Bishop Tadeusz Rybak was born in 1929 in Milanówek near Warsaw. He completed primary school and secondary school there. He received his secondary-school leaving certificate in 1948 and that same year entered the Major Seminary in Wrocław. He was ordained a priest in Wrocław Cathedral in 1953. After his ordination, he worked in pastoral ministry, serving as vicar of the Parish of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Bielawa (1953–1954), the Parish of St. Stanislaus Bishop and St. Dorothy in Wrocław (1954–1955), and the Parish of St. Stanislaus Bishop in Świdnica (1955–1956). In 1956–1957, he worked at the Catholic Institute in Trzebnica-Bętków. In 1957, he began studying at the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic University of Lublin, completing his studies in 1962 and earning a doctorate in theology.
From 1962 to 1977, he was vice rector of the Major Seminary and a lecturer in dogmatic theology and liturgy. During the same period, he was a member of the Polish Bishops’ Conference Commission for Seminaries, as well as a member of the Pastoral Council and the Liturgical Commission of the Archdiocese of Wrocław. In 1969, he was appointed a chaplain to the Holy Father. On 28 April 1977, Pope Paul VI appointed him titular bishop of Beneventa and auxiliary bishop to the Metropolitan Archbishop of Wrocław, Archbishop Henryk Gulbinowicz.
From 1977, Bishop Tadeusz Rybak served as the vicar general of the Archbishop of Wrocław. In 1978, he also became a member of the Metropolitan Chapter of Wrocław, and in 1988 he joined its Liturgical and Liturgical Pastoral Commission. At that time, the commission prepared nearly all the liturgical books currently used in our country for publication. On 25 March 1992, Pope John Paul II appointed Bishop Tadeusz Rybak as the first ordinary of the newly established Diocese of Legnica.
He served as Bishop of Legnica until 30 April 2005, when he reached retirement age.
He was 88 years old. How do you remember the bishop?