HLOND, AUGUSTYN

Polish cardinal; b. Brzeczkowice (Upper Silesia), June 5, 1881; d. Warsaw, Oct. 22, 1948. Following his early school years in his native district, he continued his education under the salesians at Turin and entered their congregation in 1897. He received his doctorate at the Gregorian University in Rome in 1899 and was ordained in Cracow Sept. 23, 1905. He was appointed director of a Salesian school in Cracow (1907) and later was a schoolmaster in Vienna. From 1919 to 1922 he was head of the newly founded German-Austrian province of the Salesians.

In the reorganization of ecclesiastical affairs in Poland after World War I, he was made apostolic administrator (1922) and became the first bishop of Katowice (Dec. 14, 1925; consecrated Jan. 3, 1926). He played a major part in the negotiations leading to the concordat between the Holy See and Poland (1925). In 1926 he was made archbishop of Gniezno-Poznań and primate of Poland, and in 1927, cardinal. His able leadership in Polish episcopal synods, pastoral letters, development of catholic action, and promotion of the missionary apostolate of the press, imparted new life to the care of souls in Poland. At the outbreak of World War II he traveled by way of Rumania to Rome. From the fall of 1940 he resided in southern France. On Feb. 3, 1944, he was arrested by the Gestapo and, in September, was taken to Wiedenbrück (in Westphalia), where, on April 1, 1945, he was freed by American troops. By way of Rome and Prague he returned to Poznań (July 20, 1945) and began the reorganization of ecclesiastical life in Poland, having received special authority for this work from the Holy See. In the "Western Polish" districts, belonging to the East German ecclesiastical province, he established five apostolic administrators. On March 4, 1946, Pius XII dissolved the personal union of Gniezno and Poznań. Cardinal Hlond remained archbishop of Gniezno and, in addition, was made archbishop of Warsaw. Owing to his initiative, Catholicism recovered its strength after the suppression it suffered under National Socialism during the German occupation. To the end of his life, the cardinal-archbishop defended the Church against all limitations on its freedom imposed by the Communist government. On Jan. 22, 1959, his remains were transferred to the new primate's chapel in the Cathedral of St. John in Warsaw. Monuments in the cathedrals of Poznań and Warsaw manifested the gratitude of Polish Catholics for his labors on their behalf.

Bibliography: Works. The Persecution of the Catholic Church in German-Occupied Poland (New York 1941); Na straży sumienia narodu, wybór pism i przemówień z przedmowem O. Haleckiego (Ramsey, N.Y. 1951). Literature. b. stasiewski, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 5:395–396. w. sucker, Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 7 v. (3d ed. Tübingen 1957–65) 3:371. k. m. ŻywczyŃski, "A. Hlond," Polski słownik biograficzny 9 (Wrocław-Warsaw-Cracow 1961) 545–546. w. malej, "Kardynał A. Hlond, 1881–1948," Wiadomości archidiecezji warszawskiej 40 (Warsaw 1958) 510–520.

[b. stasiewski]