Bishop Paweł Anweiler, longtime head of Poland's Cieszyn Lutherans, has died

Paweł Anweiler, the former bishop of the Cieszyn diocese of the Evangelical-Augsburg Church in Poland (the country's main Lutheran church), has died.

He was born on 16 June 1950 in Kalisz and studied theology at the Christian Theological Academy in Warsaw, graduating in 1974. He was ordained as a priest on 24 February of that year. He began as a curate in Kalisz and later served in Kępno. In 1979 he moved to a parish in Częstochowa, where he became pastor two years later.

In 1991 the synod of the Cieszyn diocese elected him bishop. He held the post from 24 November 1991 until 6 January 2016, when Rev. Adrian Korczago succeeded him. Since 1985 he had also been a member of the church's Synod, its highest authority. He chaired the Silesian branch of the Polish Ecumenical Council and wrote poems and essays.

In 2011 he received the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, one of Poland's highest state honours.

His funeral will be held on Friday at the Saviour church in Bielsko-Biała.