Marek Jędraszewski

Marek Jędraszewski (born 24 July 1949) is a Polish Catholic prelate who served as Metropolitan Archbishop of Kraków from 2016 to 2025. He served as Metropolitan Archbishop of Łódź from 2012 to 2017. He has also been vice president of the Polish Episcopal Conference since 2014.

Jędraszewski's selection for the Kraków Archdiocese was perceived as a surprise in some quarters.

Life Marek Jędraszewski was born in Poznań, earned his high school diploma in 1967 and then pursued ecclesial studies until 1973. In mid-1973, he received his ordination to the priesthood from Bishop Antoni Baraniak. Jędraszewski then studied philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University, where he earned a doctorate.

Pope Francis named him archbishop of Krakow on 8 December 2016.

Pope Leo XIV accepted his resignation on 26 November 2025.

Views

IVF treatments When Poland's government began to subsidize in vitro treatments, he said that IVF was an assault on the dignities of all people and suggested that infertile couples should resort to adoption rather than something that would go above the creative power. During a sermon on August 1, 2019, Jedraszewski called "LGBT ideology" a "rainbow plague" and compared it to the "red plague" of Communism.

Halloween In 2013, the archbishop urged the faithful not to take part in the celebrations of Halloween "even in playful form". He dubbed it an "anti-Christian festival", and urged both parents and teachers to protect children "against its images of terror and dread" that were the opposite of the Christian message. He issued a pastoral letter dedicated to this, and said that introducing people to Halloween "is a violation of Church teaching", while urging them to observe All Saints Day and All Souls Day.

Friendship with Pope John Paul II Jędraszewski was a close friend of Pope John Paul II. The two men became friends in 1975 when Jędraszewski was residing at the Polish College in Rome as he studied at the Pontifical Gregorian college. The then-Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła lived at the Polish College when in Rome and demonstrated a keen interest in its students and their studies. But Wojtyla was also fond of philosophy and found Jędraszewski's studies interesting. The two often discussed various topics and kept personal correspondence with each other when Wojtyła became pope in 1978, and this increased when Jędraszewski became a bishop.