Adam Kozłowiecki

Who was Adam Kozłowiecki?

Cardinal Adam Kozłowiecki, S.J., was Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Lusaka in Zambia.

Born in Huta Komorowska, Austria-Hungary in noble family of Ostoja coat of arms, Kozłowiecki was ordained a Jesuit priest on 24 June 1937 after studying at the Zakład Naukowo-Wychowawczy Ojców Jezuitów w Chyrowie. In 1939 he and 24 confrères were arrested by the Gestapo in Kraków and then sent to Auschwitz. Six months later he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp, where he remained until the end of the war.

After his release the Vicar General proposed that he go to then-Northern Rhodesia, where the Polish Jesuits had a mission. He taught there for several years until being appointed Apostolic Administrator of the new Prefecture of Lusaka in 1950. As the mission grew he was named Bishop and Vicar Apostolic on 11 September 1955. In 1959 he was appointed the first Metropolitan Archbishop of Lusaka. He resigned from the see in 1969 so that an African could be appointed Archbishop.

He participated in all the sessions of the Second Vatican Council and in the first Synod of Bishops in 1967, and in the 1994 Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops dedicated to Africa.