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Poland The Polish Ecumenical Council
Founded in 1946 to promote interchurch cooperation, the
Polish Ecumenical Council includes nearly all churches
except the
Polish Catholic Church. In 1989 member churches included
the
Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Reformed
(Calvinist), Old
Catholic, and Evangelical churches of Poland. Cooperation
with
the Polish Catholic Church began in 1974 when the council
established a Combined Ecumenical Commission to deal with
the
analogous ecumenical commission of the Polish Catholic
Bishops'
Conference. In 1977 the council named a subcommittee for
discussion of individual theological questions; by 1980
bilateral
dialogs had begun among members sharing similar doctrine.
Given
Poland's history of religious tolerance, the restoration
of
religious freedom in 1989 was expected to expand the
tentative
ecumenical contacts achieved during the communist era.
Data as of October 1992
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