Abstract

Father Bernard Duszynski (*1930) was ordained in 1957 and then he was working pastoral for 18 years in Poland. He left for Libya in 1976 as a chaplain of Polish and Italian nuns’ communities in Cyrenaica. He lived in Beida, from where he was commuting to Darnah and Tubruq every three weeks. He organised catechism for children and youth because there were a lot of Polish workers and their families in Libya at that time. Except a few thousands of Polish workers, Fr Bernard Duszynski watched his pastoral service also over some other camps of workers of different nationalities. A group of Filipinos was pretty large. The liturgy was celebrated in Polish, Italian, English, French, Arabian and Korean. During celebrations fathers were given a hand by lay people very often. Bishop Giovanni Martinelli nominated Fr Bernard Duszynski as a vicar bishop on the 8th of May 1986 and five years later, on the 31st of January 1991, as a general vicar for the territory of vicariat apostolic in Banghazi. Father Bernard Duszynski came back to Poland in 1994. Only few missionaries left so rich posthumous literature works as Father Bernard did. He wrote a great number of letters and some books about Libya and his work in that country.