Bogdan Janski (1807-1840) – Founder

Bogdan Janski was born in 1807 in Poland to parents who belonged to the lower nobility. His father was in the Napoleonic army. Young Janski early on manifested traits that would be honed throughout his life; he was intellectually acute, persevering, tenacious, wholly dedicated to a cause.

In 1823, he entered the Royal University of Warsaw where he studied law and administration. While at University he was attracted by the French materialist philosopher Baron de Holbach who expounded a deterministic type of materialism in the light of evidence from contemporary science, reducing everything to matter and to the energy inherent in matter.

He also propounded a hedonistic ethics as well as an uncompromising atheism. Not surprisingly, Janski gravitated toward an anti-Christian world view which he actively espoused and propagated along with other like-minded students. However, a fellow student, Królikowski, though a materialist, was a passionate reader of the scriptures and felt that the only solution to the social ills of the day was the teachings of Jesus Christ. Janski was impressed by Królikowski?s novel attempt to synthesize materialism and religion. Having completed his studies at the University of Warsaw in 1827, he took employment as a lawyer but he was anxious to join his university friends in Paris and so, in 1828, at age 21, he was given permission and a stipend by the government to pursue studies in Paris.

Jerome Kajsiewicz (1812-1873) – Co-Founder

A Lithuanian, served as Superior General of the Congregation in its formative years. A dynamic preacher and writer, Kajsiewicz was instrumental in initiating the Congregation?s missionary activities and outreach. Jerome Kajsiewicz, born at Slowiki, Poland, 1812, entered the gymnasium, 1827, and the University of Kraków, 1829, and soon joined the Polish Insurrection. He had ceased to practice his faith through godless education and perverse companionship.

In an engagement with the Russians, he was surrounded by the enemy’s forces and seriously wounded. Before losing consciousness he promised, if freed from this imminent danger, to consecrate himself to the service of God for life.

In a semi-conscious condition, he was brought into the Russian camp and thrown on the snow with other prisoners. Rescued by a Polish detachment, he was placed in a hospital and, when he had sufficiently recovered his strength, journeyed to France, where he joined the Carbonari at Besancon. He soon saw the impiety of the secret societies with which he was associated, and withdrew from them. In Paris, he met Mickiewicz, Janski, and Semenenko, through whose influence he returned to the Church.

Piotr Semenenko (1814-1886) – Co-Founder

Piotr was a leading Polish theologist of the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th century. He was a Catholic priest, co-founder and superior general of the Resurrectionists, where he was the creator of the main spiritual ideas of the Congregation (Resurrectionist School of Spirituality).

Philosopher and theologian, he was regarded as one of the most scholarly members of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland in the second part of the 19th century. He was an author of many philosophical and theological works, as well as on the interior life. He left massive correspondence, as well as a personal diary.