Our Pastor

Harry was born in Birmingham, England in 1951, of German parents who lived in Poland up to World War Two. His mother church was the Polish Lutheran Church in Exile in Birmingham, where he also played the organ. He studied German Literature at the University of Wales, did postgraduate teacher training there, and wrote a Ph.D. on the medieval theologian and mystic, Master Eckhart.

As a young man, Harry felt the call to be a pastor, assuming this would be in his Polish Lutheran Church in England. He therefore came to Poland to learn Polish (1978-80), meeting his wife Ania in Warsaw. However, on returning to the UK, he was unable to finance theological studies and went into language teaching instead. In the meantime, Ania joined him in the UK to study Church Education in Birmingham, where they married in 1982.

In 1986 Harry and Ania emigrated to Poland, and Harry worked as a legal and financial translator until his retirement. He thought he had misheard God’s call, as nothing had come of pastoring in the UK, but the Lord had other plans. In 2017 he was invited to pastor Warsaw International Church: the call had not been misheard after all. It was just that, instead of pastoring a Polish church in England, he was ultimately to pastor an English church in Poland. God moves in mysterious ways.

Harry is interested in collecting hymns – especially old revival hymns, many of which are now almost forgotten. Ania and Harry also enjoy walking in Poland’s diversified countryside, and are both lovers of nature.