Religious Pulse of Poland

By Andre Bouravnev, M.Div., ITEM Media Director

Introduction
In 1966, while the U.S. Senate voted to prohibit voluntary prayers in U.S. public schools, Poland, though under the atheistic Communist regime, marked its millennium as a Christian nation, still devoted to its Catholic heritage. Poland’s present boundaries date from the end of World War II with the population of 37 million people of various ethnic backgrounds: Polish (98%), Germans, Ukrainians, and Byelorussians. Warsaw, being the capital, is the largest and most economically, culturally and politically developed city in Poland.

The characteristic feature of Polish religious movements is a fondness for traditional practices and Christian ceremonies such as pilgrimages to holy places, liturgical processions (e.g. for the feast of Corpus Christi), Advent and Lent retreats, and fairs for parish feast-days. Special significance is attached to the cult of Virgin Mary with innumerable smaller shrines dedicated to the Virgin Mary and scattered throughout the country.

Poland has earned a reputation as one of the nations of Europe with the maximum religious tolerance. Although Poland has been one of the world's most strongly Roman Catholic countries, it is not restricted to a single religion. Being predominantly Roman Catholic, Poland has traces of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religions. The religious map of Poland dramatically changed after the WWII. Nearly 90% of the Polish Jews were executed by the Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, other religious groups were suppressed and declined in number and Poland has been dominated by a single religion. 2007 International Religious Freedom Report published by the U.S. Department of State, stating that over 96 percent of the Polish population claimed to be Roman Catholics (though only 58% are actively practicing). The next biggest chunk of the population is Eastern Orthodox, with Baptists, Lutherans and various minority religions trailing far behind. Among various religious groups, there is an alarming number of cults, such as Jehova’s Witnesses, Hare Krishnas, Budhists and Karaims, Mormons.

The yearbook estimated that in 2004, less than 2 percent of the population was constituted by Orthodox Church members, Jehovah's Witnesses, Lutherans (Augsburg Confession), Greek Catholics, Old Catholic Mariavits, Pentecostals, members of the Polish Catholic Church, Seventh-day Adventists, members of the New Apostolic Church, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans (Reformed), and members of the Church of Christ. There were very small communities of the Union of Jewish Communities, Catholic Mariavits, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Hare Krishnas, and Muslims. Each of these religious groups has a relationship with the state governed by either legislation or treaty, with the exception of Jehovah's Witnesses, the New Apostolic Church, the Church of Krishna Consciousness (Hare Krishna), and the Church of Christ.

A May 2006 public opinion poll indicated that approximately 56 percent of citizens participated in religious ceremonies at least once per week, 17 percent once or twice per month, and 14 percent attended sporadically. Eight percent declared they had no contact with the Roman Catholic Church, and three percent declared themselves nonbelievers. As of 2007 (CBOS' probe), 55 percent citizens over the age of 18 declare full identification with the Roman Church; six percent declare themselves as unbelievers.

There are 150+ registered churches and religious associations in Poland. The biggest numbers belong to the Catholic Church. There are four branches of Catholicism in Poland (all four in communion with Rome): the Byzantine-Ukrainian, Neo-Uniate, Armenian, and Roman Catholics (9,990 parishes and some 28 thousand priests). The Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church is the second largest official religious organization. About 550,000 laypersons and 320 priests belong to it. Most of the Orthodox Christians in Poland are members of the Byelorussian minority in the eastern part of the country. Protestantism, divided into several denominations, is the third largest branch of the Christian religion in Poland. The Augsburg Evangelical (Lutheran) Church numbers over 85,000. The next largest churches are the United Pentecostal Church (17,000 members), and the Seventh Day Adventist Church (10,000 members). The remaining Protestant churches have up to 5-6 thousand members each. Poland also has several Old Catholic churches that are not in communion with Rome. They include the Old Catholic Church of the Mariavites, the Polish National Catholic Church of Poland, and the Catholic Church of the Mariavites. Their combined congregations amount to over 88,000 people.

