Michael Belina Czechowski

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Michael Belina Czechowski

Michael Belina Czechowski to Polish Michał Belina-Czechowski (* 25. September 1818 in Sieciechowice in Krakow , Poland ; †  25. February  1876 in Vienna ), former Polish Franciscan - priest , was the first Adventist missionary in Europe , but independent of Seventh-day Adventist General Conference . He contributed significantly to the development of a universal understanding of mission in Adventism .

Life

At 17, Michael Belina Czechowski entered the Franciscan monastery of Stopnica one. He was on 25 June 1843 in Warsaw for ordained priests . However, he was disappointed by the moral grievances in monastic life, so that he went to Rome and in October 1844 an audience with Pope Gregory XVI. received. Czechowski was also politically active - he campaigned for the national autonomy of Poland and therefore had to emigrate.

Finally Czechowski left the Roman Catholic Church , married in Solothurn in 1850 and worked as a bookbinder in Brussels . In London he met the Baptists , who helped him to a free passage to New York. In 1852 the Baptists offered him a position as an evangelist among the French-speaking Canadians in New York State, where he worked successfully and was ordained a pastor.

He met the Seventh-day Adventists in 1856 and joined them in 1857. In 1864, after working for several years as a minister in Canada and the northeastern United States, he proposed that he go to Europe as a missionary, but general conference refused.

Since Czechowski had no funds of his own, he secured the support of the Advent Christian Church in Boston . He traveled to Europe and there began to preach in the Waldensian valleys of Piedmont . Because he encountered a lot of resistance in Italy, he moved to French-speaking Switzerland , where he was able to form several groups of sabbathers within three years , the largest in Tramelan near Biel . He not only baptized many Adventists, but also employed several of them as book evangelists . He also founded a publishing house . The first of his converts were Jean-David Geymet (factory worker and the first book evangelist) and Catherine Revel.

Czechowski taught Seventh-day Adventist principles everywhere , although he was no longer associated with the community.

In 1868 the Advent Christians refused to support him. He then left Switzerland and probably spent the rest of his life impoverished in southern Europe. Czechowsky demonstrably died (after a confirmed death certificate) of exhaustion in Vienna. Before that he had founded Adventist churches in Pest (Hungary) and Pitesti (Romania).

Czechowski left behind small independent Adventist churches in Switzerland (e.g. in Tramelan) and in Italy. The members of one of these churches founded an Adventist magazine and contacted Seventh-day Adventists in America, which led to a fundamental revision of the Adventist concept of mission.

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personal data
SURNAME Czechowski, Michael Belina
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Belina-Czechowski, Michał
BRIEF DESCRIPTION first Adventist missionary in Europe
DATE OF BIRTH September 25, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Sieciechowice near Krakow , Poland
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1876
Place of death Vienna