Bernard Maciejowski

Cardinal Bernard Maciejowski, Ciołek coat of arms (1548 – 19 January 1608 in Kraków), Polish nobleman, starosta, royal standard bearer, statesman and Catholic Church leader; Lutsk bishop, Archbishop of Kraków, Archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland (between 1606 and 1608). Biography Maciejowski was a scion (descendant) of powerful family, being a son of Bernard Maciejowski, starosta of Trembowla (now Terebovlia), castelan of Lublin and Radom, and his wife Elżbieta Kamieniecka, Piława coat of arms. His uncle, Samuel Maciejowski, was the archbishop of Kraków. He studied at the Jesuit College in Vienna. Since 1570 he became vexillifer regni (royal standard-bearer) of king Sigismund II Augustus. He participated as a soldier during 1579–1581 in the Livonian campaign of Stephen Báthory during the Stephen Bathory's reign over the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Under the influence of the Polish influential Jesuit Piotr Skarga Maciejowski decided to study theology in Rome, which he started in 1582. There, in 1586 he took Holy Orders and became a presbyter, and later on the same year he became a canon in Poland's capital, Kraków. Upon King Stephen's death he supported Sigismund III Vasa's election. Then he was sent by the new king to Rome as his diplomatic envoy to the pope. He was then rewarded by the new king with a seat of bishop of the diocese of Łuck in 1588. In his function of Bishop of Lutsk he founded and had built a Jesuit college in Lublin in 1591–1596. He was part of the preparations leading to the Union of Brest. In 1600 he was again promoted as he became a bishop of Kraków, his ingressus (official entry) into the Wawel Cathedral took place on 12 August 1600. Bishop Bernard called a council of church (synod) in his diocese in 1601, and upon its conclusion published a pastoral epistle addressed to the Parsons of his diocese, and this publication is considered today as the first Christian ministry textbook. His then famous and important pastoral epistle had come to be distributed and publicized in the whole country in 1607. In 1603 Pope Clement VIII nominated Maciejowski to a position of cardinal.