Ojciec Grzegorz Cioroch OFMConv (1962-2004). Polak na rosyjskiej ziemi w służbie odrodzenia katolickiego języka rosyjskiego
Friar Grzegorz Cioroch OFMConv (1962-2004): A Polish Man on Russian Soil in the Service of the Revival of the Catholic Russian Language

Summary/Abstract: This article presents a short biography of the Polish Franciscan Friar Grzegorz Cioroch, OFM Conv (1962-2004), whose figure is linked to the concern for the development of Catholicism in Russia. He died tragically near Kobryn in Belarus. Frair Cioroch spread his care for the Polish community in Moscow, attracting numerous vocations. He was the first Custos of the Franciscan Russian Custody, a great missionary to Russia, where from the early 1990s, with the support of Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, he co-founded the first Catholic seminary ‘Mary Queen of Apostles’. He played an important role in the recovery of the cathedral in Moscow. He also had impressive merits in the field of publishing and in the development of the Catholic Russian language. At that time, the Polish language was not always understood by the descendants of Poles in Russia, so the need arose to provide religious, liturgical and theological literature in Russian. The friar founded the Catholic Franciscan Publishing House in Moscow in 1994. Thanks to his efforts, work began on the editing of the five-volume russian Catholic Encyclopaedia, edited in close collaboration with foreign scholars, including those from Poland. In the process of compiling this work and translating, among other things, the Roman Missal and the Breviary, a normativisation of the Catholic religious language in Russia was taking place.

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