A MAN FOR ALL HIS LIFE AND WORKSstorage.googleapis.com/wzukusers/user-13145157... · Cox Colony,...

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Transcript of A MAN FOR ALL HIS LIFE AND WORKSstorage.googleapis.com/wzukusers/user-13145157... · Cox Colony,...

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A MAN FOR ALL

FR. MARIAN ZELAZEK SVD

HIS LIFE AND WORKS

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Our Sincere Thanks to1. Fr. Sebastian Mattappallil SVD

2. Fr. Paul Moras SVD

3. Mr. P. Lalit

4. All the friends and well wishers.

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PROVINCIAL SUPERIORSOCIETY OF THE DIVINE WORD - INDIA EAST

Shanti Bhavan, P.O. Box 3, Cox Colony,Jharsuguda-768 201, Odisha, India

FOREWORD

When Fr. Marian Zelazek SVD, BAPA of the people of Puri,suddenly collapsed and died on April 30, 2006, in thearms of his leper friends in their colony, one of theminstantly exclaimed “ …here is a great and holy man,truly a man of God, who by his presence in Puri, hasmade the holy city of Lord Jagannath, a holier city and abetter place to live!”

These sentiments have echoed, ever since, in the heartsand minds and on the lips of countless admirers of Fr.Marian, both in India and Poland, from where he hailed,recognizing a rare holiness in him, and a hallow ofsaintliness around him, both in his life and in his numerousworks of compassion to the poor, the needy and thesuffering, especially the lepers of Puri. These and countlessothers would like to see this great yet humble and saintlyFr. Marian to be raised to the status of a SAINT, whereinhe can be approached by one and sundry, in all types ofphysical and spiritual needs, people who were so dear tohim here on earth.

We the members of the SVD INDIA EAST PROVINCE inODISHA, to which Fr. Marian belonged and where he spent56 years of his precious missionary life, are proud to havehad such a saintly man in our midst and we are honoredto promote his cause for Sainthood in the Church, so thathe can be a source of strength to all who are sufferingand a shining example to all who are reaching out tothem in service.

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This booklet is one of the first steps, our SVD INE Provinceis taking, towards this noble cause of making the life andworks of Fr. Marian known to more and more people, sothat they can feel his compassionate presence both intheir life and in that of others around them.

I wish that this publication may be an instrument, howeversmall, in the hands of many to know more about thesaintliness of our dear Fr. Marian and experience the powerof his intercession and guidance. May it enable moreand more people to approach him in prayer andsupplication for his help and support in their daily lifestruggles.

We sincerely thank our Superior General V. Rev. Fr. HeinzKulüke, SVD, our Archbishop Most Rev. John Barwa SVD,and the Polish Provincial Rev. Fr Eryk Koppa SVD for theirkind messages on the occasion of the publication of thisbooklet. We are privileged to have Father Superior Generalrelease this booklet on the occasion of his first ever visitto our Province, end of October 2014. Thank you FatherGeneral.

We have included in this booklet a Prayer of Petition, inEnglish, Odiya and Hindi, for the cause of the Beatificationof our beloved Fr. Marian. It will also be distributed in allthe areas where Fr. Marian had labored and wherepresently we SVDs are working. We urge one and all toraise their voices to the heavenly Father, with the help ofthis prayer and other appropriate devotions, that soonerthan later, Fr. Marian may find a place among his honoredsaints.

FR. MARIAN, pray for us all, that we may be inspired byyour life example!

Fr. Luvis Ronald Pereira SVDProvincial Superior INE

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Superior GeneralisSocietatis Verbi Divini

Curia Generalizia SVD • Via dei Verbiti, 1 • 001 54 Roma • ITALIA

Tel: (centralino) : (+39) 06 575 40 21 • Superiore Generale: (+39) 06571 15 357 • Fax: (+39) 06 578 30 31 • e-mail : [email protected]

Monday, 15 September 2014

ROM/1h-142189

Provincial SuperiorFr. Pereira, Luvis Ronald, SVDShanti Bhavan - ProvincialateCox Colony, Mother Teresa RoadP.O. Box 3, P.O. / Dt. JharsugudaOdisha - 768 201, INDIA

in re : Message of Superior General onFr. Marian Zelazek, SVD

Dear Fr. Pereira,

My council and I are pleased to know that you are goingto publish a book on the life and mission of Fr. MarianZelazek SVD (1918-2006), as part of the process of hisbeatification.

Fr. Zelazek, a native of Poland arrived in India in 1950.From then on till his death during the long 56 years hemade India his second home by being an Indian amongthe Indians. He went to Puri the holiest of Hindu cities in1975. Besides the church building and the parish ministry,he tirelessly built up two centers: “Karunalaya”, a leprosycare center along with the Beatrix School, for the childrenof the leprosy patients and the “Ishopanthi Ashram”dedicated to interreligious dialogue. The former is a perfectexample of “Putting the last first” and the latter of

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“Fourfold Prophetic Dialogue”.

Although he did all this with pure intention of love andservice, it was noted and recognized by people of all Faithsand even he was twice chosen as a candidate for theNobel Peace Prize. Mahatma Gandhi says a small body ofdetermined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in theirmission can alter the course of history. Here we have afellow member of our congregation, who tried to makethis world a better place to live and love by his life andmission as a faithful disciple of Jesus.

It is our wish and prayer that Fr. Zelazek’s passion forJesus and a passion for his people (Evangelii Gaudium268), continue to inspire not only the members of ourcongregation but all those who want to build a just andhumane world.

With best wishes,

Fr. Heinz Kulüke, SVDSuperior General

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Dear Provincial Fr. Ronald,

Thank you for inviting me to give a message on Fr.MarianZelazek SVD, on the occasion of publishing a booklet onhis life and works, to promote the cause of hisBeatification.

Rev. Fr. Marian Zelazek, SVD was a man of "BEING ANDDOING", a great "VISIONARY". He loved "PASSIONATELYJESUS and COMPASSIONATELY THE HUMANITY" especiallythe tribals, dalits, lepers, the poor and the suffering ofOdisha. I bow with reverence before this saintly soul. Ofthe 88 long years of his life, he spent 56 years in Odisha,25 in the then Sambalpur and the present RourkelaMission and the rest 31 in Puri, reaching out to the mostneedy and the unwanted, specially the lepers. With hiscompassion and selfless service he was able to touch thehearts of all he served. Thus he became a BAPA- DADDYto all, especially the inmates of Karunalaya Leprosy CareCentre in Puri.

Fr. Marian Zelazek SVD was short listed for the NobelPeace Prize twice, in 2002 and 2003 and was given severalnational and international awards and recognitions forhis commitment to the poor and the segregated people.But these made no difference on his life and mission, aman of true love and service, with no expectations inreturn.

His lived experience in the Nazi Concentration Camp atDachau in Germany (from May 22, 1940 till April 29,1945), made him value and cherish the dignity of life andbe compassionate to all, especially the suffering and the

Archibishop John Barwa, SVD

Archibishop’s House9/16, Satyanagar

Bhubaneswar-751007Odisha, India

Tel : (0674) 2575225, 2570514Tel Fax : (0674) 2575397 (P)

Mobile : (91) 9437390428E-mail : [email protected]

[email protected]

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poor. "I had my own classmates dying in my arms due tohard labour, hunger and diseases and I became stronger"Fr. Marian said.

Days after the severe destruction of life and propertycaused by the Super Cyclone in 1999 in Odisha, I (as thethen SVD Provincial Superior) accompanied Fr. Marianwith a few inmates of the Leprosy Care Center at Puri, inhis daily mission of searching for the dead bodies of bothhumans and animals. The stinking smell of the rottenflesh made me so sick that I could not continue themission. But Fr. Marian continued the search mission withgreat respect and reverence, as a man who lovedpassionately Jesus and compassionately humanity.

The sincere wish of Fr. Marian Zelazek SVD was "I wantto die when I am on my feet and among whom I love"and God granted him his heart's desire; and thus Fr.Marian died in the midst of his beloved people, the inmatesof Karunalaya in Puri, on April 30, 2006.

Intercede for us 0 Holy Soul of Rev. Fr. Marian ZelazekSVD that we are able to walk in your footsteps and beable to build up God’s Kingdom in Odisha.

Yours in the Divine Word

+John Barwa SVD

Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar

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PROVINCIAL SUPERIOR, POLAND

ul. Ostrobramska 90, 04-118 Warszawa, Poland

Provincial SuperiorFr. Pereira, Luvis Ronald, SVDShanti Bhavan - ProvincialateCox Colony, Mother Teresa RoadP.O. Box 3, P.O. / Dt. JharsugudaOdisha - 768 201, INDIA

Dear Fr. Pereira,

I am delighted to learn about a new publication dedicatedto the memory of our confrere and compatriot, Fr MarianZelazek SVD. This Polish priest, religious and life-longmissionary in India is rightly held as the model ofdisinterested love and service to those in greatest need.

Born in a Catholic family, he entered the Society of theDivine Word in the 1930s. His priestly and religiousformation was brutally interrupted by the outbreak ofthe Second World War in 1939. Along with many of hisclassmates, Fr Marian was incarcerated in a concentrationcamp, where some died. He survived and continued hisstudies after the war and was ordained priest. Terribleexperience of the concentration camp did not kill his hopeand faith in God and the basic goodness of man. He alwaysbelieved that every man, being created in the image ofGod, is good. He would search for this goodness, no matterhow deeply buried, and encourage it to come to the front.

I would like to express my gratitude to the Divine WordMissionaries in India and to many of Fr Marian’s friendsin his second homeland for cherishing his memory andcarrying on his work. May God bless all your endeavors.

In the love of the Divine Word,

Fr Eryk Koppa SVDProvincial Superior POL

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The Childhood :Son of the soil of Poland.

Fr. Marian Zelazek was born on January 30, 1918, theyear World War I ended. Incidentally, it was to be thedate, exactly after 52 years, on which, Mahatma Gandhi,the Father of the Indian Nation, who had inspired youngMarian with his principle of AHIMSA, and influenced hisdecision to opt for India as his field of work, would fall tothe bullets of one of his own countrymen.

