Pope Leo XIV appointed Father Pawel Janusz Kubiak as rector of the Catholic mission in Turkmenistan, according to a report by the Fides news agency.

According to the agency, the pontiff accepted the resignation of the previous head of the mission, Father Andrzej Madej, and appointed Father Kubiak, who previously held an administrative post at the mission, to this position.

Father Madej headed the Catholic mission in Turkmenistan since 1997 and completed his work in Ashgabat in June 2025 – his mission in the country lasted 28 years.

As Fides notes, the new head of the mission, Father Pawel Janusz Kubiak, was born on February 8, 1974, in Turek, Poland. In 1994, he entered the congregation of oblates, and a year later, he completed his novitiate in Święty Krzyże. He took his perpetual monastic vows in 1999, and in 2001, he was ordained a priest in Obra, Poland.

Kubiak's first obedience was in the delegation of the Polish Province of the Order in Ukraine and Russia, where he served until moving to Turkmenistan in 2023.