At the Citizens Voice: Regional PNCC head elected church’s seventh prime bishop

Bishop Anthony Mikovsky, the leader of the Scranton-based Central Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church, was elected on Tuesday to the denomination’s highest post.

The New Jersey-native, who has spent his 13-year priesthood serving in the city, was elected prime bishop during the 23rd General Synod in Niagara Falls, Ontario, by a two-thirds majority of the ordained and lay delegates, including the prime bishop-elect’s father.

Mikovsky has been bishop of the Central Diocese and pastor of St. Stanislaus Cathedral since 2006. Before becoming bishop, he served as the assistant pastor at St. Stanislaus, the mother church of the denomination, beginning in 1997.

In his new post he will move less than two blocks from the East Locust Street cathedral to the seat of the Polish National Catholic Church on Pittston Avenue.

“I’m overwhelmed,” he said by phone Tuesday, not long after the vote. “When people put trust in you to lead them in God’s field, and in going forward to build up the church, it’s a very humbling experience.”

The Rev. Jason Soltysiak, assistant pastor at St. Stanislaus, learned the news of the vote on Tuesday from “about 150 text messages” from church members, but he spread the word in the traditional way – by ringing the cathedral bells.

“That’s, I guess, our version of the white smoke,” he said, referring to the signal that indicates the selection of a new pope in the Roman Catholic church.

An elderly parishioner, hearing the bells, called Soltysiak and left a message.

“He said, ‘By those bells ringing I can only assume that our pastor is now the prime bishop,'” Soltysiak recalled Tuesday afternoon. “As he choked away tears he said, ‘I’m so happy I could cry.'”

Current Prime Bishop Robert M. Nemkovich must retire from the position because of age limits set by church law. He was elected in 2002.

Also at the Times Tribune and an earlier article here.