Venerable Zygmunt Łoziński

Zygmunt Łoziński (5 June 1870 – 26 March 1932) was a Polish Roman Catholic bishop who served as the Bishop of Minsk (1917–1925) and later as the first Bishop of Pinsk. Soviet authorities arrested him on two occasions during his episcopate. The title of Venerable was conferred upon him on 2 April 1993 after Pope John Paul II acknowledged his heroic virtue. Zygmunt Łoziński was born on 5 June 1870 in a village of Baratin in the Novogrudsky Uyezd of the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Karelichy District, Belarus). He studied in Warsaw and in Saint Petersburg, where he graduated from the Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy before starting his studies for the priesthood; he was ordained to the priesthood on 23 June 1895. On 17 November 1898, Russian authorities sentenced him to three years of seclusion in a Latvian convent. Łoziński became the vicar of Smolensk in 1901 as well as being reassigned to Tula in 1902 and Riga in 1904. Łoziński became the rector of the Minsk Cathedral in 1905. In 1906 he returned to Saint Petersburg where he taught Hebrew and biblical studies. He accompanied the Archbishop of Mogilev to visit the parishes of the Russian Empire from 1909 until 1911. In 1912 he started to commence further education in the German Empire and in Rome. Pope Benedict XV appointed him as the Bishop of Minsk on 2 November 1917 and as such he received his episcopal consecration on 28 July 1918 in Warsaw from Cardinal Aleksander Kakowski - the co-consecrators were Stanisław Kazimierz and Blessed Antoni Julian Nowowiejski. Soviet authorities arrested him on 1 August 1920 on the charges of "counter-revolution" but the pressure of local Christians saw him released on the following 11 August. He was arrested again on 4 September 1920 while the Polish government secured his release eleven months later in 1921 from Butyrka Prison; he weighed 95 pounds upon his release.