The Jehovah's Witness Religious Association has a membership of approx. 130,000. There are several other religious groups operating in Poland, including the Muslim Religious Union (Islam), the Union of Jewish Religious Communities (the Judaic religion), the Karaite Religious Board (a religion which combines elements of Judaism and Islam, and is observed predominantly by the Karaite ethnic minority of Turkic origin), and quite a number of organizations related to Oriental religions, e.g. the International Krishna Awareness Society and the Buddhist Society.

Religious demography
Major denominations in Poland from US Freedom of Religion Report, 2007

The Roman Catholicism in Poland has always served as a major link between the religious belief and the nationality. Even after the advent of communism in Poland the church kept its prominent place in the lives of the Poles and continued to be the teacher of the moral values. After the Fall of Communism, Poland regained its tradition as a nation of religious tolerance.

Strategically located in the center of Europe and bordering on the Baltic Sea, Poland was first unified as a kingdom in the 10th century, and became a major power in the 15th-16th centuries, but was carved up among other states in three partitions in the 18th century and then disappeared as a geographic entity until its reconstitution as a republic in 1918. On September 1, 1939 Germany and the USSR invaded Poland and divided the country. During the war, some 6 million Polish citizens, half of them Jews, were exterminated by the Nazis.

With Germany's defeat, a Polish government-in-exile in London was recognized by the U.S., but the USSR pressed the claims of a rival group and the election of 1947 was completely dominated by the Communists. In 12 years of rule by Stalinists, large estates were abolished, industries nationalized, schools secularized, and Roman Catholic prelates jailed.

During Communist domination that began in 1945, the church suffered extensive repression by the state. A change in party leadership in October 1956, however, brought about a new relationship between church and state, which included voluntary religious instruction in schools and other guarantees to the Roman Catholic Church. In 1974, the Polish government established permanent working contacts with the Holy See. The position of the Church was further enhanced when the archbishop of Cracow, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, became Pope John Paul II in 1978. Three visits by the Pope to Poland, 1979, 1983, and 1987, testified to the strength of Polish Catholicism. In 1989, the church was finally granted legal status and control of its schools, hospitals, and its university in Lublin.

The Polish Catholic Church and the People
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, more than 90 percent of Polish children were baptized in the Catholic Church, showing that the younger generation shared loyalty to traditional religion. Surveys of young people in the 1980s showed an increase in professed religious belief over the decade, from 74 percent to 96 percent. Also, the number of men preparing for the priesthood rose significantly. The church's influence extended far beyond the limits of a traditional predominant religion, however. Especially in rural areas and among the less-educated urban population, religion permeated everyday life, and church attendance was higher in the communist era than it had been before WWII. As other forms of social affiliation were repressed or reorganized, churches continued as the de facto arbiters of a wide range of moral and ethical problems in their communities, a role they had assumed initially during the war. Although church affiliation was less prevalent among the educated elite, over 60 percent of them professed belief in Catholicism in 1978.

Why did the Polish Catholicism keep its unique resilience during all the decades with state-sponsored atheistic propaganda? Polish Catholic religiosity focuses more strongly on the Virgin Mary and the saints than on the direct relationship of the individual to God or on abstract religious doctrine. The most important pilgrimage destination for Polish Roman Catholics is the image of the Virgin (called the Black Madonna) at Jasna Góra Monastery in Czestochowa. The image is believed to have rescued Poland miraculously from invasions by the Tatars and the Swedes, and some Solidarity leaders wore replicas of the icon. Especially for less-educated Poles, Mary represents a tangible yet mystical connection with God much preferable to contemplation of abstract theological doctrine. During the communist era, this more immediate and anthropocentric religiosity seemed uniquely resistant to replacement by the intellectual doctrine of atheism. On the other hand, in the early 1990s, once the specter of state-sponsored atheism had disappeared, this immediacy promoted individual expression of beliefs in ways that questioned the church's authority over secular social ethics.

After decades of stagnation under the communistic rule, on April 5, 1989 a broad range of political and economic reforms (including free elections) finally ensued following the Fall of Communism in Russia. Candidates endorsed by Solidarity swept the parliamentary elections and Lech Walesa became president in 1990. Among other things, President Lech Walesa signed legislation that year that made Poland one of Europe's most restrictive nations with regard to abortion. Abortions may be performed only in cases of rape and incest, when the mother's health is seriously endangered, or where tests have revealed severe fetal defects.

