Archbishop Miron (21 October 1957 – 10 April 2010), born Mirosław Chodakowski, was a Polish religious figure. Chodakowski was born in

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Białystok is located in the Białystok Up ...

. He served as

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

Ordinary of the

Polish Army The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stret ...

until being killed in the

2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash On 10 April 2010, a Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft operating Polish Air Force Flight 101 crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 people on board. Among the victims were the president of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, and his wife, Maria, ...

near

Smolensk Smolensk ( rus, Смоленск, p=smɐˈlʲensk, a=smolensk_ru.ogg) is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest ...

. He entered the Orthodox Seminary of the Holy Spirit in Warsaw in 1972. He gained holy orders on 17 December 1978. Later, he studied at the Christian Theological Academy in Warsaw. He became the Polish Army's chief Orthodox priest on 1 October 1998. He received the gold Order of Merit for the Defence of the Country on 5 February 1999. He was conferred the rank of General Brigadier of the Polish Army by president

Aleksander Kwaśniewski Aleksander Kwaśniewski (; born 15 November 1954) is a Polish politician and journalist. He served as the President of Poland from 1995 to 2005. He was born in Białogard, and during communist rule, he was active in the Socialist Union of Poli ...

and was posthumously promoted to the rank of

Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

Bronisław Komorowski Bronisław Maria Komorowski (; born 4 June 1952) is a Polish politician and historian who served as President of Poland from 2010 to 2015. Komorowski served as Minister of Defence from 2000 to 2001. As Marshal of the Sejm, Komorowski exercised ...

. He died in the

on 10 April 2010, with the Polish President and other Polish dignitaries. They were travelling to take part in the commemorations for the 70th anniversary of the

Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre, "Katyń crime"; russian: link=yes, Катынская резня ''Katynskaya reznya'', "Katyn massacre", or russian: link=no, Катынский расстрел, ''Katynsky rasstrel'', "Katyn execution" was a series of m ...

. Chodakowski was posthumously appointed a Commander of the

Order of Polonia Restituta , image=Polonia Restituta - Commander's Cross pre-1939 w rib.jpg , image_size=200px , caption=Commander's Cross of Polonia Restituta , presenter = the President of Poland , country = , type=Five classes , eligibility=All , awar ...

. In 2017 it was revealed that when the Polish state reopened the investigation into the crash and exhumed victim's bodies, testing revealed that Chodakowski's coffin contained his body from the waist up and the body of general Tadeusz Ploski from the waist down.Poland air crash probe: Remains of ex-president mixed up
/ref>

References

1957 births 2010 deaths People from Białystok Members of the Polish Orthodox Church Polish military chaplains Victims of the Smolensk air disaster Commanders of the Order of Polonia Restituta Eastern Orthodox Christians from Poland {{poland-reli-bio-stub