Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski

Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski
Born(1956-09-07)7 September 1956
Kraków, Poland
Died9 January 2024(2024-01-09) (aged 67)
Chrzanów, Poland
NationalityPolish
EducationPapal Armenian Collegium, Rome
Church
Ordained1983

Tadeusz Bohdan Isakowicz-Zaleski (Armenian: Թադևոս Վարդապետ Իսահակյան-Զալեսկի, romanized: Tadevos Vartapet Isahakian-Zaleski; 7 September 1956 – 9 January 2024) was a Polish Roman Catholic and Armenian Catholic priest, author and activist. He was a leader of the anticommunist student opposition in Kraków in the late 1970s,[1] became a Solidarity chaplain in Kraków's Nowa Huta district in the 1980s, and later an avid supporter of the lustration of the Polish Church. On 3 May 2006, he was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, one of Poland's highest orders. Subsequently, in 2007, he was awarded the Order of the Smile and the Polish Ombudsman's Order of Paweł Włodkowic.

In 1985, he was twice tortured by Poland's communist-era Security Service, and some twenty years later in 2006, he started researching the secret police archives kept by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance to discover that 39 Archdiocese of Kraków priests had collaborated with the regime between 1944 and 1989. This resulted in the much-publicized 'Church Spy scandal' in Poland, where till then the Polish Church was only known for its role in battling communism and preserving traditional and national values both during the partitions of Poland and in the communist era.[2] Subsequently, in 2007 he published his controversial book Księża wobec bezpieki na przykładzie archidiecezji krakowskiej [pl] (lit. 'Priests towards the security services on the example of the Archdiocese of Kraków', but published in English under the title "Priests in the Face of the Security Services"[3]) on priests who cooperated with communist secret services.[4][5] He is the subject of a documentary 'Poland's Turbulent Priest', shown on BBC World News in 2009, about his struggle with the communist regime and the Polish church.[6][7]

  1. ^ "Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski". Ludzie Wprost (in Polish). Retrieved 6 October 2018.
  2. ^ Walesa joins row over priests who spied for secret police The Guardian, 14 January 2007.
  3. ^ "Book eyes church role in Polish Communist era". NBC News. NBC. 26 February 2007. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference washingtonpost2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference ny was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ 'POLAND'S TURBULENT PRIEST' Archived 9 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine BBC World News.
  7. ^ In the spotlight: Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski Warsaw Business Journal, 5 June 2006.