titular archbishop auxiliary bishop
Which position did Jan Cieplak hold from Jul 1908 to Mar 1919?
Jan Cieplak Jan Cieplak ( 17 August 1857 - 17 February 1926 ) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest and archbishop . Early life . Jan Cieplak was born in Dąbrowa Górnicza , Congress Poland , in 1857 to an impoverished family of the Polish nobility . He attended the Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy during the 1880s . After several years as a seminary instructor , in 1908 , he became the auxiliary bishop of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Mohilev and titular bishop of Evaria . He remained in this position until his superior , Archbishop Edward von der Ropp , was deported after the October Revolution . Archbishop . During the reign of Nicholas II of Russia , Cieplak was under surveillance by the Okhrana , which suspected him of Polish nationalism . On 29 March 1919 , he was named the titular archbishop of Achrida . As the highest-ranking representative of Roman Catholic Church in the new Soviet Union he was often harassed and persecuted . The Archbishop was arrested twice by the CHEKA but was released amidst massive protests by the Catholics of Petrograd . At the same time , he was also instrumental in arranging for the relics of Saint Andrew Bobola to be permanently transferred from the Soviet Union to Rome . Otherwise , the Archbishop was certain that the remains of the Saint would have been subjected to desecration . After Lenins stroke in 1922 , Petrograd CPSU boss Grigory Zinoviev was determined to rid his district of organized Catholicism . With the support of a majority of the Politburo , a political show trial was arranged , which was to be prosecuted by Deputy Commissar of Justice Nikolai Krylenko . The Cieplak Trial . During the spring of 1923 , Archbishop Cieplak , his Vicar General Konstantin Budkevich , Byzantine Catholic Exarch Leonid Feodorov , fourteen other priests and one layman , were summoned to attend a trial in Moscow . According to Christopher Lawrence Zugger , The Bolsheviks had already orchestrated several show trials . The Cheka had staged the Trial of the St . Petersburg Combat Organization ; its successor , the new GPU , the Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries . In these and other such farces , defendants were inevitably sentenced to death or to long prison terms in the north . The Cieplak show trial is a prime example of Bolshevik revolutionary justice at this time . Normal judicial procedures did not restrict revolutionary tribunals at all ; in fact , the prosecutor N.V . Krylenko stated that the courts could trample upon the rights of classes other than the proletariat . Appeals from the courts went not to a higher court but to political committees . Western observers found the setting -- the grand ballroom of a former Noblemens Club , with painted cherubs on the ceiling -- singularly inappropriate for such a solemn event . Neither judges nor prosecutors were required to have a legal background , only a proper revolutionary one . That the prominent No Smoking signs were ignored by the judges themselves did not bode well for legalities . New York Herald correspondent Francis MacCullagh , who was present at the trial , later described its fourth day as follows : Cieplak and Budkevich were sentenced to the death penalty , all the other defendants received lengthy sentences in the GULAG . The news of the sentences touched off enraged demonstrations throughout the Western world . According to Zugger , The Vatican , Germany , Poland , Great Britain , and the United States undertook frantic efforts to save the Archbishop and his chancellor . In Moscow , the ministers from the Polish , British , Czechoslovak , and Italian missions appealed on the grounds of humanity , and Poland offered to exchange any prisoner to save the archbishop and the monsignor . Finally , on March 29 , the Archbishops sentence was commuted to ten years in prison , .. . but the Monsignor was not to be spared . Again , there were appeals from foreign powers , from Western Socialists and Church leaders alike . These appeals were for naught : Pravda editorialized on March 30 that the tribunal was defending the rights of the workers , who had been oppressed by the bourgeois system for centuries with the aid of priests . Pro-Communist foreigners who intervened for the two men were also condemned as compromisers with the priestly servants of the bourgeoisie . ...Father Rutkowski recorded later that Budkiewicz surrendered himself over to the will of God without reservation . On Easter Sunday , the world was told that the Monsignor was still alive , and Pope Pius XI publicly prayed at St . Peters that the Soviets would spare his life . Moscow officials told foreign ministers and reporters that the Monsignors sentence was just and that the Soviet Union was a sovereign nation that would accept no interference . In reply to an appeal from the rabbis of New York City to spare Budkiewiczs life , Pravda wrote a blistering editorial against Jewish bankers who rule the world and bluntly warned that the Soviets would kill Jewish opponents of the Revolution as well . Only on April 4 did the truth finally emerge : the Monsignor had already been in the grave for three days . When the news came to Rome , Pope Pius fell to his knees and wept as he prayed for the priests soul . To make matters worse , Cardinal Gasparri had just finished reading a note from the Soviets saying that everything was proceeding satisfactorily when he was handed the telegram announcing the execution . On 31 March 1923 , Holy Saturday , at 11:30 PM , after a week of fervent prayers and a firm declaration that he was ready to be sacrificed for his sins , Monsignor Constantine Budkiewicz had been taken from his cell and , sometime before the dawn of Easter Sunday , shot in the back of the head on the steps of the Lubyanka prison . Release and later life . Under international pressure , Cieplak was released from prison and taken to Poland in 1924 . After reaching Poland , he left for Rome and then to the United States , where he visited with Chicagos Polish Community at St . Hyacinth Basilica . On 10 November 1925 , he arrived in Passaic , New Jersey . He died of an illness in Dąbrowa Górnicza a few months later . In 1925 Cieplak was nominated to serve as the Archbishop of Wilno ( Vilnius ) , but he died before he was able to assume the position . He was interred in the Vilnius Cathedral . Legacy . Since 1952 the Catholic Church is considering beatification of Cieplak .