Warsaw, Poland - The head of the largest Protestant church denomination in Poland, Bishop Janusz Jagucki, is to step down from office after the church leadership Sunday withdrew its support for him amid revelations that he had once informed for the communists. A vote by the synod of the Evangelical-Augsburg Church, the largest of the Lutheran denominations in Poland with some 80,000 members, withdrew its confidence in the 62-year-old Jagucki.
However, he is to stay in office until the election of a successor in January 2010.
Church spokesman Waldemar Pelc told journalists that Jagucki had expressed regret and had apologized for the negative repercussions which his actions had had for the church.
However, he said Pelc had denied he had cooperated with the secret service (SB) apparatus of the former communist regime in Poland.
Pelc, in remarks to the German Press Agency dpa, did acknowledge having contact with SB officials up until the mid-1980s, but that these officials had come into the church rectory "in broad daylight" and that the congregation members knew this. Pelc said he was perhaps naive in thinking that such talks would help the church.
On Saturday, the head of the church's historical commission, Czeslaw Cieslar, said there were archive documents which showed beyond a doubt that the bishop had served as an informal member - a common term for an informant - of the security service.