Other Churches
A total of 42 non-Catholic church groups existed in Poland in 1989, accounting for about 2 percent of the population. In the communist era, the legal status of these communities was severely restricted. The 1989 law on freedom of conscience and creed redefined the state's relationship to all religions, conferring equal status on the Roman Catholic and the minority churches.

The Greek Catholic Church
The Greek Catholic Church (also called the Uniate Church) was established in 1596 by the Union of Brest-Litovsk. That agreement brought several million Eastern Orthodox Belarusians and Ukrainians under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, although they preserved Orthodox religious rites. From the outset, many in the Orthodox Church strongly opposed Latinization and what they perceived as the compromise of tradition, and conflict between the Greek Catholic Church and both the Polish Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church flared periodically into the early 1990s. In Poland the tense relations between proponents of the Latin and the Greek Catholic rites had relaxed significantly in the 1980s, although serious issues remain unsolved. Among the foremost of those issues is Catholic occupation of Greek Catholic Church property confiscated by the state in the late 1940s. In 1947 the resettlement of the Ukrainian population from southeastern Poland substantially reduced the practice of Greek Catholicism in Poland. The total membership of the Greek Catholic Church in Poland was estimated at 123,000.

The Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (Lutherans)
The largest Protestant church in Poland, the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, or Old Lutheran Church, has about 90,000 members in six dioceses, figures substantially reduced by postwar resettlement of the German minority that made up a large part of the church's membership. Services were conducted in Polish. The membership was concentrated in the Cieszyn Diocese, on the Czechoslovak border southwest of Kraków. Despite its name, the church was not a formal member of the Germany-based Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession.

The Old Catholic Churches
The Polish National Catholic Church, one of a number of Old Catholic churches worldwide, has about 24,000 members, organized in dioceses centered in Katowice, Warsaw, Kraków, and Wroclaw. 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. Its membership is about 26,000, divided into three dioceses administered from Plock, with about 30 priests.

The Polish Ecumenical Council
Founded in 1946 to promote interchurch cooperation, the Polish Ecumenical Council includes nearly all churches except the Polish Catholic Church. It includes 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. Given Poland's history of religious tolerance, the restoration of religious freedom in 1989 expanded the tentative ecumenical contacts achieved during the communist era.

Religious Background
Religion in Poland has changed throughout centuries of history of Poland. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Poland has been famous for its unique religious tolerance; however, the Catholic Church in Poland is an institution which has always been associated with the concept of Polish statehood. The first important date in the history of the Polish state was the adoption of Christianity by the Polanian Prince Mieszko I in 966. The creation of state structures was connected with the spread of Christianity and establishment of an ecclesiastical administrative network in the Polish territories. Since that time, the Church has supported Polish unity and independence, which proved especially significant in partitioned Poland (1795-1918), during the WWII, and under Communist domination.

World War II essentially transformed Poland into a state dominated by a single religion. The history of Roman Catholicism in Poland formed a uniquely solid link between nationality and religious belief. As a result of that identity, Poland was the only country where the advent of communism had very little effect on the individual citizen's practice of organized religion. During the communist era, the Catholic Church enjoyed varying levels of autonomy, but the church remained the primary source of moral values, as well as an important political force. Of the 4 percent of Poles who were not Roman Catholic, half belonged to one of 42 other denominations in 1991, and the rest professed no religion.

Following World War II, during the communist era, all religious institutions became subject to the control of the state. In practice the Roman Catholic Church wielded a full measure of independence, partly through the sheer force of the faithful and partly because in all important matters it answered to the pope in Rome and not to the government in Warsaw. Those opposed to communism within Poland were greatly encouraged by the election in 1978 of the archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, as Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope since the 16th century. Religion in Poland gained a new dimension with the election of Cardinal Wojtyła to the papacy. The Polish Pope revolutionized the Catholic Church, opening it up to the problems of the contemporary world. Within Poland, the person of John Paul II is viewed in a special light, and his activities are regarded as linked to the enormous socio-political changes of the 1980's. John Paul II remains an unquestionable moral authority, not only for the religious part of society.

