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Poland The Old Catholic Churches
The Polish National Catholic Church, one of a number of
socalled Old Catholic churches worldwide, had about 50,000
members
in 1989, organized in dioceses centered in Katowice,
Warsaw,
Kraków, and Wroc aw. The church claims to retain all
genuine
Roman Catholic doctrine, while rejecting mainstream Roman
Catholic tenets such as the infallibility of the pope and
the
immaculate conception and assumption of Mary. The thrust
of the
Polish National Catholic Church's beliefs is a return to
"original" doctrine untainted by the addition of any new
belief.
The church belongs to the Union of Utrecht, which include
Old
Catholic churches from many countries and is overseen from
the
Netherlands by the archbishop of Utrecht.
The Mariavite Catholic Church of Poland is a schismatic
Old
Catholic group excluded from the Union of Utrecht because
of
unorthodox beliefs. In 1989 its membership in Poland was
about
25,000, divided into three dioceses administered from
Plock.
About thirty priests were active in 1989.
Data as of October 1992
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