John, Bishop of the Eastern Old Believer Church in Poland

• Main Author: Zoja Jaroszewicz-Pieresławcew
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Ural Federal University Press 2020-09-01
• Series: Известия Уральского федерального университета. Серия 2: Гуманитарные науки
• Subjects: игнатий высочанский; польша; вармия и мазуры; старообрядчество; старокатолическая церковь
• Online Access: https://journals.urfu.ru/index.php/Izvestia2/article/view/4701
• ISSN: 2227-2283; 2587-6929

The aim of this article is to present the personality of Ignacy Jan Wysoczański, an outstanding adventurist who frequently changed his religion, was twice ordained as a priest, and behaved immorally (he spent three and a half years in prison and had three wives). He managed to be consecrated three times as a bishop in the Coptic, Old Catholic, and Old Believer (Belaia Krinitsa) churches. This recreation of his life and activities is based on archival materials in the Olsztyn State Archive and the Museum of Warmia and Mazury (Olsztyn), along with literature connected to Wysoczański. The article identifies the milestones of Wysoczański’s stormy life as he darted from one religion to another. At the beginning of the 1920s, he became a deacon in the ‘renovationist’ Orthodox Church; then, in 1930, he joined the Uniate Church as a deacon. In 1931, he entered the clerical ranks of the Old Catholic Church in Poland, from which he was excommunicated in 1932 for unworthy behaviour. After this, Wysoczański attempted to join the supporters of the Armenian Catholic Church. In 1947, he was consecrated as a bishop of the Old Catholic Church. In 1953, he became acquainted with the Old Believers: he remained closely connected with them until the end of his life, becoming a bishop of the Eastern Old Believer Church in Poland. From the Belaia Krinitsa metropolitanate, he received jurisdiction over Western Europe, Canada, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland. In parallel, he became an archbishop and a metropolitan of the Old Catholic churches in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In a church council convened in Kosiv in 1962 between the episcopal Old Believer Church, the Old Catholic Church, and other priestly administrations, Wysoczański created a new religious society, the Christian Mission of World Philanthropy. He attempted to draw the priestless Old Believers under his jurisdiction, but these efforts devolved into a fiasco. He died in 1975.