Msgr. Joachim J. Olendzki

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Msgr. Joachim J. Olendzki, pastor of St. Stanislaus parish in Pine Island for 19 years, died Sept. 29. He was 90.

Msgr. Olendzki was pastor of St. Stanislaus, 1989-2008.

A Funeral Mass was celebrated Oct. 5 at St. Stanislaus. Father Dennis A. Nikolić, pastor of St. Joseph in Middletown and dean of Orange County, served as celebrant and homilist.

Father Nikolić was a newly ordained priest when he first met Father Olendzki in 2002.

“He was very dedicated, very much promoting the faith,” Father Nikolić told CNY. “He was very traditional minded and very loyal to the Church.

“He seemed at first kind of stern, but he had a warm heart. People loved him very much. He was very gentle.”

Father Nikolić described Pine Island as a “very small, tight-knit community” where people got to know Msgr. Olendzki rather quickly and pretty well.

“He had the desire to serve the people of God,” he said. “He was very much a hard worker for the faith in the vineyard of the Lord.”

Born in Brazil, he studied for the priesthood in Brazil and Rome. He was ordained in Rome in 1958, incardinated into the archdiocese in 1974 and named a monsignor in 2006.

He earned a master’s degree in counseling from St. John’s University, Queens.
He served as a senior priest at St. Sylvia's, Tivoli, assisting at St. Christopher's in Red Hook, 2008-2010. He was director of Our Lady of Fatima Portuguese Roman Catholic Center, Yonkers, 1977-1979, and served as parochial vicar of Our Lady Star of the Sea, Staten Island, 1979-1989; Our Lady of Victory,

Mount Vernon, 1973-1977; St. Frances de Chantal, the Bronx, 1961-1973; and Assumption, Staten Island, 1960-1961.

Burial was in St. Stanislaus Cemetery, Pine Island.

Msgr. Joachim J. Olendzki