Wersja polska

In the year 1976, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then the archbishop of Cracow, and later Pope John Paul II, spent his time in Washington, DC looking to start a Polish Catholic Mission, with the aim of serving the Polish diaspora which gathered at Polish mass in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

To that personal initiative of the Holy Father, expressed in a letter signed by him to Cardinal William Baum, then the Archbishop of Washington, DC, do we owe the formation of the Polish Roman-Catholic Mission dedicated to Our Lady Queen of Poland and Saint Maximilian Kolbe. The mission was based out of the historic church of Saint John the Evangelist in Silver Spring. Then Archbishop James Hickey (later Cardinal), and the successor of Cardinal Baum, raised the mission to the rank of parish in 1983.

The ministry of the mission and parish has been run, from its inception, by the Society of Christ. This order was formed in 1932 by Cardinal August Hlonda, Primate of Poland, for the pastoral care over the Polish diaspora all over the world. Former pastors of the parish have been Fr. Józef Smyczyk, Fr. Edward Mroczyński, Fr. Tadeusz Winnicki, Fr. Zygmunt Ostrowski, Fr. Krzysztof Oska, Fr. Stanisław Hijakowski, Fr. Klemens Dąbrowski (until 16.10.2007), and Fr. Jan Fiedurek (until 30.08.2015). The current pastor is Fr. Jerzy Frydrych.