Eugeniusz Baziak was born on March 8, 1890 in Tarnopol. BHe was one of those great shepherds of the Polish Church who by their example of life, fervent faith and deep patriotism left a great gratitude in the hearts of people. When he consecrated as bishop Father Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II, he said: "I am already old and can do little now for the Church, but I have finalized that the best of the candidates will become bishop, so you can be assured of the future." The Holy Father himself recalled years later: "I remember as if it were today that the Archbishop took me by the hand and led me into the waiting room, where the priests were sitting, and said: Habemus papam. In light of later events, we can say that these were prophetic words.

On June 21, 1942, the auxiliary bishop of Lviv, Eugeniusz Baziak, ordained Ignacy Tokarczuk, later to become archbishop, "the shepherd of the Steadfast". 

In 1932, Pope Pius XI appointed Baziak an infulturiate, and on September 15, 1933, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Lvov by Archbishop Boleslaw Twardowski, with whom Fr. Baziak had known for a long time. It was to Rev. Archbishop Twardowski that the new bishop was consecrated on November 5, 1933, in the Archcathedral of Lvov.

Inflator Waclaw Szetelnicki in his book entitled. "Archbishop-Eugeniusz Baziak, Metropolitan of Lvov" writes: "Despite the apparent successes and successes in life, the priestly life of Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak was always hardworking and difficult, but it proved most difficult during the Second World War. The episcopal cross that hung on his chest on the day of his consecration became a symbol of the way of the cross he had to walk in those years of struggle and anguish'. At the end of October 1939, the Soviets liquidated the Faculty of Theology of the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, and in December they liquidated the seminary. At that time, as well as during the whole period of World War II, Bishop Baziak acted in the place of Archbishop Twardowski, who was very ill, in order to ensure the continuity of the work of the seminary and he also ordained priests.

The Church in Lwow organized charity actions both for tens of thousands of Poles criminally deported deep into the Soviet Union and for the poor and starving local population. Already in 1941, when the German-Soviet war broke out, the second occupants entered Lviv. At that time Bishop Baziak had to face another very hard Lwow reality. "The red terror was replaced by the brown terror, which had similar methods and means of action. Mass persecution, imprisonment, and deportation to concentration camps soon followed. The new occupants used the same prisons as the previous Soviet occupants, and the only 'novelty' in the extermination of patriots and activists of the Polish national-independence underground was their execution in street executions. (...) The Germans also applied the above-mentioned repressive measures, invigilation, provocations, investigations, interrogations of the clergy of the Curia and Seminary, and other restrictions to the Lviv church authorities and clergy. (...) The Germans were zealously aided by the Ukrainian nationalists of the OUN and Ukrainian Insurgent Army, who were allied with them and hated Poles. This quickly led to an ordeal for the Polish inhabitants of Volhynia and Podolia, in which hundreds of thousands of people, including many Roman Catholic priests, were bestially murdered. Disregarding this, their clerical superiors from the Lviv Metropolitan Curia, headed by Archbishop Boleslaw Twardowski and Bishop Eugeniusz Baziak, often risked their lives to make pastoral visits to parishes even very distant from Lviv in order to ascertain their current condition and the tragic experiences that had taken place there". - writes Szolginia. At the end of July 1944, after the German army had been pushed out of the city, the Soviets occupied Lviv again. The second Soviet occupation of the city began. The old restrictions and persecutions against the Church returned. 1944 was also the year of the death of Archbishop Bolesław Twardowski. Then Metropolitan Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak was chosen by the Holy Father to be the shepherd of the Archdiocese of Lvov, and he took over the rule on November 22, 1944.

From 1945 Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak was forcibly brought by the Soviet authorities to all-night interrogations that were aimed at forcing him to leave Lviv forever. For a long time he did not give in to the Soviet officials, but when the situation of the Church in Lwow became hopeless, he made the painful decision to expatriate the seminary and the agencies of the metropolitan curia together with its archives to Poland within its new borders. He celebrated his last pontifical Mass in the Archcathedral of Lvov on Easter Sunday, 1946. At the end of April this year he left his beloved city with a painful heart. Witold Szolginia writes in his book that this turning point in the life of Archbishop Baziak, "this very tragic, painful and sad circumstance became the impulse for the poignant and meaningful description of him as archbishop - exile...". In the middle of August 1946 he moved to his new residence in Lubaczow. Here he received the painful news that the communist authorities of that time closed down the seminary that had been transferred from Lviv to Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. In 1951 the archbishop was nominated again to be the coadjutor of Cardinal Stefan Sapieha in Krakow, keeping his previous functions. The then Pope Pius XII, in case of the death of the Archbishop of Krakow, appointed him at the same time Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Krakow with the authority of the Resident Bishop. When Cardinal Sapieha passed away, Archbishop Baziak assumed his new duties in the Archdiocese of Cracow. It was a very difficult time for him because the communist state authorities conducted an increasingly fierce struggle against the Polish Church. In December 1952, they interned him and then arrested him and imprisoned him in one of Krakow's prisons. Due to his poor health, he was released in 1953 but forbidden to return to Cracow and Lubaczow. He did not return until 1956 as part of the so-called post-October thaw.

