'Solidarity chaplain' dies aged 76

The priest, who supported people detained by communist authorities during martial law, which was imposed from 13 December 1981 to 22 July 1983, allegedly foresaw his own death.

Ryszard Pluta, the head priest of the church in Bucze where Piwowarski served until his death, said: “As we planned services for the coming week … he did not include himself, saying 'You will soon understand what I mean'. Now I understand he meant his death, which he predicted, in a way”.

Pluta said the late priest had been in poor health but was self-sufficient and an active member of his community until he asked for his last rites after he felt unwell on Wednesday.

Pluta highlighted Piwowarski's death coinciding with All Saints Day, a Catholic feast day which marks the dead.

Piwowarski aided meetings with Solidarity members while he was a head priest of a church near the southern Polish resort of Krynica during the martial law period.

“I was an unofficial [Solidarity] chaplain,” Piwowarski said last June, adding: “I was not nominated by Church officials. It was Solidarity which asked me to take them under my care, maybe because I helped form the trade union”.

He added that villagers or townspeople knew “something was up” but were not able to get involved in opposition activities and that he facilitated contacts with Solidarity.

“They came to me because they knew I did not shy away in my sermons, I was direct and in a way stubborn,” Piwowarski said, adding that he feared the regime.

“At a parish in Lipinka, for ten months I celebrated Mass next to a locked church. I thought they could 'waste' me. And it is not that I was not afraid. Everyone was afraid … There was even a time that parishioners kept watch over the presbytery.”

Last year, Polish President Andrzej Duda gave Piwowarski the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (Poland Reborn). (vb/pk)