Adam Stefan Cardinal Sapieha

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Jump to: navigation, search
Adam Stefan Sapieha

Adam Stefan Sapieha

Noble Family Sapieha
Coat of Arms Lis
Parents Adam Stanisław Sapieha-Kodenski
Jadwiga Klementyna Sanguszko-Lubartowicza
Consorts none
Children none
Date of Birth May 14, 1867
Place of Birth Krasiczyn
Date of Death July 23, 1951
Place of Death Kraków

His Eminence, Prince Adam Stefan Stanisław Bonfatiusz Józef Cardinal Sapieha (May 14, 1867 - July 23, 1951) was a Polish Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church and what some might call, mentor of Pope John Paul II.

Sapieha was born in May of 1867 in the castle of Krasiczyn to a family of nobles. He was the youngest of the seven children of Adam Stanislaw Count Sapieha-Kodenski and Princess Jadwiga Klementyna Sanguszko-Lubartowicza.

He was educated at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he was also ordained a priest on October 1, 1893 by then Bishop of Kraków, Jan Cardinal Puzyna de Kosielsko. Father Sapieha did pastoral work in the diocese of Lemberg, whose seminary he served as a faculty member for four years until becoming its rector.

Appointed bishop of the diocese of Kraków on November 24, 1911, he was consecrated by Pope Pius X on December 17 of the same year. When Sapieha's diocese was elevated to the jurisdiction of an archdiocese in 1925, he became the first Archbishop of Kraków in its nine hundred-year history. He was awarded in 1936 with the White Eagle Order.

Arcbishop Sapieha, in August 1944, was forced to operate the seminary in secret due the Nazi invasion of Kraków; he moved his seminarians (including the future Pope John Paul II, Karol Wojtyła) into his episcopal residence to finish their training. He was created a Cardinal Priest, of the title of S. Maria Nuova, on February 18, 1946, the same year in which he ordained Karol Wojtyła, to the Catholic priesthood in the chapel of his episcopal residence. Sapieha knew Wojtyła was destined to become a priest when the future Pontiff, then a young boy, delivered a welcoming speech to the Archbishop on a visit to his school.

He died on July 23, 1951, at the age of 84. Cardinal Sapieha is buried in the castle of Wawel (in Kraków).



Preceded by:
Jan Puzyna
Archbishop of Kraków
1911 – 1951
Succeeded by:
Eugeniusz Baziak
Personal tools
In other languages