He was born in an ordinary large Polish family with 18children, 3 of whom died very young, and two of whomwere adopted. The Zelazek family lived on the outskirtsof the village of Paledzie, about a kilometer away fromthe centre of the village. It was a happy family with aplot of 20 hectares of cultivable land, a windmill forgrinding grain and a large vegetable garden, all signs ofa farmer family financially well off. Simultaneously thewhole family was deeply religious. The long hours ofprayers, especially the rosary during the months of Mayand October, left a lasting impression on the little kneesand tender minds of all the children.

The Zelazeks - A Small family of 18 Children

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It was considered a normal responsibility of the elderchildren to help the parents in taking care of the youngerones. When the turn of Marian came in lending a helpinghand, he did not particularly like it, but reminiscing withnostalgia, Fr. Marian recalls that the experience did helphim much in his future life. In the year 1926, theimpending crisis in Europe took its toll of the Zelazekfamily too. Marian's parents had to sell the village propertyand move to the town of Poznan. The three room housewith a kitchen hardly had enough space for a family withfifteen children. The parents, however, faced the challengecourageously and despite all odds, educated all thechildren.

The way to Priesthood :In the service of the WORD and theworld.Fr. Marian strongly believed in thewords of the Hungarian writer,Tihamer Todt: “When Christ kisses ayoung man on the forehead and tellshim `come follow me', no power inthe world will hold him back.”Reminiscing on his joining the SVD,Fr. Marian thinks that he was not the

best among the eight brothers. But something had madehim different from others. Even as a child, Marian wouldsay “Mass”, sprinkle “holy water” and conduct other rituals.He feels that his mother must have said special rosariesand prayed earnestly for her seventh son to be a priest.Marian was the favorite of his mother. She would divulgeher best kept secrets to Marian and allow him to do thingswhich others had no access to. She earnestly prayed forand longed to see Marian as a priest. The decisive momenton the way to Priesthood came when little Marian, thenan altar boy at his parish, read in a mission magazine anappeal to young men, to join the Mission gymnasium ofthe Divine Word Missionaries at Gorna Grupa. Themagazine was left in the sacristy for the altar boys by a

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retired Argentinean Missionary Fr. Bayerlein Marianski,SVD, who had come to say Mass in their parish.

Marian put in his application and prayed earnestly to theBlessed Virgin daily for the next one month till it wasaccepted. Thus in the year 1932, Marian joined the MissionGymnasium of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) inGorna Grupa and in 1937, he entered the SVD novitiate.Thus the first definite step towards a challenging life hadbeen taken, beginning of the long way to Priesthood..!

World War II:Life in the Concentration Camp.

Poland, like the rest of Europe, was engulfed by the SecondWorld War, when Marian and his companions were still inthe Novitiate, along with those who studied philosophy.Neither the novitiate nor the philosophical studies suitedthe interests of the invading German Army. The Gestapo(German secret police) gave them an option... to leavethe house at Chludowo and be settled in the governmentdesignated area in central Poland or to remain and facethe consequences. Considering it a betrayal of theirvocation, the young novices refused to be moved awayfrom their house of formation and the consequence oftheir refusal was not long in coming. On May 22, 1940,the covered trucks that arrived at Chludowo, took away26 of the “obstinate” seminarians, leaving behind the four,who were sickly. Their dreaded journey ended in theconcentration camps at Dachau. The horrors of life inDachau were unimaginable to the normal human mind,and according to Fr. Marian, silence would be the bestdescription...

Of the 26 young men who entered the camp, 14 diedwithin three years. They were neither killed by bullets orbombs, nor were their deaths natural. Their deaths werethe consequence of typical inhuman torture of Nazi camps.It was literally a “resurrection” for the other 12, includingFr. Marian, when the American army rescued them from

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the camp on April 29, 1945. Whenever there was anopportunity Fr. Marian never failed to make a pilgrimageto Dachau, the place of his resurrection and his secondcalling.

Fr. Marian never forgot that though his seminary trainingwas disrupted by World War II, the life in the camps atGusen and Dachau, helped his vocation grow stronger,deeper and broader. When he saw his classmates die oneafter another, he felt himself to be the inheritor of theirvocation too, and decided to do their part also in his life,if he ever managed to survive the tomb of Dachau.Doubtlessly, he did survive and all his life he has triedhard to fulfill this resolution.

India : A distant and bigCountry :A home by choice…

Marian wanted to be amissionary in a “distant and big”country and India suited hisdesire well. Besides, he wasmuch enamored by the principleof peaceful struggle (ahimsa)adopted by Mahatma Gandhi toachieve independence for India.His priestly ordination coincidedwith the decision of the Societyof the Divine Word to take over the Sambalpur Mission inOdisha, India, which required more missionaries, willingto go to a strange and big country. Fr. Marian, of course,grabbed this opportunity!

Mission India :Life among the tribals of Sambalpur (Gangpur)

The Divine Word Missionaries (SVD) who had taken overthe Indore mission in Central India in 1932, landed inOdisha in Eastern India in 1948 as an extension of theIndore mission. The first SVDs who landed in Odisha were

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an international group of eight Germans, four British, threeAmericans, two Dutch, two Irish, three Australians, twoArgentineans, two Slovaks and two Poles. Yes, 28 in all!They took over the Gangpur Mission of the Chotanagpurbelt, from the Belgian Jesuits and named it the SambalpurMission, after the then existing only town of the area,Sambalpur. The common language among thisinternational group was English, a language used in mostof India, which most of them had to learn and use at thesame time. It was difficult to find even a Christmas carolknown by all, when they came together..., yet they knewhow to pool all their resources together for the mission athand!

In the early days, the bicycle was the only and the bestmeans of transportation for the missionaries, though someadventurous missionaries tried horses too. The bicyclewas indeed a wonderful vehicle. One could reachpractically anywhere on it through the rice fields and jungletracks and if it could not carry you across swollen riversyou could carry it on your shoulders! You could meet alltypes of people on the way, and exchange news and viewswith them.

The mission work in this Sambalpur Mission, was mostlyamong the tribals, who lived on the peripheries of thejungles of northern Odisha. In view of the over alldevelopment of these tribals the SVD missionaries tookspecial care in the education of children. So within 10years of their arrival, there were 171 primary schools, asFr. Marian recalled, in all types of remote and inaccessibleplaces, every morning, bringing to life the quiet jungleswith the innocent laughter of hoards of children dressedin many colors proceeding towards them. Many tribalchildren have reached high positions in the society and inthe Church because of the primary education they receivedfrom these mission schools built in far flung villages. Fr.Marian, as the then Diocesan School Secretary, is proudto have been a part of this great beginning of the SVDmission in Odisha.

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Mission PuriA different place, a different people :

In 1975, the SVDs accepted the invitation of theArchbishop to takeover the parish atPuri in theArchdiocese ofC u t t a c kBhubaneswar. TheSVD requested Fr.Marian to take chargeof this new venturenearly 600 kilometers away from Rourkela and the familiar,and the established missions of Gangpur, where Fr. Marianhad spent the past 25 years. As a true missionary Fr.Marian readily accepted the offer. Puri, the “holy city ofLord Jagannath” (Lord of the Universe) on the easterncoast of India, is one of the four major pilgrim centres ofHinduism. Soon after his arrival, it became evident to Fr.Marian that the new mission in Puri, a town filled withdevotion and religiosity, needs an entirely differentapproach than what he was accustomed to in theSambalpur mission. Works of charity to help those in need,medical care and rehabilitation of the numerous leprosyvictims, a school to educate the children of the leprosyaffected families, a library and a research centre for theeducated, organizing inter religious meetings and prayerservices and building an attractive Church, were some ofthe ideas that came across to him as a means to makingGospel values present in Puri, all of which he achievedwith considerable ease and hard work, with the assistanceof his friends and well-wishers, during the course of the31 years he spent in Puri.

- An anonymous admirer of Fr. Marian on the Internet

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Bringing relief to the Outcasts :Work among leprosy affected people.

In any pilgrim centre in India, beggars (real ones as wellas fake ones) abound as much as the pilgrims, off whose

kindness, theysurvive. Puri too hadthousands of them,due precisely to thecontinuous flow ofpilgrims. Amongthem were also manypeople affected byleprosy. Since theywere consideredcursed both by Godand man (because

there was no cure for leprosy), they were assigned aspecial place for begging. At least this was so in 1975,when Fr. Marian landed in Puri. It became clear to himthat by visiting these outcasts regularly and “touching”their lives just as Christ did, would be making the presenceof the Divine Healer felt in Puri. He procured an ambulancewith the help of the Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswarand got the collaboration of the Sisters of Charity(Bambinas) to regularly visit the colony of these specialbeggars and provide them with medical and other help.Soon the ambulance and their visits became the talk ofthe town. The people initially suspected that Fr. Marianand the team were out to convert all the lepers, whichwas an unpardonable crime. Although no lepers have beenever converted, the people of Puri have been definitelyconverted to the experience of the presence of a “lovingGod,” thanks to the works of Fr. Marian and the Sisters,making considerable change in their attitude towards thedisease and its victims. He could venture in to the workof service to the leprosy victims more easily, when heremembered his days in the concentration camp atDachau, which were even more cursed, than that of a

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leper. Because it was there that he had learned “ What ismost important is not to abandon the human beingstanding before me in need”, which he so often quotedin his daily work because he was convinced that “it is notdifficult to be good, provided one wants to be so…”

Karunalaya Leprosy Care Centre- a mission fulfilled :Not to abandon the human being standing before me in need…

There are about a thousand people (leprosy victims andtheir families) living in small and large groups aroundPuri. A cluster of houses where they would stay togetherwould be known as a “leper colony”. Sometimes such“colonies” were partially or fully supported by thegovernment or local municipality. At the invitation of thethen District Magistrate & Collector of Puri in 1978, Fr.Marian initiated steps to set up a leprosy care centre toprovide succor to two large settlements of leprosy victims.This Centre was later registered as a Charitable Society,and named Karunalaya Leprosy Care Centre providing itwith government recognition and support.

