Nikanor

Archbishop Nikanor, (secular birth name Mikołaj Niesłuchowski; 8 March 1909 – 19 February 1985) was the Archbishop of Białystok and Gdańsk.

Life He was born on 8 March 1909 in the village of Rowanicze in Belarus in the family of a psalmist. He graduated from primary school in Ostrówki in the Nesvizh poviat, where he arrived with his parents in 1912.

In 1930 he graduated from the Theological Seminary in Vilnius. In 1934, he graduated from the Orthodox Theology Department of the University of Warsaw with a master's degree in Orthodox Theology.

On December 9, 1952, the metropolitan of Warsaw and all of Poland, Makary, presented to the council of bishops of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church three candidates for clergy to accept bishop chirotony and take over the cathedral in Wrocław and Szczecin: Mikołaj Niesłuchowski, Jan Lewiarz and Archimandrite Stefan (Rudyk). From the presented proposals, the bishops chose Archimandrite Stefan.

In 1953 he was one of the members of the PAKP delegation at the restitution ceremony of the Bulgarian Patriarchate.

In 1964, while still a white clergyman, he was made a bishop. After making his perpetual monastic vows, during which he took the monastic name of Nikanor, he became auxiliary bishop of the Warsaw-Bielsko diocese with the title of the bishop of Lublin. He remained so from 1965 to 1966. He took over the Białystok-Gdańsk cathedral in 1966, when the former Białystok bishop, Stefan, became the metropolitan of Warsaw and of all Poland after the death of Metropolitan Timothy.

By the decision of the Holy Council of Bishops in 1966, he was appointed the Ordinary of the Białystok-Gdańsk diocese.

He personally conducted catechesis for children in the building of the All Saints parish in Białystok, where he also lived, he also initiated separate Holy Liturgies addressed in a special way to children.