George P. Matysek Jr.

Father Bernard S. Bak, one of the first permanent deacons ordained in the United States who later became a priest for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, died in his Dundalk home June 8. He was 85. A funeral Mass was offered June 11 at St. Casimir in Canton, the parish in which Father Bak grew up and where he served as a deacon after his 1971 ordination. Father Bak also served as a deacon at Christ the King in Dundalk. After his wife of 35 years, Antoinette Stefanowicz, died in 1984, Father Bak petitioned the archdiocese to become a priest. He studied at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Roland Park and was ordained a priest in 1988.