Karunalaya, with its declared aim of rehabilitating thevictims of the dreaded disease, focuses all its activitiestowards restoring the confidence and dignity of the leprosyvictims; to put a humane smile back on their face; tochange the “colony” into a normal residential settlementand finally to reduce the dependence of these people onbegging for their survival.

Various Activities of Karunalaya :

A) Medical Care - As one of the main concerns ofKarunalaya this program includes:

i) A twice a week visit of a leprosy specialist doctorto the leper colony to attend to the in-patientsand out-patients

ii) Two full time trained paramedics to attend to thedaily dressing of the patients and the dispensingof necessary medicines.

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iii) An “emergency ward “providing free medical careto those in extreme need which can accommodate20 patients at a time as in-patients for temporaryemergency care with facilities for minor operations,Pathology Laboratory and a Dental Clinic.

B) Rehabilitation Activities :1. Orthopedic Workshop : Leprosy destroys the

outer nerves of the human body resulting in lossof sensation and ulceration of hands and feet. Thefeet are the most endangered due to lack ofsensation and therefore need special protection.The orthopedic shoe workshop produces shoes andsandals made of microcellular rubber which is ableto absorb the pressure of any hurting objects andprotect the senseless feet. The production cost ofsuch a pair of shoes is about INR 140.00. Thepatients can buy them at a concessional price ofINR. 40.00 only, and those who are not able toafford even that can avail of further rebates.

2. Self - employment Schemes :A unit for rope making from jute & coir, a spinningunit, a weaving unit, a tailoring cum productionunit, a poultry farm, a dairy farm, a pisciculturefarm and an agricultural farm help to provideemployment opportunities to those who can work.These units keep many lepers away from beggingby giving them gainful employment and help themgrow in human dignity! All these enterprises aremanaged by the leper colony inhabitantsthemselves.

3. Mercy Kitchen :This is a means to provide food and other articlesof daily needs to those who are unable to providefor themselves, even by begging. Even funeralexpenses of such helpless people are met underthis scheme. Presently there are 110 beneficiariesof this mercy kitchen. Besides, another 120

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children are provided a cup of milk a day with thehelp of Tri-Pini donors from Switzerland, under thisscheme.

4. Bore-wells for all :Getting enough and proper water for daily use is amajor problem faced by the colony inmates. Thisproblem has been solved by providing them witha bore-well each in their houses. They are able touse these in spite of their physical handicapscaused by the disease. This is a great help to keeptheir surroundings clean and maintain hygene.

5. Beatrix School :The Beatrix School was built to educate the childrenof the leprosy affected parents. And it was builtaway from the “colony” so that the children, mostof whom are free from leprosy, can breathedifferent and fresh air, not vitiated by the proximityof the disease. This protects the children from beingbranded “children of lepers” as it is normally donein public schools. The school admits also childrenfrom other families in the town who are not affectedby leprosy. Since the school has achieved a namefor good education facilities, there is a greatdemand for admission. After passing out fromBeatrix school, the children are able to integrateeasily into other normal schools, thus eliminatingthe stigma inherited from their parents.

6. Karunalaya Children’s Home :Meant exclusively for the children of leprosyaffected families, this home aims to keep thesehealthy children away from their leper parents aslong as possible, meanwhile providing them withnutritious food and opportunities for good basiceducation, thus making them worthy members ofthe main stream society. There are about 80 suchchildren from different lepers’ families from andaround Puri taken care by this home.

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7. Sponsorship Program :Providing supplementary nutritious diet like milk,eggs and fruits to all the children of lepers’ familiesand surrounding slums with the help of childsponsorship program is another of Fr. Marian’sambitious projects. Supporting the educational andmedical needs of the children of lepers and slumdwellers, and in some deserving cases even higherstudies in specialized fields are the other importantactivities of this program. This is an importantmeans of helping children of leper parents learnto mix with the main stream society.

8. Housing Projects :Building a decent shelter for the suffering or curedlepers was another need of the lepers, Fr. Marianpaid attention to, as he found them living underopen skies or under trees with only a plastic toshelter them, which made them more prone tothe vagaries of nature and the disease. He evensettled some 71 leper families with decent houseson a piece of land leased by the State Governmentand called the colony “Punaruthanpur”, truly anabode of Resurrection for all of them.

9. Spirituality and Dialogue Centre :

Together with the multifarious activities of socialministry, Fr. Marian always felt the need for a centreof Indian Spirituality and Dialogue in the holy cityof Hinduism, which would be used for Prayer,Retreats, Inter-Religious Dialogue, Seminars andWorkshops, training programs and moreimportantly as a refuge for those Indian & Foreignvisitors who come to Puri in search of true spiritualenlightenment. Begun in his lifetime, butcompleted only in 2010, four years after Fr.Marian’s death, this St. Arnold’s Centre ofSpirituality, Dialogue and Counselling aims atgiving a Christian presence in a spirit of dialogue

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with all those who come here. It can accommodate80 people at a time with necessary lodge, boardand conference facilities.

Relations with Hindus around :

Bapa of the people of Puri.

When the work among the leprosy victims started, thepeople looked at Fr. Marian with great suspicion. Theythought that he was out to convert the lepers. The thenDistrict Leprosy Officer, Dr. K.C. Mahapatra would makeit a point to be at the colony whenever Fr. Marian and histeam held their clinic, to see if they did any “conversion”work. Later, the Officer himself joined the team. Thusappreciation and respect for the work of “Father” for thedeprived, grew in the town and slowly, Fr. Marian wasperceived as a holy man, and a man of God by the people.The initial suspicion slowly evaporated and disappeared.From being a mere Christian missionary he became “Bapa”(Papa) for the people of Puri. So people including theChief Priest of the Jagannath Temple collaborated withFr. Marian. They visited him during Christmas and otherimportant occasions. People of all walks of life also cameto the Church especially during Christmas and otherfeasts. The library and the Reading Room which he hadstarted in the church premises, are well used by the peopleof the town. In all, the relationship with all the neighborsis very cordial. Though there were a spate of attacks andhatred towards missionaries in some parts of Odisha atone point, thanks to the saintly Fr. Marian, there was nosign of it towards the church or its activities in Puri theheartland of Hinduism.

Nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize :Acknowledgement of service to the needy.

Fr. Marian has been always vary of high flown popularity.Thus, it came as a bit of a surprise, a pleasant one atthat, for him to learn that he was being nominated forthe Nobel Peace Prize not once, but twice in 2002 and2003. In his own words, a missionary has no time to look

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for awards and rewards, but has always “more works tobe done, more paths to tread and more dreams to fulfill”.The news of the nomination, however, jolted Fr. Marianinto looking back at the way he had traveled, the workshe had accomplished and the dreams that had beenfulfilled! Instantly, the picture of his 14 companions whowere “martyred” in the concentration camp and thepromise he had made at his “resurrection”, to accomplishtheir tasks too flashed through his mind. At this prestigiousnomination, Fr. Marian cherished the memories of thecollaboration and cooperation of innumerable people,without which he would not have been able to realizemany of his dreams. For Fr. Marian, it is not a reward forpersonal achievements, but an acknowledgment of theefforts, struggles, sufferings and victories of the wholecommunity of missionaries and their collaborators inmitigating the pain and deprivation of people around us,especially, those considered cursed by their fate.

“I want to die with my shoes on…”:A death wish fulfilled!

30 April 2006 was not an ordinary day for Fr. Marianbecause it was not only a Sunday, day of the Lord, but itwas also “Akhyaya Tritiya” a special and auspicious festivalday for the people of Odisha and no less for the inmatesof the lepers’ colony who had invited Fr. Marian for aprayer service and a fellowship meal on the occasion.After finishing his morning ablutions and rituals, Fr. Mariancelebrated the Sunday Mass praying for his people ontheir auspicious feast day. After attending to the numerousvisitors who come to him daily for various needs heproceeded to the colony, not only for his regular visit, butto join the colony inmates to celebrate their great feast,as invited. After partaking of both the Bhajan singingand the fellowship meal with devotion and fervor, at about2:00 p.m. he proceeded to his vehicle to go to his Ashramfor a well-deserved afternoon rest. And as he wasproceeding, he suddenly collapsed in the arms of his

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accompanying leper friends and due to a massive cardiacarrest breathed his last to the welcome of his heavenlyFather...

‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have beenfaithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter intothe joy of your master” (Mathew 25-21).

Thus on 30 April 2006, at the age of 88 years and after56 years of selfless service to the poor and the needy, Fr.Marian went to his eternal reward literally with his shoeson, as he always wanted, among the people so dear tohim, “the colony inmates”. And on 2 May 2006 he wasinterned at the SVD Provincial Cemetery in Jharsuguda,Odisha.

Here is a great and holy man, truly a man of God,who by his presence in Puri, has made the holycityof Lord Jagannath a holier city and a better

place to live!!

A leper colony inmate at the sudden death ofFr. Marian on 30.04.2006

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What is A Nazi concentration Camp!? (For theUninitiated!)

The place of Fr. Marian’s Resurrection!

The second world war of 1939-1945 between the NaziGermany and the Allied Forces is synonymous withGermany and Hitler and Nazis and Concentration Camps.Nazi Germany under Hitler maintained concentrationcamps throughout the territories it controlled. The termconcentration is borrowed from British concentrationcamps of the second Anglo - Boer war. Because of theholocaust of 6 million Jews in these camps by the GermanGestapo, the term concentration camp is usedsynonymously with death camps.

The lead editors of the Encyclopedia of Camps andGhettoes, 1933-1945, of the United States of HolocaustMuseum, Geoffrey Megargee and Martin Dean, cataloguedsome 42,500 Nazi Ghettoes and Camps throughout Europespanning German controlled areas from France to Russiaand Germany itself between 1933-1945. They estimatethat 15 – 20 million people were imprisoned or died inthese camps.