The Catholic Church has played an important political role as well. The Solidarity movement which brought about the revolution that toppled the communists owes much to the organizational forces and supportive underpinnings of the church leadership in Poland. Many Poles found refuge in the church's support during the repressive years of the communist regime.

Church and State after 1989
The religious minorities, though encouraged by the anti-Roman Catholic policies of the communist state, were barely visible except in local areas. The influence of the Catholic Church became even greater after the fall of communism in Poland in 1989, and this led to its greater involvement in state schools and to the replacement of the country's liberal abortion law, by 1993, with much more restrictive legislation. The Polish National Catholic Church, a schismatic offshoot of Roman Catholicism, never won popular support, despite strong government advocacy following World War II. Two Protestant strongholds remain in Poland—that of the Polish Lutherans in Masuria and the Evangelicals (Augsburg Confession) in Cieszyn, Silesia. An autocephalous Polish Orthodox church is partly linked with the small Belarusian minority, and a Ukrainian Uniate community survives in southeastern districts. In the last quarter of the 20th century, Charismatics and other renewal movements arrived in Poland.

The approach of the Polish Catholic Church to the Polish state changed drastically after 1989. The church's influential role in promoting opposition views, its close relationship with Solidarity, and its mediation between factions in the tumultuous 1980s brought it enhanced political power in the post communist system. In 1989 virtually every significant public organization in Poland saw the church as a partner in its activities and decisions. One result of this identification was that when the Sejm began deliberations on a new constitution in 1990, the Episcopate requested that the document virtually abolish the separation of church and state. Such a change of constitutional philosophy would put the authority of the state behind such religious guarantees as the right to religious education and the right to life beginning at conception (hence a ban on abortion). Throughout the communist era, the separation of church and state had been the basis of the church's refusal to acknowledge the authority of atheistic political regimes over ecclesiastical activities. In justifying its new approach to the separation doctrine, the Episcopate explained that the communist regimes had discredited the doctrine as a constitutional foundation for post communist governance by using the separation of church and state to defend their totalitarian control of society against church interference.

As a political matter, however, the unleashing of stronger church influence in public life began to alienate parts of the population within two years of the passage of the bill that restored freedom of religion. Catholic intellectuals, who had shared opposition sympathies with the church in the communist era, also had opposed the autocratic rule of Cardinal Wyszynski. Many people feared that compromise between the church and the communist state might yield an alliance that in effect would establish an official state church. Once the common opponent, the communist system, disappeared in 1989, these fears revived and spread to other parts of Polish society.

In the period that followed, critical issues were the reintroduction of religious instruction in public schools--which happened nationwide at church insistence, without parliamentary discussion, in 1990--and legal prohibition of abortion. Almost immediately after the last communist regime fell, the church began to exert pressure for repeal of the liberal communist-era abortion law in effect since 1956. Between 1990 and 1992, church pressure brought three progressively tighter restrictions on birth control and abortion, although surveys showed that about 60 percent of Poles backed freedom of individual choice on that issue. By 1991, the proper boundary of church intervention in social policy making was a divisive social and political issue. At that point, only 58 percent of citizens polled rated the church the most-respected institution in Polish public life-- second behind the army. By contrast, one year before 90 percent of citizens polled had rated the church as most respected.

The church responded to the conditions of the reform era in other ways as well. It campaigned vigorously (but unsuccessfully) to prevent dissemination of pornographic materials, which became quite abundant in all East European nations after 1989 and were viewed as a moral threat. The church strongly defended aid for the poor, some aspects of which were suspended in the period of austerity that accompanied Poland's drive toward capitalism, although some policy makers saw welfare programs as remnants of the communist state. Following the issuance of a papal encyclical on the condition of the poor, Cardinal Glemp stressed the moral dangers of the free market.

After 1989 the church had to cut its highly professional publication operations drastically. In 1992 the church discussed improving access to the lay community, however, by publishing a mass-circulation newspaper and establishing a Catholic press agency. Glemp also considered decentralization of the church hierarchy and establishment of more dioceses to reach the faithful more directly. The constitution of 1997 guarantees religious freedom. Poland has residual communities of Polish Jews, whose synagogues and religious activities were officially sanctioned by the communist government. There are nearly an equal number of Muslims in Poland, located primarily in the east, near Bialystok.