September 28, 1958 went down in the history of the Polish Church for good. It was then that the Archbishop consecrated Father Karol Wojtyla as Bishop in the Wawel Cathedral. In his biography of Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak, the already mentioned inflate Waclaw Szetelnicki writes about this significant and memorable act "None of those who filled the Wawel Basilica and surrounded the confession of St. Stanislaus, bishop and martyr, during the consecration rites, could have imagined in their wildest dreams that they were participating in the episcopal consecration of the future pope, the first of the Polish nation, who would shine with the most magnificent radiance of glory on the Church in the world and on their homeland. In this way the apostolic succession was handed over to the future pope by the laying on of the hands of the metropolitan of Lwow. Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak became an instrument of Divine Providence. John Paul II glorified the name of Poland in the whole world and his consecrator went down in history with him". We must admit that the situation of Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak was very complicated because, on the one hand, he still remained the metropolitan of Lvov and ruled the fragment of this diocese in Lubaczow through his plenipotentiary and, on the other hand, he performed de facto duties of the Ordinary in Cracow. It was not until 1962 that changes occurred in this regard. It was then that the Krakow chapter, through Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, asked John XXIII to make Archbishop Baziak the metropolitan of Krakow and thus to unite the archbishops of Lwow and Krakow in a personal union. Father Szetelnicki presents it in his book as follows: "In March 1962 important decisions of the Holy See took place, which fundamentally changed the personal situation of the Archbishop. On February 2, 1962, the suffragan priests of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla and Julian Groblicki, as well as the canons of the Krakow Metropolitan Chapter, turned to the Holy See with a request to appoint Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak as the Archbishop - Metropolitan of Krakow. In response, the Secretary of State of the Holy See, A.J. Cardinal Cicognani, informed Primate Stefan Wyszyński that Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak had been transferred to the archiepiscopal See of Krakow, becoming the administrator of the archdiocese of Lvov for the faithful of the Latin rite. The will of the Holy Father was communicated by the Primate to Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak on March 14, 1962, who gave the Primate his canonical consent to take over the Cracow See. At the same time, however, Archbishop Baziak petitioned the Holy Father, through the Primate's hands, to allow him to remain at the same time on the archiepiscopal See of Lvov because of the spiritual sensitivity of the faithful of the Archdiocese of Lvov who had asked for this. The Primate noted that during their conversation in Warsaw on June 13, 1962, "Archbishop Baziak deeply felt his separation from the Chair of Lvov. Unfortunately, there was no time to solemnly announce his appointment, because two days after this conversation Archbishop Baziak died of a heart attack. He was buried in Wawel Cathedral in Krakow. He was succeeded as archbishop of Cracow by Bishop Karol Wojtyla, later to become Pope John Paul II, who presided over the funeral ceremonies of the deceased priest. How great a blow the death of Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak was for the Polish Episcopate, we can learn from the issue of "L'Osservatore Romano" that appeared a few days after his funeral. We read there: "With the death of Archbishop Baziak, the Polish Episcopate loses one of its most distinguished representatives, the faithful under his care a loving and firm father, and the Church a vigilant and responsible shepherd to the point of heroism. (...) Archbishop Baziak was the victim of slander, deported and interned, but he regained his freedom thanks to the faith of the Polish nation, the faith that hinders and weakens persecution more than in any other country, the faith that seemed to the enemies themselves the only force that could save the enslaved nation from a new tragedy. (...) His determined but silent action has aroused the great admiration of those who have been called upon to appreciate its value. (...) John XXIII received him with all the effusion of his fatherly heart, appreciating in him an example of apostolic zeal that overcame every obstacle. He died, leaving behind him an instructive example of generous exaltation and inexhaustible apostolic energy."

source: Piotr Czartoryski-Sziler, Nasz Dziennik

Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak consecrates Father Karol Wojtyla as Bishop