The two largest groups, both numbering millions,

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incarcerated in these camps were Polish Jews and Sovietprisoners of war. Besides these, there were large numberof Gypsies, ethnic Poles and Serbs, Political prisoners,Homosexuals, Jehovah’s witnesses, people with disabilitiesand Catholic Clergy. Many of the prisoners died in theconcentration camps through deliberate maltreatment,starvation, over work and disease and many were simplyexecuted as unfit for labor. Prisoners were transportedin inhuman conditions by rail freight cars in which manydied even before reaching their destination due to lack ofair, food and water and consequent dehydration.

Types of camps :According to Moshe Lifshitz, the Nazi camps were dividedas follows :

• Hostage camps :Camps where hostages were held and killed asreprisals.

• Labor camps :Concentration camps where interned inmates hadto do hard physical labor under inhumaneconditions and cruel treatment. Some of thesecamps were sub-camps of bigger camps, or"operational camps", established for a temporaryneed.

• POW camps :Concentration camps where prisoners of war wereheld after capture. POWs were usually soonassigned to labor camps.

• Camps for rehabilitation and re-education of Poles:Camps where the intelligentsia of the ethnic Poleswere held, and "re-educated" according to Nazivalues as slaves.

• Transit and collection camps : Camps where inmates were collected and routedto main camps, or temporarily held(Durchgangslager or Dulag).

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• Extermination camps :These camps differed from the rest, since not allof them were also concentration camps. Althoughnone of the categories is independent, and manycamps could be classified as a mixture of severalof the above, and all camps had some of theelements of an extermination camp, systematicextermination of new-arrivals occurred in veryspecific camps. Of these, four were exterminationcamps, where all new-arrivals were simply killed– the "Aktion Reinhard" camps (Treblinka, Sobibórand Belzec), together with Chelmno. Two others(Auschwitz and Majdanek) were combinedconcentration and extermination camps.

Post-war use :

The Second World War came to an end in 1945 whenNazi Germany surrendered to the Allied Forces and allthe concentration camps were liberated by the Allied andSoviet Forces. Though most of the camps were destroyedafter the war, some were made into permanent memorials.In Communist Poland, some camps such as Majdanek,Jaworzno, Potulice and Zgoda were used by the SovietNKVD to hold German prisoners of war, suspected Nazisand collaborators, anti-Communists and other politicalprisoners, as well as civilian members of the German,Silesian and Ukrainian ethnic minorities. Currently, thereare memorials to both camps in Poultice; they have helpedto enable a German-Polish discussion on historicalperception of World War II. In the former East Germany(Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen), concentration andextermination camps were used for similar purposes.Dachau concentration camp was used as a prison forarrested Nazis.

Fr. Marian Zelazek SVD was lucky enough to survive 5years of torture of such concentration camps and livednot only to tell the story of the camps but to live out hisvocation and that of his martyred companions in the

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service of the poor and the despised in a large and distantcountry! Truly “it is not difficult to be good, provided onewants to be so…!” And how Fr. Marian proved it by wordand deed in his life!!

Everyday our eyes were staring at the apparentlymost- noble slogans written in big bold letters onthe roof of the camp kitchen... “There is one way tofreedom. Its milestones are... OBEDIENCE, LOYALTY,TRUTHFULNESS, SOBRIETY, CLEANLINESS, ORDERand LOVE OF MOTHERLAND. Believe me... in theNazi camps hundreds were dying for each one ofthose apparently noble slogans, because one andthe most important milestone, namely, LOVE OFGOD was not there either on the kitchen roof or inthe hearts of the oppressors. Without this love ofGod there was no respect for human dignity in thecamps. We prisoners became mere numbers. Withnumbers one can do whatever you want... evenarrange the dance of death.

- Fr. Marian’s reminiscences on the Dachauconcentration camp

A missionary has no time to look for awards andrewards, but has always more work to be done, morepaths to tread and more dreams to fulfill!

- Fr. Marian’s initial reaction to Nobel PrizeNomination

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Universal Recognition of Fr. Marian and his work in Puri :

(A) Awards…1997: “ISAAC SANTRA AWARD 1997” MEDAL

Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.

1998: “FOR THOSE WHO DO GOOD” MEDAL of theRedemptoris Missio Foundation, Poznan, Poland.

1998: A Medal of Recognition for outstanding service toHumanity, by the upper house of Polish Parliament.

2000: “KAROL MARICINKOWSKI” Medal from thePresident of Medical Academy of Poznan, Poland.

2000: “CHIVALRY CROSS OF THE ORDER OF THEREBIRTH OF POLAND” by the Polish Government.The highest civilian & national award of Poland.

2002: Nomination for the”NOBEL PEACE PRIZE 2002”. InNovember 2001, friends of Fr. Marian set up acommittee launching his nomination for the NobelPeace Prize 2002. On 31 January 2002 during the“Touch and understand” event organized in theCongress Hall of the Palace of Culture and Sciencein Warsaw for the benefit of lepers, this nominationwas announced and consequently was supportedin Poland, India and other Countries.

2003: Repeat of this Nobel Nomination.

2005: “Honorable citizen of Poznan, Poland” Title by thecity council of Poznan, where Fr. Marian was bornin 1918, as a acknowledgement of his distinguishedhumanitarian service to the poor and marginalized,especially to lepers. The city takes pride in itsSon for upholding the noblest of human valuesand promoting human dignity in India for 55 years.

2005: “NEELACHAKRA” Award by the Neelachakra Socio-Cultural Organization, Odisha, India.

This organization holds a mega function every yearat SIMHADWARA, the main entrance to

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Sri Jagannath Temple in Puri, to felicitate eminentpersonalities from different walks of life in thecountry.

Fr. Marian is the first ever Catholic to receive thisrecognition for his well-recognized service to theleprosy affected people in the city of Puri for 30years.

The award consists of a citation and a beautifulbronze replica of the “Neelachakra” on the top ofJagannath temple. Fr. Marian received this awardon the eve of Easter, singing a bhajan in odiya inpraise of God and the great land of India whichhas become his home since 1950. The audiencewas spellbound that a “white man” could sing sowell in their language!

2006: Here was a “HOLY MAN, TRULY A MAN OF GOD!”peoples instant exclamation on his sudden death,on 30 April 2006, almost anointing him a saint.!

(B) Films :

1997: -“So little needed for Joy” by Fr. F. PocwiardowskiSVD.

An SVD video-film Laskowice, Poland

- “A missionary from Puri “by R. Piasek, Poznan,Poland

- 3 Films by A.T. Pietraszek

1982:“A Missionary”

1998:“The Ambassador of Lepers”

1998:“Hungry for Love” (Best of the 3)

-“The New face of Leprosy”A BBC documentary film on leper situation

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worldwide, where Fr. Marian’s Puri centre is givenspecial attention.

(C) Books :

1988: “In the holy town of Puri”By J. Krasicki, Krakaow, Poland

2000: “On the Path of Mercy”

Jointly written by J. Krasicki and ASujka, Krakaow,Poland

2007: “The Divine Word Missionary”

Published by the Embassy of the Republic of Poland

New Delhi, India

2011: “Garden of Hope” In memory of Fr. Marian ZelazekSVD, a Father to the lepers and the needy.

By Agieszka S-Gabka, Warsaw, Poland,

(D) Exhibitions :

1999: A photo exhibition about Fr. Marian and his leprosywork in Puri, at the House of Polish Diaspora ofthe “Polish Community” Association in Warsaw andsubsequently taken to other Polish towns.

2000: The same Photo exhibition in Germany

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Fr. Marian hardly excited by peace prize nomination

By Prafulla Das

PURI (ORISSA) OCT. 7. Being in the race for this year'sNobel Peace Prize is no small thing. But nomination forthe prestigious prize has not made any difference to thelife of Fr. Marian Zelazek, the 84-year-old Polish missionaryliving in India.

Dedicated to the cause of the leprosy patients, Fr. Mariangoes round the Karunalaya Leprosy Care Centre in thisholy city as if nothing has changed — nursing the woundsof the patients and monitoring the progress in theirtreatment.

Born in Poland in January 1918, Fr. Marian came to Indiaas a missionary in 1950. And after working in Orissa'sRourkela area for 25 years, he shifted to the coastal townof Puri in 1975. Since then, he has been working for thewelfare of the leprosy patients.

``There are over 100 contenders for the Peace Prize. Butif it comes to me, most of the prize money would bespent for the diseased persons,'' Fr. Marian told The Hinduon Saturday. He has been nominated for the prize by hisfriends in Poland. The name of the winner is scheduled tobe announced on October 11. What had really made Fr.Marian understand the miseries of the persons sufferingfrom diseases better were his days in a Nazi concentrationcamp in Germany from May 22, 1940 till he was rescuedalong with thousands of others by the American Army onApril 29, 1945.

``I had my fellow prisoners and classmates dying in myarms due to hard labour, hunger and diseases. And it

India's National Newspaper

Tuesday, Oct 08, 2002

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made me stronger,'' Fr. Marian reminisces. He was takenaway from a seminary by the German police along with25 other seminarians. Of them, 14 died in the camp withinthree years.

Fr. Marian recalls that he was sent to India by the Poland-based Divine Word Society after he expressed his desireto work as a missionary in a big country. India fascinatedhim more because he had read about Mahatma Gandhi'sAhimsa in newspapers.

In the first 25 years, Fr. Marian worked among the tribalsin northern Orissa. He was in charge of all the schools inthe Sambalpur mission, before working as the headmasterof a school for 13 years. The first phase of his life inOrissa ended with the creation of a new parish on theoutskirts of Rourkela. His charity works began after hewas asked to look after the parish at Puri. Fr. Mariandecided to work for the leprosy-affected people whilecontinuing his other works as a missionary.

He procured an ambulance to regularly visit the colony ofthe leprosy affected people, who were considered to becursed by God and were managing their lives mainly bybegging. Initially, the people suspected that Fr. Marianwas out to convert all the leprosy patients. But none ofthe patients has been converted till date. Also, there hasbeen no sign of hatred towards the church in Puri.

