|
Poland Church and State Before 1945
The first impetus for an expanded church role was the
social
repression Poles experienced during the era of the third
partition, from 1795 to 1918. In this period, the
partitioning
nations severely limited freedom of organization,
education, and
publication in Polish territory
(see Partitioned Poland
, ch. 1). With the exception of the post-1867
Austrianoccupied sector, public use of the Polish language was
also
forbidden. These restrictions left religious practice as
the only
means of national self-expression and the preservation of
social
bonds among lay Catholics. From that situation came a
strong new
sense of national consciousness that combined
nineteenth-century
literary, philosophical, and religious trends within the
formal
structure of the church. In 1925 the newly independent
Polish
state signed a concordat that prescribed separate roles
for
church and state and guaranteed the church free exercise
of
religious, moral, educational, and economic activities.
Although Poland enjoyed fourteen years of independence
between the signing of the concordat and the Nazi
invasion, the
special role of the church continued and intensified when
postwar
communist rule again regimented other forms of
self-expression.
During the communist era, the church provided a necessary
alternative to an unpopular state authority, even for the
least
religious Poles. Between 1945 and 1989, relations between
the
Polish Catholic Church and the communist regimes followed
a
regular pattern: when the state felt strong and
self-sufficient,
it imposed harsh restrictions on church activities; in
times of
political crisis, however, the state offered conciliatory
measures to the church in order to gain popular support.
Data as of October 1992
|
