PNCC elects new prime bishop: The Church of England Newspaper, Oct 8, 2010 p 6.

PNCC Prime Bishop Anthony Mikovsky

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

The Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC) has elected a new prime bishop at its 23^rd General Synod in Niagara Falls, Canada this week.

On Oct 5, the Rt. Rev. Anthony Mikovsky received a two thirds vote from the clergy and lay delegates attending the church’s synod to become the breakaway Catholic Church’s seventh leader.

The PNCC had at one time enjoyed close ties to American Anglo-Catholics and in 1946 entered into full communion with the Episcopal Church.  In 1978 the PNCC ended its inter-communion relationship with the Episcopal Church following the latter’s decision to ordain women priests.  The PNCC does not ordain women but permits its clergy and bishops to marry.

Established in the United States, the PNCC was formed by Polish immigrants who chafed under the American Roman Catholic Church’s German and Irish hierarchy, which was slow to ordain Polish-American priests or permit the Polish language to be taught in parochial schools.

Tensions reached a fever pitch by 1897 when the pastor of St. Stanislaus Cathedral in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Fr. Francizek Hodur, called upon the American hierarchy to give congregations the authority to own their own properties, to allow congregations to be self-governing in secular matters, to allow congregations to call their own priests, and to appoint Polish bishops to serve in the United States.

The Vatican excommunicated Fr. Hodur in 1898 and 20,000 Polish-Americans followed him out of the Roman Catholic Church to form the PNCC.

In 1907, Fr. Hodur received episcopal consecration in Utrecht at the hands of three Old Catholic bishops, and became its first bishop.  The Roman Catholic Church consecrated its first Polish-American bishop in 1908.  Under Pope John Paul II the breach with the Vatican was partially healed, and the orders of PNCC priests and of sacraments performed by the PNCC are recognized as valid but illicit by Rome.

From 1907–2003 the PNCC was a member of the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht.  It withdrew in protest, however from the Old Catholic Union following the introduction of women clergy, but adheres to the Old Catholic stance on papal infallibility.  The PNCC currently maintains congregations in the United States, Canada and Poland, and is exploring opening parishes in the UK to serve Polish immigrants.