Church –State relations in Poland
The problem of how to guarantee the freedom of religion and conscience remains an open question in almost every contemporary European state, especially in the face of a growing religious plurality and the emergence of New Religious Movements.

The political and social transformation processes in Poland, which began after 1989, caused changes in all sectors of society and enabled openness and the free flow of new ideas from all around the world. In these new circumstances, religious minorities, whose presence was negated by the Communist regime, started to voice their problems and demand recognition of their presence and rights. At the same time, countless new religious communities started to emerge in the social milieu, as an antidote to the ideological vacuum that followed the disintegration of the former system of values. These changes required a redefinition of the relations between the state and the various religious communities, among the communities themselves, and between the communities and their members. On the one hand, the emerging democratic state had to legalize the presence of various religious communities, which was complicated by the fact that religious and ideological homogeneity, sustained by the dominant religion and the Communist state, used to be an important goal and a positive value strengthening national unity. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic Church was compelled to re-define its way of operating, this time, however, not as a singular actor, but as one among many others in the new pluralist social reality.

The first legal regulation, the Statute on Freedom of Conscience and Creed, respecting such basic human rights as the freedom of religion and conscience, was introduced in 1989, just before the collapse of the Communist regime. The statute brought about a change in the formation of the legal, material, and organizational status of all churches and religious associations. The statute, further modified by amendments concerning the registration of new religious associations, introduced in 1998, is still in force. It guarantees, among other things, the freedom of religious convictions, the right to remain silent on matters of religious beliefs and to participate in religious celebrations. It also defined the legal position of religious communities in Poland, guaranteeing them autonomy from the state and freedom of their activity. Recognizing the importance and cultural contribution of different religions to the creation and shaping of Polish cultural heritage, the document equalized the status of all religious communities and associations. At the same time, the statute did not grant the same form of recognition for all the different religious communities. The document also declares the secular character of the state as well as its neutrality in matters of religion and conscience.

The statue, which is worth stressing, thanks to its liberal provisions, allowed the so-called new religious movements to formalize their existence. To legalize churches and different religious unions it was enough to present a declaration in the Office of Denominational Affairs and enter the name into the register. Registration required that a group submit the names of 15 Polish citizens and provide such information as its basic religious tenets, the personal details of the founders, the temporary address of the headquarters, and the statute.

Various religious communities took advantage of these liberal requirements and obtained legal recognition, which granted them several privileges. As a result, a number of new religious communities emerged, often artificially created through countless divisions within the already existing groups. The rapidly growing number of new religious communities and the lack of control over their actions became a matter of considerable public concern. As a response, the amendments to the Statute on Freedom of Conscience and Creed were introduced. According to the new tightened regulations, registration requires that a group should submit the names of 100 members, officially confirmed by a notary, as well as information concerning the group itself. This law has been effective since June 1998. Under the statute, a religious association can define its own doctrine, dogmas, beliefs and rituals, as well as organize religious assemblies and publicly express its cult. The regulation of its internal affairs remains under its own law.

The Statute on Freedom of Conscience and Creed was the first legal act regarding the freedom of religion and conscience in Poland and the first such a document in the entire Communist bloc. The statute became the basis for subsequent legal regulations. It is important to stress that, despite the fact that this law was passed under the Communist regime, its ideological norms directly referred to international documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.

The new Polish Constitution passed in 1997 formally describes the character of State. This document declares the impartiality of the state and its separation from the influence of any religion. The law regulates the relations between the state and religious communities, however, there are differences in regulations concerning the legal position of the Catholic Church and other religious associations. In the case of the former, its status is regulated by the international agreement between the Polish State and the Vatican. The legal position of the former, in turn, is regulated by bilateral agreements with the Polish state.

Article 53 of the Constitution guarantees to everyone the freedom of conscience and religious beliefs, and allows religious education in schools, but only to those churches and religious communities that are officially recognized and on the condition that this schooling does not violate other people’s freedom of religion and conscience. The same article states that no one can be forced to take part in religious practices or reveal their religious beliefs or confession. The document remains in accordance with international documents on the freedom of religion and conscience.

