Andrzej Siemieniewski

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Andrzej Siemieniewski (born August 8, 1957, in Wrocław) is a Polish Roman Catholic bishop who has led the Diocese of Legnica since 2021. He finished high school in Wrocław in 1976, studied at the Wrocław University of Technology, and joined the Metropolitan Seminary in Wrocław in 1979. He earned a Master of Theology in 1987 and later studied in Rome at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), where he completed a dissertation on Hans von Balthasar in 1991. He was ordained a priest on June 1, 1985, by Cardinal Henryk Gulbinowicz. Early in his ministry he served in Świdnica as vicar and catechist, and from the 1990s he worked with youth movements and formation programs, including Light-Life/Oasis and Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Since 1998 he has been the archbishop’s vicar for priestly formation, and he has held retreats and teaching roles at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Wrocław. He earned his habilitation in 1997 with a thesis on Evangelical Spirituality of the New Birth and Catholic Tradition, and from 1998 to 2001 he was vice-rector of the Pontifical Faculty of Theology. He has led the Department of Theology of Spirituality at the same faculty and later became a prosynodal examiner and censor. On January 5, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Wrocław (titular bishop of Theuzi), and he was consecrated on February 11, 2006; his motto is Deus caritas est (God is Love). He served as General Vicar of the Archdiocese of Wrocław and took on roles with the Nazareth Families Movement and the FIDES library federation, among others, and in 2012 he was named provost of the Wrocław metropolitan area. He has been involved in church partnerships and apologetics, including co-founding Apologetyka.katolik.pl. In June 2021, Pope Francis appointed him bishop of Legnica, succeeding Zbigniew Kiernikowski.