Ferdinand Piontek

Vocation

German priest, the roman Catholic vicar of the Archdiocese of Breslau. After World War II, the city of Breslau was de facto made part of Poland in May 1945 and officially renamed as Wrocław. On 16 July 1945 the archdiocesan cathedral chapter, comprising nine members, elected the Polish-speaking Ferdinand Piontek as capitular vicar, whom the Gestapo had banned from Breslau in early February 1945. He was sworn in by the chapter on 23 July. On 12 August 1945 Cardinal August Hlond appeared and demanded Piontek resign from his office for the archdiocesan territory east of the Oder-Neiße line, claiming to act on the authority of papal mandates, however, only applying to the pre-war territory of Poland. So Piontek – not knowing of the restricted mandate – resigned for the Polish-held parts of the archdiocese, but not for the remaining parts in Czechoslovakia and Allied-occupied Germany. Pope Pius XII did not recognise Hlond's overbearances. In order to strengthen Piontek's position Pius XII granted him the rights of a residing bishop on 28 February 1946. However, on 9 July the Polish authorities expelled Piontek and he was left stranded in Peine, then the British zone of occupation. On 31 July Pius XII confirmed Onderek's appointment and advanced him to Apostolic Administrator of the Czechoslovak part of the Archdiocese of Breslau, seated in Český Těšín, thus definitely divesting it from Breslau's jurisdiction. In 1947 Piontek returned to the Soviet occupied archdiocesan territory west of the Oder-Neiße line and officiated as capitular vicar at the local branch of the archdiocesan ordinariate in Silesian Görlitz, built up since October 1945. Despite the anticlerical Soviet policy he managed to build up a new seminary in Neuzelle in 1948, after the old seminary in Poland was inaccessible for candidates from west of the new border. In 1949 Piontek's range of jurisdiction west of the Oder-Neiße line became part of East Germany. In 1953 Pius XII invested Piontek with the right to bear a crosier and bestow episcopal blessings. On 23 May 1959 Piontek became titular bishop of Barca. He died on 2 November 1963 in Görlitz. Link to Wikipedia biography (German)