As previously stated, the relations between the Polish state and the Roman Catholic Church are regulated by a treaty between the Government and the Vatican. The international character of this agreement reflects the special status of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland. The concordat was signed in 1993, and after years of bitter dispute between its supporters and opponents over whether the treaty simply ensures the Catholic Church’s rights or blurs the line between church and state, it was finally ratified in 1998. The Concordat puts the Catholic Church in a privileged position over other religions and denominations and strengthens its position. Two points of the concordat are perceived as particularly controversial and disadvantageous by members of other religious minorities, namely the obligation for the state to provide Catholic religious education in public schools if requested and the so-called concordat marriage.

Separate regulations have been created for 15 religious groups that enjoy a special status as “historic churches”, whose relations with the state are governed by specific legislation. Most of them were signed in the 1990s. All disputes over the final shape of these agreements showed a reluctant attitude of the administration, which endangered the guarantee of the equality of all religious associations, as stipulated in the constitution.

Finally, a religious community can be legalised by registering with the Register of Churches and Denominations, which is the official record of religious communities and associations, kept by the Ministry of Interior Affairs and Administration. Religious communities may register with the Government, but they are not required to do so and may function freely without official registration.

At present, there are more 150 officially recognised religious communities, plus many more operating without registration. The legal recognition of a denomination guarantees the group some privileges, among others, the duty-free importation of office equipment, reduced taxes and the right to organize religious education at school.

The registration of new religious communities raises many problems due to the lack of a precise legal definition of what is understood by the term church, religious association or community. Moreover, imprecise legal language further confuses the issue. Therefore, the registration itself often appears to be an arbitral decision of the administration. The process of registration seems to be a formality, but some problems may occur when the decision whether the doctrine presented by a group can be treated as religious has to be made In practice, the applications of some communities were rejected because the doctrine they presented was not recognized as religious.

The Freedom of Religion and Conscience in Practice
According to the Statue of Freedom of Religion and Creed, all religious communities are equal and may enjoy the freedom of operation. Nevertheless, the real situation of religious minorities, both the new and the old, differs from the ideological assumptions. Analyzing the situation in Poland, two main sources of suppression can be indicated. The first is a result of actions undertaken by the Catholic Church to extend its influence over society and eliminate competitors on the religious market, while the other is an effect of the oversimplified social perception, lack of information and narrow-mindedness of the Catholic majority.

The Catholic Church Standpoint
Poland is currently one of the most mono-ethnic countries in Europe. After the collapse of the Communist regime the dominant Church, as in many other post-Communist countries, had difficulty adjusting to the new democratic conditions. Facing the growing plurality of different worldviews and values, the Church, made numerous attempts to influence the political and legal decisions of the state in order to protect and impose Christian values on the members of entire society. A great controversy was aroused by the introduction of religious teaching to public state schools in the early 1990s, without open public debate on the legitimacy of this action. Despite the initial objections, a majority of Poles, according to opinion surveys, appear to favour religious instruction in public schools. Given the strong public support for it, there is little chance that religious instruction will be returned to parochial schools.

Obviously, one of the most interesting issues is the attitude of the Catholic Church to new religions. Trying to fight with competitors and protect the real faith, the Church has undertaken decisive actions to eliminate the new religious communities. Firstly, Church teaching has strengthened the social conviction that the Roman Catholic Church in Poland is superior to all other forms of religion. To be Catholic has been presented as a religious and patriotic duty. All confessions different from Catholicism have been identified by the Church as wrong and not truly religious. Secondly, a number of anti-cult information centres, remaining under the ideological influence of the Church, have been established. The summer actions organized by the centres perfectly exemplify their activity. Thirdly, organizations of parents whose children – often as adults – joined new religious communities, have been organized under the auspices of the Church. General social perception includes all new emerging religious communities into the category of destructive sects or cults. This prejudiced view puts in a particularly unfavourable position the harmless new religious communities as well as those stemming from traditional religions, existing in our country only for a few years.