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Polish missionary named for NobelTNN | Oct 2, 2002, 11.13PM IST

BHUBANESWAR: The holy city of Puri has added a newfeather to its cap with a Christian missionary beingnominated for the coveted Nobel peace prize.

Eighty-four-year old Father Marian Zelazek, who has beenstaying in Puri for the last 27 years and serving leprosypatients, has been nominated for the prize by some friendsin his native Poland, India and other countries.

Father Zelazek, who spent five years in the Naziconcentration camp, figures among the 12 contendersfor the prestigious prize, sources at his residence inBaliapanda in Puri said. Father Zelazek came to India in1950 and to Puri in 1975, where he set up a leprosyhome. For the nearly 600 inmates, he is like a god. Hehas also established a medication centre, a school for thechildren of leprosy patients and a vocational trainingcentre.

As reports about Zelazek's nomination reached Puri,people started thronging his residence to congratulatehim. ''Like Mother Teresa I always counted my recognitionfrom God and not from the people,'' he told reporters.

He had experienced the horrors of torture, pain andanguish while in the Nazi concentration camp and haddecided to spend the rest of his life serving leprosypatients.

''I have chosen Puri as my home and want to spend therest of my life serving the leprosy patients,'' he pointedout. Asked why he had not taken Indian citizenship, FatherZelazek said: ''It hardly matters whether I am a Polish oran Indian. My aim is to serve people,'' he said.

India's National Newspaper

THE TIMES OF INDIATuesday, Oct 08, 2002

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MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THESE.....

(1) Dr. Helena PyzJeevodaya, Raipur, Chattisgarh, India

“No one will ever love us as much as he did……”

I learnt about Father Marian’s death during my holidaysin Poland. It was a shock. Very painful. I cannot define itin a different way. Suddenly time stopped. Nothinghappened. Only my ears were rumbling: Father Marianhas gone to the Lord. I will not meet him anymore. Noone would be so close, so good, so friendly in Purianymore, on the Bay of Bengal. Then, the request forbearing witness of his life during a mass at the SaintCross Basilica in Warsaw. It was barely possible. On theprevious day I had my wrist operated on and my handwas in plaster. At the end of the mass I understood thatI have to witness. After a few words my voice cracked. Ijust told that Puri, India have been empty to me since hisdeath. I knew that after my holidays I would come backto another reality. I knew that I would have to go to Purione day to see how they manage after the loss of Father;to help if there would be such a need. I knew that thisvisit would hurt, but I didn’t want to avoid it. Time camethen, in November 2006.

I double-checked if I could stay in the retreat house, FatherMarian’s last work, blessed in January 2006. Father Kurianwas happy when I called him. He assured me that therewas room for me and that they were waiting for me. Iwanted to know whether the closest co-worker of FatherMarian was on the premises, if I would meet him. I wasovercome by emotion when I heard Lalit’s voice in thereceiver: „where would I be if not in Father Marian’smatters?” He immediately told me that he wasn’t presentat his death. This faithful Lalit, accompanying FatherMarian everywhere, whose plan of life was fitting tight toFather’s needs, was absent at this very moment!

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We met at the railway station – hardly ever had I movedalone from there. Father Marian had been usually pickingme up, either himself or his car had already been waitingat the airport in Bubaneswar, whenever it happened tome to arrive by plane. The train had been delayed for 3hours, Father Kurian and Lalit were waiting. I obtained aroom in the house, on the ground floor and an immediateinvitation for lunch – it was meal time. Despite thepresence of two Italian people, who came for a few days,the discussion developed immediately around mattersimportant for 7 months.

Lalit is a foster child, a friend, he has been performingthe function of secretary, driver, sometimes evencounselor... for 25 years. On the day before FatherMarian’s death, he went to Calcutta in order to meet hisyounger brother arriving from Australia for his weddingwhich was to be blessed in a few days by Father Marianhimself. All had been prepared, the plane ticket for FatherMarian was bought for the 6th of May. At around 11 atnight they were speaking on the phone, when Lalit waswaiting for his brother at the airport on the 29th of April.Father Marian ended the conversation: „I won’t call youanymore” and Lalit’s voice is quivering while he is adding:„and in fact he hasn’t called me ever since!.” For the nextthree days, Lalit is taking me everywhere, and finally hetakes me to the railway station – as it was during all myvisits. However, each time we were together inside thecar or by the table, in the corridor or in front of the office,one topic was still coming back: how this all has changedin his life. He recollects all important moments, he wasnot able to change the subject. I understand that mypresence enhanced this recurring wave. The work andthe place remain the same – but you could feel this lackof the Man, who stood behind everything there, whosevisions and dreams had been realized so persistentlytogether. Seven long months have passed – the feelingof lack, emptiness is always the same...

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Father Kurian was at Father Marian’s side in the verymoment of his death – it is a special award for sharingthe community of life and work for three years. Then hefixed everything personally. He tells me about the firstmoments after his death, the funeral and how heundertook his work after his return to Puri. I had a fewquestions, I felt sad that they had chosen his place ofburial so remote from Puri. I learnt that Father Marianexpressed such will himself on various occasions and todifferent people – my doubts were dispelled. In fact, noone is ever prepared to the departure of a close person.However much we can try to imagine this, the verymoment of the departure is not predictable. We can thankGod for the miracle of life, but after the death of a belovedperson, one feels lonely and abandoned. Father Kuriantells me that he often feels the blessing of Father Marianin this work. All those who used to come every day oroccasionally to Father Marian are presently coming upwith their problems to Father Kurian. Nevertheless, theyare not free from comparisons, which can be very weighingdown. In accordance with the authorities of the Verbiti(SVD) Congregation and the local Bishop, after severaldays he undertook to continue the work of Father Marian.There are many human-related issues of the utmosturgency, commitments, which must be taken up.

They have decided to leave the place where Father Marianwas living as it was on the day of his departure to theHouse of God. His modest little room, where he wassleeping and seeing enquirers and guests, a small diningroom adjacent to it as well as a guest room next to it – allthese rooms, linked together, will form a Father Marian’smemory room with an exhibition illustrating his life andachievements. Now, the guest room is Father Kurian’stemporary office, constantly besieged with enquirers.

Fears and anxieties about the future of all actions initiatedand developed by Father Marian are inevitable. Many Polesand other Benefactors have committed themselves into

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helping him. Will they continue their commitment or willthey not have enough funds for the everyday bread tothe most needy, for supporting the education of childrenin the leper colony? May patients still count on drugs,dressings and orthopedic footwear? And if a monsoondamages the roof of a house, would anybody providehelp? Will the garden and the spinning mill, sewing roomremain – who will care for the market for the products?

During my visit to the colony, people were recognizingme although I tried to stay unnoticed. I understand theOriya language – women and children were stopping meand I could hear a complaint, a deep sorrow in their voices:our Father is no more here. Several men joined to themand everyone wanted to tell how much they were touchedby loss of the Father and how they were living at present.In the mercy kitchen, the same man without fingersconducts the register of people in need of everyday meal.There are a lot of them. In the small hospital, paramedicsand the auxiliary staff told me how they were coping.

I pop into the school for a while. In the boarding schoolthere are 55 children, most of them boys. There are such,enrolled this scholar year, who had not met Father Marian.Most of them immediately associate me with Poland, thecountry of Father Marian.

On Sunday, I take part in the Eucharist in the Parishchurch, so important and so close – this is the first workof Father Marian in Puri, his pride and at a large extent agift from Poland. Father Marian was once colourfully tellingme the story of the creation, transport and installation ofthe interior decor elements, the problems and joy afterfinishing it. I like this church so much, each element is sofamiliar to me. In the following days, the mass iscelebrated in the ashram. A photo of Father Marianaccompanies us under the altar. It is so cosy everywhere,I feel so at ease there as I can still feel his presence, walkon his clear footprints. I can meet people whom he lovedand who loved him. Manju is crying when telling about

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the great loss – „no one will ever love us so much as hedid”. He recollects the days when they were watchinghim over, overwhelmed by fear and praying warmly whenhe was ill. Surendra cried after the farewell only. Does heconsider this small bread that Father Marian used to haveit baked for me as his testament? He was grief-strickenthat he didn’t know that I was to leave so unexpectedly:„I would have baked one this morning” he sobbed, buthe looked at me carefully and understood that it was notI who expected something for myself, that for me thefact that Father Marian is no more here is also a bigchange. So, he only asked that in future I would ALWAYStell him…

(2) Mr. Sandro Bottani

Tre-Pini Group, Massaqno, Switzerland

Holiness is not the luxury of a few…!!I knew Father Mariano by chance during a dinner withfriends in the period before Christmas and during thatoccasion he said to me: "Would you like to do a charitableact? I could give you a sister’s address I have knownduring one of my trips to India who is helping kids of thepoorest families in Puri." Immediately after I decided tomake contact with this sister, Amelia Sbrissa of the holyorders Maria Bambina (sisters of Charity), nurse at theleprous Colony of Father Mariano.

I didn’t know what leper or leper colony was and I wasalso intrigued about the culture and the civilization ofIndia (both unfamiliar to me). Therefore I decided toundertake a trip to this faraway country. Together withmy wife and my eldest daughter we organized a trip toRajasthan and we took the occasion to spend one weekin Puri where we visited Father Mariano and Calcutta aswell. In Calcutta we got familiar with the figure and thework of Mother Teresa who died only the month before.In that occasion I knew Father Mariano much morepersonally and I can say it was love at first sight. I stillremember the white figure of the missionary who came

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to pick me up at the airport of Bhubaneswar with a flowerbouquet for my wife. He behaved with an extraordinaryaffability and courtesy as if we were best friends andknew each other for many years. His own way to be, tospeak Italian with the typical polish accent rememberedme to the figure of Holy Father Giovanni Paolo II verysimilar to him also very affable and one of his countryman.To make us feel comfortable during our trip to Puri he puton some Italian opera music that he liked a lot. During allweek he took care of us like if we were his own children.He was all the time with us looking after us and beingcareful we needed anything. One evening he also invitedus to his ashram and he cooked for us pasta with tomatosauce. During these days I discovered the strongpersonality of the man "Mariano" strongly andpermanently signed by the years of internment camp.The hard and consuming work shaped a strong andpuissant man, an indefatigable workman. The dearth andlack of food has been master of life for the survivor of thetough life condition of the internment camp. Several timeshe told me how he has learned to appreciate even a smallpiece of bread to the point that when he had one in hishands he never ate it all but he always kept a piece forthe period when food was running out. For that reasonhe always dreamed of an oven for the colony where toprepare bread. The oven was offered him by some Italianfriends but that never worked out as much as he whished.He also showed also this respect, I would say almostsacred, for bread with the offer of one roll to the inmatesof Puri for Christmas.

