Father Władysław Zdaniukiewicz, MIC, the oldest member of the Polish Province of the Congregation of Marian Fathers passed away in the evening of May 25, 2020, at the St. Stanislaus Hospice in Licheń, Poland.
Father Władysław Zdaniukiewicz, was born on August 24, 1924, in Rakańce in the Vilnius region (Lithuania). In 1944-46, he was imprisoned and sent to labor camps. After returning to his homeland, he went to school in Warsaw and graduated from the four-year junior high. In 1947 he was admitted to the novitiate in Skórzec, upon completing which he made his religious vows on August 15, 1948. He made his seminary courses first in Warsaw, in the district of Praga and in Bielany, and then in Gietrzwałd and Włocławek, where, on June 23, 1957, the local Ordinary, Bishop Antoni Pawłowski ordained him a priest.
Following his ordination, Fr. Władysław served first as the local treasurer at Bielany, and then as a catechist and a vicar of the parish of St. Sigismund in Pola Bielańskie, in Praga, in Głuchołazy, and in Góra Kalwaria.
From 1966, Fr. Władysław served 11 years as the pastor of the Kiwity parish in Warmia, and then, from 1977, as the pastor of the Jegłownik parish, where he initiated the construction of a new church. On September 30, 1982, Fr. Zdaniukiewicz passed his office of parish pastor to his successor, a priest of the diocese of Warmia (Father Władysław Jancza).
In the following years Fr. Władysław worked in Rdzawka and then in Głuchołazy. In 1984, he went to Germany, where he served in the diocese of Augsburg: Vilgertshofen, Stadl, and, from 1989, as a hospital chaplain first in Schongau and then in Pfronten. In 1997, he came back home and was assigned to work at the Shrine of Our Lady of Licheń. From 2002-2005, he served in Sulejówek, from where he was transferred once again to Licheń, where he remained until the end of his life and was buried at the local cemetery.
Eternal rest grant onto him, O Lord,
And may the eternal light shine upon him.