JAN PACHOŁEK SDS,
Polish Province
RIP: 24/04/2025 - Mikołów, PL
Fr. Jan Pachołek
Father Jan Pachołek was born on 26 November 1959 in Morzęcin Wielki in Lower Silesia. After his early education he passed his baccalaureate in 1982 with the title of Building Technician. Immediately after his exam, he expressed his desire to join the Society of the Divine Savior.
In 1982 he began his novitiate in Bagno, where he made his first vows on 8 September 1983 and his perpetual profession in 1987. From 1983 to 1989 he studied philosophy and theology at the Salvatorian Major Seminary in Bagno. He was ordained priest in 1989 in Trzebinia by Cardinal Franciszek Macharski.
As a newly ordained priest, Fr. Jan worked as a vicar in Mikuszowice Śląskie. His missionary aspirations called him to Zair, but health problems encountered while studying French in Belgium forced him to return to Poland in 1991. There he served for a while as vicar in Mikołów and Krzywin Gryfiński before settling in Zakopane in 1992.
His longing for more missionary work led him in June 1992 to the then Czechoslovakian Province. There, in addition to his pastoral duties, he performed various tasks within our Society. In 1997, he defended his master’s thesis in Wrocław, and in 1998 he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Church history. In the same year he became provincial of the Czech Salvatorians. In 2010, the Czech Salvatorian Province was transformed into a vicariate under the direct authority of the Superior General, who appointed Fr. Jan as local superior at that time. After the administrative transformation, he was, among other things, treasurer and vice-superior of the Czech Foundation and pastor in several Czech parishes from 2012 to 2025. Due to cancer, in April 2025, after 32 years of ministry in the Czech Republic, he returned to Poland and settled in Mikołów, where he died on 24 April 2025, at the age of 65, in his 42nd year of religious life and 36th year of priesthood.