At the end of the week before saying good bye, I askedhim how I could continue to help him:"Do not send memoney but powdered milk. If you send me money I willuse them for the innumerable and urgent needs of thecolony that I have to face every day". Back home Iimmediately sent him a parcel with powdered milk butthe shipping charges surpassed the one for the purchase

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of the powdered milk. I explained him that with the moneyI gave out for the shipping charges he could have hadbought much more powdered milk directly in Puri. I madehim a promise that I would have looked for sponsors.Like that I started the action that I called "a daily glass ofmilk" for the children of Father Mariano colony. With thehelp of the Divine Providence, in which he stronglybelieved, I could send him after only few months 900CHF (today INR 49000). He kept the commitment to buythe milk. Regularly he kept me updated with a verydetailed schedule with the quantity of powdered milkbought and the number of children that were receivingthis very important nutritious aid. One thing that surprisedme is the fact that he started to learn how to use thecomputer at his age (more than eighty-years-old) andtherefore the schedules he sent me afterwards were madethrough a computer program. To the confirmation thatthe Divine Providence always helps the ones who invokefor it , the funds for the action "a daily glass of milk"increased years after years and at the milk we could addone hard-boiled egg, one roll, one daily meal for thepoorest family of the colony and much more.

In 2004 I visited Puri again with a group of scouts fromMassagno. The spirituality centre, the third big workrealized by Father Mariano after the leper colony and theBeatrix School where he wanted to retire after all thedaily grinds of more than 50 years of services for thepoorest and the social outcasts, wasn’t finished but heallowed us to use it. Father Kurian, arrived just few daysbefore us, he prepared about ten rooms and organizedthe kitchen. The desire of Father Mariano was to build afountain in the middle of the garden. The only thing hehad at his disposal was an engine able to circulate thewater and produce a vertical jet. It has not been easy butour architect Mauro made miracles and with the help ofeverybody we were able to realize the fountain. Theevening before our departure, with the help of lamps, we

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laid the last tiles. The departure day Father Marianoblessed "his" and "our" fountain. It was a great joy foreverybody! During the camp we undertook activities withthe local scouts, we played with children of the colony wepainted the exterior walls of the laboratory for thepreparation of the coconut’s carpets and the internal onesof the Mercy Kitchen. We also had the pleasure to sharewith the colony’s inhabitants the year-end lunch insubstitution of the traditional Christmas lunch in ourhonour. Father Mariano organized as well an extraordinaryparty at the Beatrix School to thank us for our presenceand the work we did. He was always able to feel uscomfortable despite the objective difficulties for usEuropeans to adapt to a completely different world. Wefelt at home and that due to him. With great joy hesolicited and encouraged us with the shout of our scout’sbranch: "uno più uno, due più uno". But one of the bestmemories is linked to our departure. For amisunderstanding we arrived late at the airport and ourflight had already left. Father Mariano with greatpeacefulness and sense of responsibility dealt perfectlywith the problem and found a solution. He booked a hotelin the city for the night and new flights back home for us.He stayed with us at the airport till I left the waiting room(as last of the group) for the boarding. I still remembertoday, almost physically, the last hug he gave me full ofhappiness to let us leave in a short time but especially forthe emotion and joy for our stay. I did not imagine thatthat would have been my last leave taking from him. Iknew I would come back to Puri but not when. He diedthe following year leaving all the people they met him insadness but also in joy of having known an extraordinaryperson, a holy person. Like Mother Teresa used to say:"Holiness does not consist in doing extraordinary things.It consists in accepting, with a smile, what Jesus sendsus. It consists in accepting and following the will of God.Holiness is not the luxury of a few. It is everyone’s duty,yours and mine."

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(3) Mr. George

Trieste, Italy

The highest love is to be ready to give one’s life.....!

When I came to Puri for the first time in 1986, I neverexpected that it could have changed my life so drastically.I was introduced to Father Marian by an Italian nun. Iwas very surprised to hear that Father was speakingItalian, German, Spanish and so many other languagesthat I couldn’t recognize, fluently. He was so enthusiasticshowing me the lepers’ colony. Frankly speaking, for me,coming from the West, everything was very shocking. Allthe same, after some time, I could realize how happy itmade those people for Father to visit them. You wouldexpect a very heavy atmosphere in a place of suffering,but instead I felt a much deeper sharing of love. Hebrought so much joy and hope to them that you couldreally see how much they loved him. They felt secureand cared for like babies in the arms of their mother,protected and guarded like children in the presence oftheir Father. I felt the contrast of the dramatic outsidescene to the power of love shared from within.

It reminded me of an episode of the life of Saint Francis.Visiting Assisi I saw the place where the saint had metwith a leper. That meeting changed his life; his call andhis mission became clear. Such a call may also similarlyhave happened in Father’s life after he survivedmiraculously as a prisoner in Dachau’s concentrationcamp.

At that time I didn’t know much about Father’s life norpossibly did the residents of the colony. However,everything became clearer to me when I learned aboutthe concentration camp, the horror of the second worldwar, the cruelty of the Nazis, on one hand and the graceof God, the power of mercy, the gift of compassion andthe treasure of empathy on the other hand. So manystrong experiences are like fire, they can burn you or

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prepare you for a higher goal and a heavier task. I thinkwhat Father had to go through, was a preparation for amuch higher mission that he steadily overcame with allhis tremendous spiritual strength: creating a shelter forthe most downtrodden souls in our society, giving themlove and a real home.

After some weeks of visiting his mission, before leaving,he gave me 7 pictures of children of the Beatrix Schoolasking if maybe I could have found some sponsors tohelp fund the children to go to school. At that time I hadno idea that I was holding in my hand 7 seeds whichwould eventually change my entire life. After searchingin India for different kinds of Yoga, after Jnana, Bhaktiand Raja Yoga, suddenly I discovered the path of selflessservice: Karma Yoga. I realized that all these divineaspects I had found reflected in the life of Father Marian.

So, almost every subsequent year, I have come back tovisit him and to see his work, finding more inspirationfrom his life and his attitude, and from his friendship andfellowship. Unceasingly, he was always there, present likea rock and strong like a mountain. He was a bridge, helpingall those apparently forgotten souls, to cross the river ofabandonment, detestation, the rush of despair, solitudeand desolation. He was like an invisible angel guidingthem across the desert of misery, aridity and sadness.There was nothing he could do to save the lives of hisfellow prisoners in the concentration camp, but that desireto help he could now fulfill totally, spending all his lifehelping his Indian brothers. As Jesus said: the highestlove is to be ready to give one’s life for his friends.

The last time I met Father, was a few months before hispassing. He was always speaking about the black Madonnaof Czestochowa, so I expressed the desire to visit thatshrine. He immediately called some Fathers in Polandasking to organize a visit for me there. He was so sure,that I had no doubt that in a short time I would be visitinghis beloved place.

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When I reached there by train it was already dark, but Ihad an appointment with Father’s brother and BrotherPeter who drove him. We made an appointment for thenext day, April 30th. At around nine in the morning, wevisited the Shrine of Czestochowa and attended Mass. Itwas a Sunday. I was feeling very well, the atmospherewas very serene and devotional. It was nice to spendsome time with Father’s brother, talking about him andhis work in India. When we came out of the church BrotherPeter received a phone call. He was talking in Polish, butI realized from his voice that he was quite nervous. Whenhe finished his conversation there was a period of silence,I was looking at Father’s brother, trying to understand.Finally, with a broken voice he told us that there was aphone call from India saying that Father had just passedaway.

We were really shocked incapable to show a reaction.Silently Father’s brother was weeping, I felt dry like in adesert without any breeze or motion. Brother Peterdecided to make an announcement on the Shrine RadioStation. It was difficult to find a way to share such news.It was too shocking. Slowly Brother Peter gave us thedetails of the event, on how Father very peacefully hadleft the body among those who were so close to his heart.That was his last desire and that is exactly what happened,while we were attending Mass, in his beloved Shrine. Itcouldn’t simply have been a coincidence.

We decided to enter in the church again. At the sametime we were about to enter the gate, trumpets and drumsstarted to play to mark the closing of the shrine. Thatmoment was so solemn that we felt that Father’s Soulwas entering Heaven. There is no doubt in mind, he was.

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(4) Sister Amelia, Sisters of Charity (BambinaSisters)Crespano, Italy

God donates His greatest love to those who aresuffering….!!I‘d like to start saying that I met Father Marian before1987. At the beginning not regularly, but since I came tostay in Puri to work at the leprosy village, where Fatherwas living, I met him daily.

Those who were suffering with leprosy were confined tothe jungle waiting for their death, helped or sustained bynone. People were terribly afflicted by this disease, hungryand naked, without any shelter of any kind. Societycompletely ignored their desolation and their agony.

Seeing this Father Marian was so shocked that he decidedto spend his days improving their lives. Father was anSVD’, born in Poland and his faith was strong like amountain. A real man of God, dedicated to constantprayers from where he got his strong faith in DivineProvidence, that day by day he could see influencing hislife. He also was full of talents. He loved those peoplevery much and was loved by them indeed. They trustedhim completely and he opened their hearts with hisdeepest friendship.

With his enthusiasm and his strong will he infused interestand desire to live in all those who had lost it. He had somany good ideas as an excellent organizer, that he couldrealize many things for his leper-brothers. He didn’t liketo talk too much, but he was continuously giving hisexample of brotherhood to them. In this way everybodycould easily understand how they were cared for by him.Not with words, but with his own deeds they understoodhow they were loved. Without knowing they were touchedby God’s love and grace.

