John M. Grondelski, a parishioner of St. James Church in Falls Church, received the Centennial Medal of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin from university rector, Rev. Miroslaw Kalinowski, for his service to the university, the school announced May 5.
Grondelski has been involved with the university — especially in the areas of philosophy, theology and Polish American studies — since his first visit as a student at the Summer School of Polish Language and Culture in 1987.
Grondelski was former associate dean of the School of Theology at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J. He received the medal in Washington last November.
The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin was founded in 1918. From 1944 until after 1989, it was the only free, independent, and Catholic university behind the Iron Curtain from East Berlin to Vladivostok. It contributed to world Catholicism through development of the philosophical school of Lublin Thomism and the election of one of its professors — Karol Wojtyla — as Pope St. John Paul II.
