Westminster Abbey held its first ever Polish-English service to mark the 125th anniversary of the birth of St Maximilian Kolbe.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan priest and missionary. In 1941 he gave his life for that of a fellow prisoner in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.



After three prisoners disappeared from the camp, the German commandant picked ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. Kolbe volunteered to take the place of another prisoner with a wife and children.



The ceremony commemorating the saint was organised by Westminster Abbey and the Polish Catholic Mission in England and Wales. During the homily, bishop Wiesław Lechowicz, delegate of the Polish Episcopate for Polish communities throughout the world, said that St Maximilian Kolbe sets an example of “true heroism” for all of us.



“We cannot change the whole world, but we can take actions concerning our own life and the lives of those around us that will make a positive difference,” said bishop Lechowicz.



Kolbe was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1982. He is one of the 20th century martyrs commemorated in statues erected above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey by the Dean and Chapter in 1998.



The ceremony was attended by, among others, the hierarchs of the Catholic and Anglican Church and Polish officials, including the Polish Ambassador in the UK Arkady Rzegocki.