On the first anniversary of the death of Father Stanisław Pomykała SJ (1950-2022), who worked, among others, in Vitebsk, Belarus, Bishop Oleh Budkiewicz, together with the community of Vitebsk Jesuits, blessed a commemorative plaque placed in the hall of the Church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.
The ceremonial consecration of the plaque commemorating the Polish missionary took place on September 3, 2023, exactly one year after his untimely death.
Father Stanisław Pomykała SJ was born on January 4, 1950 in Brzeg Dolny near Wołów, Poland. He joined the Society of Jesus on July 30, 1965.
After his monastic studies, in 1980 he began working in the Polish Section of Vatican Radio in Rome and, as a reporter, accompanied many pilgrimages of John Paul II. He was associated with neocatechumenal communities, where he served for many years.
After finishing his work at Vatican Radio in 1990 and the sabbatical year, he was sent to Novosibirsk in 1991, where he helped Bishop Joseph Werth SJ – the first ordinary of the Apostolic Administration of Novosibirsk. He was the founder and director of the „Inigo” Spirituality Center in Novosibirsk and led retreats also in other cities of the Russian Federation and former Soviet republics. He also lectured on Ignatian spirituality and pedagogy at a local university. From the end of 2021, he worked in Belarus, first in the parish of the Holy Trinity in Hlyboble in the Vitebsk diocese (2012-2014), and then in Vitebsk – in the parish of St. Anthony (until 2017) and in the parish of St. Władysław, which the Jesuits formally took over in 2019 and built a church for the parishioners dedicated to St. Ignatius of Loyola, consecrated in July 2022. He was the spiritual father of the priests of the Vitebsk diocese.
