biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1866–1953)
|
| biography:
| Religious founder, born in Zarki, Poland. Emigrating to the USA as a seminarian and ordained in 1893, he became pastor (1897) of a Scranton, PA church independently built by Polish Catholics chafing under a largely German and Irish hierarchy; the next year he was excommunicated. Additional groups joined together to form a Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC), which he led, becoming a bishop (1907). The PNCC adopted a Polish vernacular liturgy, among other changes. At his death there were 270 000 adherents. |
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