Felix Sznarbachowski

Feliks Sznarbachowski (born 29 May 1876 in Zaporozhye, died August 10, 1931 in Kovel) - apostolic protonologist, canon dean of the olympic chapter. Curriculum vitae

He completed the Seminary in Zhitomir and the Academy of Spiritual Studies in St. Petersburg. He was ordained in 1899. In the years 1905-1918 he was the vicar and then the administrator of the Chechnytsk and Berszade parishes. Later, the parish priest in Szarawka parish, the cathedral parish in Zhitomir, the parish of Brahili and the parish of Św. Barbara in Berdyczów.

He had the opinion of an outstanding organizer and social activist. He was repeatedly punished by the tsarist authorities for his religious-national activities. He built several churches in and around Żmerynce and Kowlo, as well as a bishop's house and a chapel in Zhitomir.

In Brahilov he founded a printing house and was the publisher of the "Brahil's Calendar", published in hundreds of thousands of copies. He published the monthly "Bibliographic Messages" in Kiev.

He was an editor and author of more than 60 pamphlets on religious-moral, historical and literary chatter.

In 1905 and 1915, the Jewish population in Szarawka near Płoskirowa and in Ołyka in Volhynia rescued Jews from pogroms. His charitable work also included the Ruthenians and was appreciated.

In 1916 he stayed in St. Petersburg for treatment. He worked there with the Polish Central Committee of Citizenship, providing assistance to refugees from the German occupied territories, and issued a "Bookcase for Exiles".

In early 1917 he returned to the diocese as pastor of the parish of St. Barbara in Berdyczów. Here he headed the Polish Executive Committee. As a parish priest, he founded several schools of Polish Motherland.

In May 1919, he was threatened by Bolshevik arrests and he was saved by the help of the local population. In June 1919 he went to Warsaw to lead a delegation of the Polish, Ruthenian and Bohemian population from Volhynia in order to familiarize the state authorities with the situation in the south-eastern Borderlands and to ask for intervention against the destructive and murderous activity of the Bolshevik band. The delegation submitted relevant documents to the embassy of France, England and the United States of America, showing the bloody pogroms of the Jewish population. He also met with the Apostolic Nuncio in Poland, Achilles Ratti.

In June 1920 he was appointed apostolic proton. In the years 1920-1921 he made a trip to the United States, where in the Polonia press he opposed some Jewish communities defending the campaign of accusations of Poles for the bloody pogroms of the Jewish population in the Eastern Border Provinces. After returning to the country in 1921, he was appointed pastor of Kovel. Here he founded the letter "Catholic Work" In 1924 he started building a church-monument, completed by his successor Fr. Marian Tokarzewski. He had the title of canon of the Dean of the Chapter. He was a prominent preacher and the author of the treatise "The beginning of the Roman Catholic Lutheran-Lutheran diocese, now Łucka". He died suddenly on August 10, 1931 in Kowlo. Nearly all the local Jews came to the funeral. Bibliography

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