral theology. After his studies he served as prefect of discipline at the major seminary of Gniezno (1995-1999); rector of the major seminary (1999-2003); a judge of the ecclesiastical tribunal; and lecturer in moral theology at the major seminary and, from 1998, in the Faculty of Theology of the Adam Mickiewicz State University in Poznań. On April 8, 2003, he was appointed Titular Bishop of Mons in Numidia and Auxiliary Bishop of Gniezno. He received episcopal ordination on May 4, 2003, with Henryk Józef Muszyński as principal consecrator and Stanisław Gądecki and Bogdan Józef Wojtuś as co-consecrators. He has served as a member of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, was elected a member of the permanent council of the Polish Episcopal Conference in 2009, served as its secretary general from 2011, and in 2013 was elected president of the group for contacts with the Russian Orthodox Church. On May 17, 2014, he was appointed Archbishop of Gniezno, and he was installed on June 7, 2014. His episcopal motto is "Dominum confiteri Iesum".