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Rev. Vitalis B. Pedzik celebrates anniversary The Reverend Vitalis B. Pedzik, parochial vicar at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, 210 South Wellwood Ave., Lindenhurst celebrated his 40th anniversary as a priest Sunday, June 10, with a special mass at 1 p.m. in the church. A reception followed the mass in the parish school auditorium. He was presented with a Papal Blessing and a proclamation from the Village of Lindenhurst. Father Pedzik was born in Kotlice, Poland on November 14, 1936. Growing up as a child during the Nazi occupation of Poland, he and his family barely escaped deportation to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp when on December 23, 1943 they fled their village just as the German Army moved in to deport the whole village to the death camp. The Pedzik family fled to Rudki where they worked on a German estate until the end of the war. After the war, Father Pedzik began studies for the priesthood with the Conventual Franciscan Order, first in Gniezno and then at Krakow, where he was ordained deacon by Bishop Karol Wojtyla (the auxiliary bishop of Krakow, now Pope John Paul II) and then as a priest from the Franciscan Theology Stadium on June 15, 1961. From 1961 to 1965 he taught high school religion in Poland. Father Pedzik was assigned to the United States in may 1965 where he served first at St. John Kanty Parish, Clifton, New Jersey until 1968 and then for the next year at St. Hyacinth College in Granby, Massachusetts and at St. Mazimilian Diocesan High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Father Pedzik transferred from the Franciscan Order to the Rockville Centre Diocese in 1969 and he was assigned first to our Lady of Poland, Southampton and as chaplain of Southampton College, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy. From 1974 to 1979 he served at St. Hyacinth’s, Glen Cove and from 1979 to 1985 at St. Peter of Alcantara in Port Washington. During these years he earned a master’s degree in counseling and a professional diploma in psychology from St. John’s University. Father Pedzik later received appointments to St. Francis de Sales Parish, Patchogue from 1985 to 1988; Our Lady of Lourdes, West Islip from 1988 to 1993 and Our Lady of Grace, West Babylon from 1993 to 1995 before coming to Our Lady of Perpetual Help (OLPH) in 1995. At OLPH his duties include celebrating mass for the Polish-speaking community at 9 a.m. each Sunday.
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