CIEPLAK, Jan Feliks. — Polish bishop, born at Dombrova (diocese of Kielce) on 17 Aug. 1857, died at Passaic, near New York, on 17 Feb. 1926. Professor at the ecclesiastical academy of St. Petersburg from 1882, he was elected auxiliary bishop (Archbishop titular of Achrida [28 March 1919]) in 1908, then apostolic administrator of Mohilev during the exile of Msgr. Raffo. Imprisoned in 1923 by Soviet authorities for “having protested against the seizure of ecclesiastical property and for having fomented counter-revolution through superstitious acts,” he was sentenced to death. However, he was pardoned through the intervention of foreign powers and later exchanged for some non-Russian communists. He died suddenly in the United States after having been promoted to the archiepiscopal see of Wilno, recently restored.
CIEPLAK, JAN FELIKS
BIBL.: [M. Barbera], Il processo contro il clero catt., in Civ. Catt., 1923, III, pp. 152-63, 320-34, 517-33; F. M. MacCul- lugh, The bolshevik persecution of Christianity, London 1924, passim; A. Battandier, Annuaire pontifical, 29 (1926), p. 359.