The Social Perception of New Religious Minorities
Traditionally, it has been counter-intuitive to think about Poles who do not belong to the Catholic Church. The stereotypical expression “Pole-Catholic” appears to be deeply rooted in the national consciousness. Membership in the Catholic Church is perceived as an important criterion for belonging to the Polish nation. As an effect, Polish social mentality does not perceive the expression “new religions” as referring to new religious movements, but including all religious denominations and groups other than Roman Catholicism, no matter how long they have been present in Poland.

The blindness of Polish society derives from the blending of Catholicism into the national stereotype. This oversimplified social perception was strengthened by the conviction, moulded under Communism, that Poles form a nation that is homogenous both in ethnic and religious terms. The presence of minorities was not recognized, and existing differences were dismissed and given little importance. In this social context, all religions except Roman Catholicism are both new and alien, and are characterized as outsiders in society.

Generally speaking, new religious phenomena are perceived as dangerous to society and, despite their real nature, are described by means of the terms sect or cult, bearing negative connotations. A widespread atmosphere of suspicion and fear has already been generated by the media, leading to acts of intolerance and causing a pervading phobia in society. Not surprisingly the distrustful or even hostile attitude towards new religious communities is in accordance with the outlook of the Catholic Church. Today, despite general negative and intolerant atmosphere, we may observe something of a shift in attitude to new religious phenomena. Scholars and even some priests voice doubts about simplified social perception of new religions and call for detailed analyses of situation, which would bring reliable information about the issue in question.

Reformed Churched in Poland
There number of reformed churches is Poland is small. Throughout its history the Roman Catholicism, nominally comprising 95% of Poland’s population, acted as the forum for political maneuvering. Hence, compounded by a strange blend of atheism and Catholicism, Poland has been a difficult environment for Gospel work and sound and systematic theological education. And though the Reformation deeply penetrated into some parts of the nation, the Jesuit fervent inquisition and communistic militant evolutionism snuffed out the roots almost completely. Consequently, to be Polish today means to be a Roman Catholic, regardless of church attendance, and Protestantism is regarded as a foreign transplant by most. Incidentally or providentially as some may see it, the Pope John Paul himself is Polish and visited his motherland on a number of occasions.

The government signed a concordat with the Vatican favoring Roman Catholicism in law and every day ordinances. There are, however, some Protestants in Poland. There are about 150,000 Lutherans (mostly nominal), several thousand Pentecostals/ Charismatics, about 4,000 Baptists, and a couple of thousand of Brethren. There are also roughly 4,000 within the Reformed church going back to the roots of Reformation, but some have been heavily influenced by neoorthodoxy of Karl Barth. All of these Christian groups are rather weak in theological training (or in expository preaching for that matter) and make up less than one half of one percent of the population. In addition, to maintain government control over religion during the Communist regime the Protestant churches were lumped into unnatural groupings: Evangelical Union, Brethren and the Church of Christ were grouped together with the Pentecostals, whereas Baptists and Lutherans were allowed to register individually. To complicate things even more, with the collapse of the Soviet block the country is rife with a wide range of wealthy, so called “Christian” cults that flooded Poland: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Christian Science, just to name a few. Still, there has been a recent disenchantment within the ordinary Catholics and growing anti-clerical feelings, as well as more openness to listen to the Gospel, shed of all vague ceremonialism and spiritualism. Furthermore, evangelical churches structurally and organizationally are now back to where they were before Communism. There has also been a tendency for Reformed leaders to receive their theological education at Bible colleges and seminaries abroad but this is on a rather small scale because of the lack of financial support from the impoverished congregations. There is still considerable time before churches become self-sustaining in order to support their own pastors, missionaries and theological schools in Poland.

Conclusion
What is needed in Poland today is the modification of simplified social perception of religions other than Catholicism. General population needs to be educated regarding religious groups without bias or favoritism. Systematic training and teaching is needed. More pastors and trained lay leaders are needed as well.

This is where ITEM seized the opportunity to assist our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ in equipping national leaders in sound doctrine and furnishing sound theological training and theological literature for the Reformed leaders of today and those who will come. These are exciting times both for us and for them as we co-labor in the Lord’s Harvest and participate in the fulfillment of the Great Commission!

Andre Bouravnev, June 2008

Sources used: www.nationmaster.com; History of Christianity in Poland from Wikipedia; International Religious Freedom Report, Winter 2007; www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/