When Father Marian was a young student in a Polishseminary, the Nazis captured him and put him in a

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prisoners’ camp, with some other fellow students. Theywere all waiting for their death. For some miraculousreason he was saved. Definitely realizing that the plan ofGod for him was different, he felt really shocked andamazed. Since then, in his heart, he made a promise togive his life for the benefit of these poor brothers. Afterbecoming a priest, at the end of his studies in Rome hevolunteered to be a missionary in India.

After spending some 25 years in Western Odisha, he wasasked to go to Puri on the coast of the Bay of Bengal,where he discovered the terrible reality of leprosy. All thevictims of leprosy were living with fears like wanderersin the jungle. They were living alone, abandoned byeveryone, who were frightened by the possibility ofcontracting the disease. They were lacking everything.Father Marian decided to dedicate his young life for thesupport and betterment of their conditions.

It was quite difficult to find work for them, but with hisstrong faith in God’s Intervention, he tried to give themsome capacity to work, so that they could providethemselves to their basic needs. He started fish-farming,in a number of pools. He also started the gardening ofgreens and grains as well as poultry farming.

Later some Italian friends, knowing his initial difficulties,got some help by the Italian Red Cross from a group inVarese. Other Italian and Polish doctors decided tovolunteer at different levels. This was the beginning ofthe “Village of Love” sponsored by Dr. Daniele Scipione,who started to build small houses made with bricks insteadof mud.

One main thing was still missing: there was no buildingto assist and treat the disease properly. The Divineintervention helped him again. Father Marian could builda small hospital with a dispensary to distribute themedicines. They also built a place for the daily medicationsand a laboratory where they could create special

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orthopedic shoes to help the lepers to walk.

Dr. Carlo Carlini, a dentist of Verona, started a dentalclinic for the lepers with all the needed instruments. Sincethey couldn’t cook, a special kitchen was also built whereall the kids and old people could get their daily food freeof cost.

In the leper’s village the children could live with theirparents. The children were all healthy and intelligent.Father Marian thought that they needed a special school.He was their first teacher. The primary school was calledthe Beatrix School and more classes were added up tothe 7th. His dream was that later his school could beupgraded to provide tuition to final graduation.Unfortunately he didn’t see it finished, because he leftthe body while in the company of all his lepers friends.

In 1998, with the help of Mrs. Mirella Guzzini, a specialhostel was started for the children of the lepers who wereliving in farthest villages. The children of the lepers arenot allowed to attend normal schools even if they arehealthy children. In the hostel many children of leperparents are given shelter with proper nutrition andeducation.

Father Marian was very happy when I could give himsome parcels that I received from Italy once in a while.In this way he had something to give as a present to hisleper friends.

One day I saw he was wearing a sweater with many holes.So I looked for a new one to give to him. Some days laterI realized that he was wearing the old sweater again whileI saw a leper wearing the new one. Then I asked Father:“Father, where is the sweater?”. He answered: “I gave itto someone who needed it more than I do”. One day Isaw he was looking quite sad. So I asked him the reason.He told me: “Yes, I feel sad, as I’m remembering some ofmy old friends killed by the Nazis in the ConcentrationCamp. In a few minutes they passed from this earth to

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Heaven, while I myself give my life bit by bit every-dayuntil now!

The goal and the dream of Father Marian’s generouswork was: to do the best for his brother lepers; giving allof himself, so that those ones rejected and forgotten bythe society, could gain their own dignity again, like soulsloved by God, so precious in His Fatherly eyes. Goddonates His greatest love and benevolence to those whoare poor and are suffering.

From my side, I worked with love in his great project fortheir redemption as human and spiritual beings, and Iwish to all those who will continue the work started byFather Marian, that they might sow the same love, sothat those dear creatures can feel themselves to be soulsdear to God, who is so loving to all and especially tothose who are suffering.

Sister Amelia Sbrissa from Italy, now 85, was amissionary in India for 43 years, of which she spent15 in the leper colony in Puri, where Father Marianstarted and concluded his mission.

(5) Sr. Angela Lakra, Sisters of Charity (BambinaSisters)

Dharmadham, Puri.

A Guardian Angel...As a beacon of love and gratitude for the person of Fr.Marian Zelazek, SVD, I extend my sincere thanks foreverything he has been to me for the past 3 years and 5months of working together. It is a rare opportunity towork with a person with vast experiences and noblepersonality. I never ever had dreamt that one day I willget this golden chance to help out in his mission of love.I gratefully remember his noble task of serving the poorestof the poor rejected by the society.

During these years of my close association with him Ihave come to know Fr. Marian as a person of God, a living

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saint, a person totally for others. I was fortunate enoughto add my little mite in the service to the poor children atthe Beatrix School. In spite of all the inconveniences, Iwas happy to render my service to the children. I was somuch edified, encouraged and inspired by the selflessservice of Fr. Marian and I have learned a lot from hissacrificial and exemplary life.

Anybody and everybody could find a place in the oceanof his heart. Those who come to him never return emptyhanded. I admire his simplicity. Whenever I approachedhim with some difficult task, I felt relaxed from my burden.I can never forget his hospitality as he never sent meback without offering a glass of water or something, whenI went to him. I used to feel ashamed sometimes howsuch a grand Fatherlike elderly Priest could serve me!

For me, to approach Fr. Marian was like approaching God.Whenever I had to face any crucial moment in the School,Fr. Marian was present like a Guardian Angel as thoughhe was informed of it in advance! I will cherish the sweetmemories of Puri, especially working with Fr. Marian. Itis said that when we start counting happy memories wecease to count the years. So, dear Fr. Marian, I thankyou from the core of my heart for your support, care andlove through which I was able to accomplish the missionentrusted to me. May your generous heart be blessedand may God grant you good health and a long life.

“Gratitude is an attitude that leads to beatitude”

(7) P. LalitP.A. & Secretary to Fr. Marian (1982 - 2006)Marian Villa, Puri

If there is a God, He must be like Fr. Marian…!I am very proud and fortunate to have been in very closeassociation with this Saintly person for 27 long years. Itis not only difficult but rather impossible to describe Fr.Marian in a few words. To be very honest, he being sucha great personality in totality, our words would fall short

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in expressing our feelings in describing him and yet Iwould dare to call Fr. Marian Zelazek, as “A Man for All”.Fr. Marian was really a man for all in very simple ways;he always had very simple and practical solutions foreverything and for everybody. I can recall a few incidentswhich left a big impact on me and will remain so always.Here I would like to narrate just one of these.

Once, while Fr. Marian was presiding over the Sundaymass in the Puri Church, there was an elderly man withlong beard dressed in white among the attendants. Atthe time of the Holy Communion, when everyone wasqueuing up to receive Holy Communion, this man alsojoined the queue. I could see many looking at him insurprise as they clearly noticed that he was not a catholic.Everyone thought that Fr. Marian, who was distributingthe Holy Communion, will explain to him politely, as everypriest would do, that he couldn’t receive the HolyCommunion for obvious reasons. But to the surprise ofevery one, Fr. Marian gave him Holy Communion withouta word and he received it with much devotion andgratitude.

After the holy mass, as Fr. Marian came out of the churchto meet people, the elderly man too came forward andjust prostrated himself before Fr. Marian, and no one couldunderstand what was the matter including Fr. Marianhimself. The elderly man got up and introduced himselfsaying: “Father, I am a professor at the Shanti Niketanuniversity, Kolkata, founded by the Nobel laureateRabindranath Tagore. Being a devout Hindu I came toPuri to have a darshan of Lord Jagannath and since I amalso a devotee of Lord Jesus I came to attend the Churchservice. During your holy mass, listening to your sermon,I was so much taken up with Jesus and his message thatI came to you to receive Jesus in the holy communionalthough wondering whether you will give me Jesus ornot, knowing that only Catholics are eligible for it and Iam not one of them. And wonder of wonders, Father, you

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gave me Jesus…! Today I feel that my pilgrimage to Puriis complete; thank you Father for giving me Jesus!” sosaying he left.

As a curious young boy I asked Father how he could giveholy communion to a non-Catholic! Knowing that it isagainst the rites and rules of the church Father shouldhave refused it to him, I said. As usual Fr. Marian toldme with a smile, “yes Lalit, I have given him Jesus… andI am sure if Jesus was present here He would not havedenied it to him either. Don’t you remember how theapostles objected to the woman who came with the oil toanoint Jesus’ feet, just because she was a prostitute, butJesus told them to let her be... “I have come more for thesinners than for the just ones” Jesus had said. What anexample of being a perfect representative of Jesus! Ithought. Father often told me that it is more important tobe a good human being before you present yourself as aChristian, Hindu, Muslim or of any other faith. He said ifone cannot respect other religions he can never respecthis own. Yes very often we are so much constrained byour religious rituals and ideas created by them, that weforget that the true God is beyond all these limits and Heis for all of us.

As I conclude, I can only say in simple words that none ofus has seen God and if someone asks me to describeGod, I will say without any hesitation…, if there is aGod he must be like Fr. Marian….!

8. Letter of commendation (presented to Fr. Marianby the Dr .Radhanath Rath Foundation Trust,Cuttack, Odisha along with the award)

“RADHANATH RATH SEVA SAMMAN-2005”

Sir,

The miracle of a man is not how far he has sunk but howmagnificently he has risen. If that is true, then yours isa life worthy of it. You started from scratch. Saw the

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horrors of World War_II. Lost your beloved family, whichdisintegrated like house of cards. You undertook adreaded journey, albeit reluctantly, which ended in theconcentration camp of Dachau. The Nazi’s terror andhorror took away your youth, tried to decimate your veryinner self. You still remember the terror of theconcentration camp, when you go down the memory lane.Yet you came out of it, triumphant. Like a phoenix, therecame the resurrection as you have said elsewhere. It isDachau, where one of ugliest and deadliest episodes ofhatred against mankind was written. There, you learntthe art of silence. Silence was the best description of thisincident, as you have often remarked. Your life took aturn there and you began a different life altogether, onlyto undo the wrong done by the Nazis. You pursued thepath to eliminate hatred, revenge, violence and terrorwith service, love, care, nonviolence and compassion.Your pilgrimage began ostensibly with a submission toAlmighty. You tried to dream more and more.Geographical boundary, language, race, nationality,nothing could confine you. Fr. You “Seva” knows no barrierand boarders. What you dared to dream in Dachau, nowbegan to shape step by step. And like a true servant ofmankind you could not confine yourself to the land ofyour birth.

