allowed to marry). Another major influence on Józef’s choice was Fr Jacek Woroniecki, who helped him to become interested in Thomism. From 25 June 1926 to 3 July 1927, Józef was a seminarian at the Poznań Theological Seminary. There he experienced conversion and developed fascination with Christian philosophy. Joining a religious order was, in Józef’s mind, an essential consequence of his choice and after lengthy considerations of the qualities of the Jesuit, Franciscan, Dominican and Benedictine orders, he decided to join the Dominicans. He made his noviciate the Kraków Dominican monastery from October 1927 to October 1928. After making a temporary profession of vows on 4 October 1928, against his intention of becoming a missionary, he was told to take up studies in philosophy at Fribourg University, Switzerland, in 1928–1931. He was awarded a doctorate in philosophy on 31 June 1931 (for ‘an idiotic’, in his opinion, thesis on Maurycy Straszewski). In 1931–1933, he studied at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome to become, on 21 March 1934, a doctor of theology (for a thesis entitled Discovering the existence of God through causality and the Catholic faith). On 20 June 1932, he was ordained to the presbyterate. In 1934–1940, he gave lectures on logic at the Angelicum in Rome. He was awarded a habilitation in Christian Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University on 14 March 1938 on the basis of a thesis entitled From the history of the logic of modal sentences. Bocheński’s understanding of the supernatural and material spheres was greatly influenced by his attachment to the logical method of thinking, which, in his opinion, inevitably led to recognising the existence of God. The view that faith, being an act of will, was not contrary, but coherent with science and logic was apparent in all his works. In the 1930s, Józef also published articles in Bunt Młodych and Polityka, magazines where his brothers Aleksander and Adolf were leading columnists. Józef’s articles primarily concerned philosophical issues, providing in this form a basis for the ‘superpower’ ideology of the two periodicals. The outbreak of war found him engaged the construction of a religious house in Służewo. On 6 September, he left Warsaw accompanied by National Democrat acquaintances and subsequently joined the 81st Infantry Regiment, where he served as a chaplain. Taken prisoner at Kock, he soon managed to escape and – via Kraków, Katowice and Vienna – eventually