Being good isn't hard, all it takes is a good will!

The author of these words - a catholic priest Marian Żelazek and missionary member of the Societas Verbi Divini (Order of the Divine Word) is reaching out his hands towards all who need help, specially those stigmatized and repudiated most, i.e. the lepers in India .

Father Marian Żelazek was born in 1918 in Palędz near Poznań . In 1937 he became novice of the Seminar of the Verbi Order in Chludow. In 1940 he was arrested by the German Nazis and deported to the concentration camp Dachau . In Dachau and other Nazi-concentration camps he spent all years of German occupation of Poland . The barbarisms he witnessed there, the death of compatriots and all the misery there strengthened his desire to become a missionary in order to repair the world by deeds of good and for the benefit of all human beings.

After Second World War he went to Rome to continue his studies and there, in 1948, he obtained his holy orders. In 1950 he started his missionary activities in Kesramal in the northern part of the Indian state of Orissa inhabited mostly by Adivasses - core natives belonging to the poorest people in India . Father Żelazek tried firstly to help exploited and despised people relegated to the lowest rank of human existence in raising their educational level. Following 25 years of hard work he managed to establish 165 schools; among his pupils there are two catholic bishops, many priests and educated natives.

Since 1975 until now Father Marian Żelazek is taking care of lepers in the vicinity of Puri - a town in the Indian state of Orissa - ensuring basic medical treatment and working hard to restore their human dignity. The lepers under his care are managing a chicken farm, a fish pond, a vegetable garden, a brickyard, produce ropes, clotheslines, sue and weave. Those who cannot work any more are getting daily food from charity kitchens. Father Marian most of his attention and efforts devotes to the children of the lepers. In the school he built himself and well-known for the high quality of teaching, they study together with children of healthy families.

The city of Puri belongs to the most sacred places of Hinduism in India because of hosting the famous temple devoted to Djagannath - the image of God Vishnu-Krishna - the ruler of the world, visited everyday by thousands of pilgrims. Father Marian Żelazek, due to his enormous charity efforts, has been since long accepted by the local Hindu society. He never tries to convert anybody into his own religion but showing example of his behavior and the conduct of enormous social activities for the benefit of the local population, he is not getting tied to convince people that showing love towards another human being is the only way to get the blessing of the love of God. Thus, he is working to win other people's attention and recognition of dignity and respect for the sick suffering of leprosy trying to restore their humanity and to change common believe that the lepers are suffering paying for sins they committed in their previous life.

Leprosy, the Hansen disease, is a chronic infectious disease, which affects approximately 15 million people all over the world. If not treated early it leads to serious deformations and ulcerations of he human body. A number of non-governmental organizations, first of all religious orders, are managing altogether 660 asylums for lepers on all continents, half of them in Asia . Early therapy of leprosy is cheap and effective but the problem is to locate the lepers and provide them with qualified medical personnel and equipment. Nowadays, leprosy is more a social than a medical problem. There exists a deeply rooted fear to get in contact with lepers, even so leprosy is considered to be a weak contagious disease. This fear has led to the establishment of ghettos of misery, destitution and despair.

Mankind has constituted the 30 th January each year as the Day to Fight Leprosy. Pope John Paul II during his prayers in commemoration of the 52 nd such Day underlined the permanent need for solidarity with lepers and his closeness with the sick and also with those who are working to help them. He wished the international community to increase its involvement in the fight against leprosy in order to extinct completely this social plague.

Father Żelazek's work led to his full acceptance by the Hindu people and representatives of other confessions in Orissa. He became a friend of the highest priest of the Djagannath temple and other Brahmins in Puri. In order to conduct ecumenical dialogue, he established a library with a reading room and is now establishing a Spiritual Center of Saint Arnold (in 1875 saint Arnold Janssen established in Steyl in the Netherlands the Order of the Word of God). Local authorities and social organizations in Orissa are using Father Marian's talents to organize charity campaigns and also in overcoming tragic effects of natural disasters.

On the initiative of Dr Jacek Wójcik, in 2002 a committee has been established to nominate Father Marian Żelazek for the Peace Nobel Price. The Committee is chaired by Professor Maria Krzysztof Byrski, well-known authority in indology, enlisting members representing Indian and Polish official authorities, politicians, parliamentarians, bishops an priests, outstanding intellectuals figures of the cultural life of many countries. In its nominating letter the members of the Committee stressed the ecumenical character of activities of the nominee, whose work of life was aimed at creating conditions for peaceful co-existence of the multifold cultural character of human society. Since then the nomination is being renewed every year.

Father Marian Żelazek maintains close ties with the Asia and the Pacific Museum in Warsaw . Being a close friend of the Museum's director - Andrzej Wawrzyniak, who visited him in Puri on various occasions, the Museum had had the honor to guest him during each of his sojourns in Poland . He enriched the Museum's collection by offering valuable gifts of pieces of art from Orissa, which are laid out at this exhibition. On the occasion of the 25 th anniversary of the activities of the Asia and the Pacific Museum in 1998, Father Żelazek wrote a letter to Andrzej Wawrzyniak in which he stressed in particular: "I am happy that the Museum of Asia and the Pacific is developing so well. As you are dedicated so much to Asia and the Pacific, so close are you to my heart, to me who spent 46 years in Asia ".

Maria Janiga
The Asia and Pacific Museum , Warsaw 2005