You landed up in India and the most backward part of thecountry i.e. Orissa became your workshop to experimentwith your truth and service. It may be coincidental, maybe predestined, if you believe on Bhagya and Karma.

Sir, you came to India and Orissa by choice and pursuedyour mission really with a messianic zeal. You served thedestitute, lepers, poor tribal and other indigents. In yourservice you have never shown any ill will on religiousconsideration. You have met different people and visiteddifferent places. The compassion in you has createdKarunalaya for those to whom society still look down upon.Your 4rehabilitation projects, education schemes, ‘seva’

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and service in various fields are really worth praising andoutstanding. You have set a standard in the field of ‘seva’which has few parallels. You have spent 50 years in Orissa.Hard work and self-discipline is the hall-mark of yourexcellence. You have fulfilled your mission. Your dreamshave come true. You have never been carried over byage and ego. You still like to work and live like a GoodSamaritan, unsung.

Sir, we on behalf of Dr. Radhanath Rath Foundation Trust,Orissa, Cuttack feel honored and privileged to felicitateyou on the 109th birth anniversary of late Dr. RadhanathRath who is an outstanding inspiration in social service.

It is not a reward or glorification, rather it is a tokenacknowledgment of the efforts, struggles, suffering andvictories for you and your cohorts in mitigating the painand deprivation of people around us, especially, thoseconsidered, cursed by their fate.

Some crumbs of my missionary life.

Fr. Marian’s Selfie.!!

Puri 28.05.1995

“Father, how long are you in India?.” Inevitable questionof many who meet me for the first time. Looking at thecasual interviewer and easily judging his age, I shoot thereply: “Longer than you.” You must have seenbewilderment on the face of the interrogator… “How it ispossible? I have been born here!” And yet it is true inthis case. “How old are you?” “36 years old.” “Ah..see,you were not even born when I was in India! I have beenin India for the last 46 years.” 46 years! And yet it seemsit has been yesterday. I came to my new motherland ofmy own choice on the 1st March, 1950. On thatmemorable day the Dutch freight Ship, Laurenskerk,

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brought me to Bombay. From here I made 2 ½ daysjourney by train to Kesramal one of 5 mission stations ofthe then Sambalpur diocese in Orissa. It was not bychance that I came here. In the years 1940 to 1945 as ayoung SVD Seminarian I was in the German Concentrationcamp in Dachau. We were 26 Seminarians taken there.14 offered their life for the ideal of missionary priest inthe SVD society, 2 had been released and 10 came out ofthat “grave” at the end of 5 years, liberated by theadvancing Allied forces. In the camp my missionary idealgrew stronger in me. If God’s grace extends my earthlylife beyond the time of the concentration camp I am goingto dedicate it to safeguard the eternal life of the souls inthe mission. Besides I wanted to go to a big country andthat’s why I am here.

In the years 1950-1951 we were 28 missionaries, allforeigners, in the new mission of Sambalpur, taken overby the SVD society in 1948 from the Belgian Jesuits. Ourcontingent could boast of 2 Argentineans, 3 Australians,3 Americans, 2 Dutch, 2 Irish, 4 English, 8 Germans, 2Slovaks and 2 Poles,a beautiful mosaic of 9 nationalitiesof different national characters! When Christmas came,we had our difficulties in striking one tune, familiar toeverybody while singing Christmas carols, even in theway of celebrating Christmas as a family feast. But weknew how to pull together in building up Christ’s kingdomof God among the adivasi-people among whom weworked. Soon new mission stations started springing uparound the 5 original mission centers. The missionarymust be and is a kind of adventurer, going and buildingnew mission stations in the heart of the jungle where“only eagles dare”. There was a pattern of starting a newmission station. At first the primary school was built. Inmost cases it was built with mud with a tiled roof. Theadivasis knew the art of making their own tiles. In onecorner of the school a chapel was open. The room at theother end of the school was used as Father’s quarter. Inthe early years of Sambalpur mission we were the

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missionary band, moving exclusively on bicycles. Thecycle is a wonderful means of travelling: it makes youtired, true, but it is extremely helpful in meeting thepeople. As a boy I could not imagine a missionary but onhorseback. Sambalpur mission destroyed or better tosay, corrected this picture. No horse could do what thecycle did in Sambalpur terrain conditions. The cycle madeit possible to squeeze yourself on the narrow pathsbetween rice fields, to take it and cross the rivers in spateon a canoe, made of one long tree trunk, as a ruledangerously overcrowded with people. As the yearsprogressed the mission got motorized. Accepting it as aresult of modernization and also facilitation of themissionary work. The old missionaries will go back withnostalgia to the time when they were covering hundredsof kilometers on bicycles.

If I am allowed to boast, and even if I am not allowed, Iwill boast anyway of the old missionaries understandingof education for the aboriginal people among whom weworked. At the end of the first 10 years of the SVDmissionary work in the then Sambalpur mission the fruitof educational efforts was evident: 20 Middle Englishschools, 6 high schools and 171 elementary schools withclasses I to V and with Oriya as medium of instruction. Itwas a daring enterprise to build a school in the jungle forthe children of jungle with the conviction that these smallschools will change the face of the jungle and improvethe condition of the aboriginals and also will bring themnearer to Christ and to the Church. It was a kind ofspectacle: in the morning the jungle started to move,with the little kids, poorly dressed perhaps, but proudlytrotting towards the centrally situated school. For thefirst missionaries of Sambalpur mission primary schoolsbecame an important tool of their missionary activities.The new schools were constantly opened. To tell thetruth, no one knew how many they were. When in theyear 1962 we took the exact stock of our primary schools,we found that they were 171. I loved these little primary

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schools in the jungle. Being the secretary of the CatholicSchools committee, I visited them all. They were thesign of our Lord Jesus Christ, present for 24 hours in thevillage. You could feel it. They stood also as foundationfor the career of many adivasis who later became skilledworkers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers,administrative officers, priests, brothers, sisters…evenbishops, primarily due to the support of the primaryeducation in the far away jungles!!

I came in March, 1950, to Sambalpur mission. Alreadyin November of the same year I was sent to Bhanjanagar,some 800 kms from Kesramal, to study Oriya, the officiallanguage of our state of Orissa. The purpose of it was tomake me fit to start our own apostolic school for the localboys, aspiring to become priests or religious brothers. Itwas one of the astonishing features of the firstmissionaries: the care of vocations for priesthood,brotherhood and sisterhood. We were in a hurry to haveour successors through local vocations. We understoodwell the missionary principle: Illum oportet crescere, meautem minuei”, “He must, grow greater, I must growsmaller: (John 3, 29-30.), even if it would hurt due to thehuman situations. In the year 1950 we were 24 foreignmissionaries. The harvest was indeed great, but thelabourers few, very few. Today after 45 years, the onceSambalpur mission has developed into 2 mission dioceses.The number of parishes and schools has grown, but aboveall the number of laborers in God’s vineyard increased inremarkable ways: 3 bishops, 12 priests, 11 brothers, 5deacons, 6 regents, from the local Church, total 137 SVDconfreres, among whom 133 are Indians and only 4 areforeigners. What a wonderful development! The lastchapter of the Sambalpur mission has been closed. Those“daring” ones who were writing it, either rest in differentcemeteries of India, Europe and even of Mexico (Fr.Valentine) or retired to their home countries, their bodiesnot their spirits, crushed by merciless climate condition

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and hard missionary work. Our Indian confreres arealready 179 writing the 2nd chapter… They do it boldly.If they follow faithfully and courageously the Divine Word,it will be a glorious chapter. And what about us, the fourforeign missionaries? “The bride is only for thebridegroom; and yet the bridegroom’s friend, who standsthere and listens, is glad when he hears the bridegroom’svoice. This same joy I feel, and now it is complete. Hemust grow greater, and I must grow smaller.(John 3, 29-30.)

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Dear Lalit,

This is my present to you on your birthday on 28th May….You always told this old missionary to write a biography,I don’t know why and for what, but still last few days Ispared some time in the night to write something to giveyou Lalit as a gift for this special day.

God bless you Lalit.

(Fr. Marian Zelazek S.V.D.)

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Fr. Marian through the lenses…

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A PRAYER OF PETITION FOR THE BEATIFICATION OF

FR. MARIAN ZELAZEK, SVD

Loving God and compassionate Father, you chose Fr.Marain Zelazek to be a Religious, Priest and Missionary inthe Society of the Divine Word and sent him to Indiafrom far away Poland to be your messenger of love andcompassion. As your faithful servant he preached yourword by his life and actions.

Many drew inspiration from his life of simplicity anddedicated service to the poor, the needy and the suffering,especially the leprosy affected people. Irrespective ofcast and creed, people from all walks of life approachedhim in their material needs, psychological distress andspiritual poverty. He became a true “Bapa” to all throughhis Fatherly love and care.

Father most holy, we truly believe that as a result of histotal self-giving to you and your people, Fr. Marian wastruely holy and noble and that he is in the assembly ofyour Saints in your eternal presence.

Therefore, heavenly Father, we pray that you grant usthe favour of his being officially acknowledged as a Saint,so that we all may be encouraged to look upon him as aheavenly guide and role model in our daily missionendeavours all over the world. Grant also to us thatthrough the favour of his heavenly intercession in our lifehere on earth, like him, we too may be enabled to spendour lives in true service of our brothers and sisters.

We make this prayer through the intercession of Maryour Mother and in the name of your Son, our Lord, JesusChrist Amen.

Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…

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