The Rev. Michael Zembrzuski, 94, the founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, which is visited by almost a million pilgrims a year, died Thursday, Jaunary 16, 2002, of pancreatic cancer in Doylestown Hospital.

The shrine is a holy site for Polish American Catholics. It is home to a reproduction of the portrait of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, thought to be painted by St. Luke the Evangelist, known as Our Lady of Czestochowa. The painting is often called the Black Madonna because of its dark color - the result of a pigment decay, according to art historians.

Father Zembrzuski was a member of the Pauline Order, a congregation of priests and brothers headquartered in Poland. He arrived in Philadelphia from Poland in 1951 with a mission to establish his order in the United States.

"The Communists shut down all the monasteries in Hungary in 1950," he told a reporter last year. "We expected they would do the same to us in Poland."

In his first few years in this country, he learned English and worked as a missionary in various Polish parishes. Often he gave lectures and radio talks.

"He was a great speaker and communicator," said Michael Blichasz, president of the Polish American Congress for Eastern Pennsylvania.

Father Zembrzuski also began to develop a vision that would go beyond just establishing a monastery for his order.

Since the 14th century, the original painting of the Black Madonna had been in a shrine at the Pauline Order's monastery at Czestochowa in Poland.

Father Zembrzuski wanted to build a shrine to Our Lady of Czestochowa in America that would be a religious and cultural center for Polish Americans.

In 1953 he bought land in New Britain Township, Bucks County, near Doylestown, and turned the houses on the property into living quarters for monks and the barn into a temporary shrine while he raised money for a permanent building.

The Shrine to Our Lady of Czestochowa with its 200-foot spire was dedicated in 1966 - the millennial anniversary of Christianity in Poland. President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke at the opening, which had great symbolic value for Poles because commemoration of the anniversary was forbidden in their native land.

Father Zembrzuski was baptized Marian, soon after he was born on a farm near Mlawa, Poland. He took the name Michael when he became a Pauline monk.

In 1934 he was ordained a priest and was sent by his superiors to Hungary to reestablish the Pauline Order in that country. The order had been liquidated in the 18th century. He established a monastery and built a church.

During World War II, he assisted Polish refugees in Hungary who had fled invading Nazi and Soviet armies until the Gestapo ordered his arrest and he was forced into hiding.

After the war, when the Communists seized power in Hungary, he fled to Rome, where he worked with Eastern European refugees for several years before coming to America.

Father Zembrzuski is survived by several nieces and nephews.

A Funeral Mass was said at 10 a.m. on Monday, January 20, 2002, at the Upper Church of Our Lady of Czestochowa, 654 Ferry Rd., Doylestown. Burial was in Our Lady of Czestochowa Cemetery.

Posted on Mon, Jan. 20, 2003
Rev. M. Zembrzuski, 94, shrine's founder
By Sally A. Downey
Inquirer Staff Writer

back to the home page