Cardinal Stefan Wyszyñski was born on 3 August 1901 in the little village of Zuzela on the River Bug, on the regional border between Mazovia and Podlassia. In outcome of the Partitions in the late 18th century, these territories were part of the Russian partitional zone until the end of the First World War. In those areas directly incorporated in the Russian Empire there was an intesive campaign to make the Polish population abandon their traditions and lose their national awareness. In 1912 Stefan Wyszyñski's father (his mother had died when he was nine) sent him to Warsaw, where conditions were not so harsh. He completed his grammar school education there in 1915. Next he enrolled in the Roman Catholic seminary in W³oc³awek, which he finished in 1924 and, on 3 August, after being hospitalised with a serious illness, he received holy orders.

Stefan Wyszyñski celebrated his first Solemn High Mass of Thanksgiving, at Jasna Góra in Czêstochowa, a place of special spiritual significance for many Poles. The Pauline monastery there holds the holy picture of the Black Madonna, Our Lady of Czêstochowa, the patron saint and guardian of Poland. Father Wyszyñski spent the next four years in Lublin, where in 1929 he received the doctor's degree in the Faculty of Canon Law and the Social Sciences of the Catholic University of Lublin. His dissertation in Canon Law, was entitled "The Rights of the Family, Church and State to Schools". For several years after graduation he travelled throughout Europe, where he furthered his education.

After returning to Poland, Father Wyszyñski began teaching at the Seminary in W³oc³awek. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, he had to leave W³oc³awek because he was wanted by the Germans for the pastroal duties he had performed for working-class people. At the request of Bishop Kozal, he went to Laski near Warsaw. When the Warsaw Uprising broke out on 1 August 1944, he became chaplain of the Kampinos unit of the AK Polish underground resistance organisation. He also worked at the Laski hospital, bringing spiritual comfort to wounded insurgents.

At the end of the War, in 1945, Father Wyszyñski returned to W³oc³awek, where he started a resatoration project for the devastated seminary, becoming its rector and the chief editor of a Catholic weekly. Just a year later, Pope Pius XII appointed him Bishop of Lublin and after the death of Cardinal Hlond, on 22 October 1948, the Polish Episcopate elected him Metropolitan Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw, and Primate of Poland.

For the Church in Poland, the 1950s were a time of persecution by the Communist authorities; the Stalinist ideology claimed the Church and religion in general was about to disintegrate. Archbishop Wyszyñski decided to enter an agreement with the Communist authorities, which was signed on 14 February 1950 by the Bishops of Poland and the government. The Agreement regulated the matters of the Church in Poland. Yet already in May of that year Sejm passed a law for the confiscation of Church property, thus breaching the Agreement.

In 1953 another wave of persecution began. When the bishops voiced their opposition to state interference in ecclesiastical appointments, mass trials and the internment of priests began. Father Wyszyñski, who was made a cardinal in November 1952, also became a victim of the persecution. On 25 September 1953 he was imprisoned at Grudzi±dz, and later placed under house arrest in monasteries in Prudnik near Opole and in Komañcza in the Bieszczady Mountains. He was not released until 26 October 1956.

Nonetheless, he never stopped his religious and social work. Its crowning achievement was the celebration of Poland's Millennium of Christianity in 1966 - the thousandth anniversary of the baptism of Poland's first prince, Mieszko. Cardinal Wyszyñski did not turn a blind eye on the civil unrest in 1980. When the Solidarity trade union was created in Poland, Cardinal Wyszyñski showed his anxiety for the welfare of the people and peace in the country by appealing to both sides, the government as well as the striking workers, to be responsible for their actions and their consequences.

Cardinal Wyszyñski, often called the Primate of the Millennium, died on 28 May 1981. Throughout his life, the most important thing for him was his fellow human being. Not only did he preach that honour and conscience are the most important values; he also bore witness to this with his social involvement and great patriotism. He is regarded as one of the greatest moral authorities of the 20th century. To commemorate the twentieth anniversary of his death, the year 2001 was celebrated as the Year of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyñski.

Facts In 2000 a motion picture was made about the life and imprisonment of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyñski entitled "The Primate - Three Years Out of a Thousand", directed by Teresa Kotlarczyk. The title role was played by Andrzej Seweryn, a Polish actor who for a number of years has been working in France at the famous Comédie Française.