The Polish anti-religious campaign was initiated by the communist government of the Polish People's Republic; under the doctrine of Marxism, this government actively advocated for the disenfranchisement of religion and for planned atheization.Zdzislawa Walaszek. An Open Issue of Legitimacy: The State and the Church in Poland. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 483, Religion and the State: The Struggle for Legitimacy and Power (Jan., 1986), pp. 118-134 To this end, the regime used antireligious propaganda and persecuted clergymen and monasteries. As in most other communist countries, religion was not outlawed as such (except in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania) and was permitted by the constitution; nevertheless, the state attempted to achieve an atheistic society. The Catholic Church, as the faith of most Poles, was seen as a rival for citizens' allegiance by the government, which attempted to suppress it.Frank Dinka. Sources of Conflict between Church and State in Poland. The Review of Politics, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Jul., 1966), pp. 332-349
The Catholic Church in Poland provided strong resistance to the communist regime, and Poland itself had a long history of dissent toward foreign rule.Ediger, Ruth M. "History of an institution as a factor for predicting church institutional behavior: the cases of the Catholic Church in Poland, the Orthodox Church in Romania, and the Protestant churches in East Germany." East European Quarterly 39.3 (2005) The Polish nation rallied to the Church—as previously in the neighboring Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic—which made it more difficult for the regime to impose antireligious policies as in the USSR, where the populace was not in mass solidarity with the Russian Orthodox Church. The Catholic Church became the strongest opponent of the regime throughout the rule of communism in Poland, and it resisted more successfully than had religious bodies in most other communist states.
The Catholic Church unequivocally condemned communist ideology.Clark, Joanna Rostropowicz. "The Church and the Communist Power." Sarmatian Review 30.2 (2010) This condemnation compelled the authorities to pursue antireligious activity in Poland in a more cautious and conciliatory way than in other communist countries; the authorities largely failed in their attempt to control or suppress the Polish Church.
Communist takeover (1944–1956) The predecessor to the communist government in Poland was the Polish Committee of National Liberation, which first took office in Soviet-occupied Lublin in 1944. This government initially gave favorable promises to the Catholic Church in Poland, including restoration of property that the Nazis had taken and exempting Church property from agrarian reform.Tadeusz N. Cieplak. Church and State in People's Poland. Polish American Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Autumn, 1969), pp. 15-30
Polish experiences during and after World War II—wherein the large Jewish minority was annihilated by the Nazis; the large German minority was forcibly expelled from the country at the end of the war; and the eastern territories were lost, which had a significant population of Eastern Orthodox Belarusians and Ukrainians—caused Poland to become more homogeneously Catholic than before. After Soviet troops occupied Poland at the end of World War II, the Soviet-backed government enacted a gradual approach aimed at gaining control of the Catholic Church in Poland.
Despite engaging in conciliatory actions toward the Catholic Church, the government was already engaging in persecution. As the Red Army advanced into Poland, nuns were targeted by Soviet troops in multiple incidents, such as the death of 15 nuns in Braniewo.
After the end of World War II, the government permitted Catholic welfare services to resume operations, and it rebuilt damaged or destroyed churches at substantial public cost. During the first few years after the war, the Catholic Church in Poland was treated better than most other religious bodies in the newly Soviet-occupied states of Eastern Europe. This more lenient approach resulted from communism's lack of popularity among Poles, as well as the new regime's difficulty in presenting itself as the legitimate government of Poland; attacking the Church at this time, when it was well supported by most Poles, was considered too risky to attempt.James E. Will. Church and State in the Struggle for Human Rights in Poland. Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1984), pp. 153-176 Communist general Karol Świerczewski was given Catholic funeral rites; Polish radio broadcast Mass until 1947; and Bolesław Bierut's presidential oath in 1947 ended with the phrase 'so help me God'.Tighe, Carl. "Cultural pathology: roots of Polish literary opposition to Communism." Journal of European Studies 29.2 (1999)
Policy of isolation The Polish government made many concessions to the Church that antagonized Moscow; nevertheless, the campaign against the Church weakened the government's public support and made it dependent on the USSR. An important concession was the retention of religious instruction in schools, which was upheld as early as 1945; at the same time, the state attempted to limit and eliminate such instruction by other means.
Politician Bolesław Bierut belonged to a faction of the Polish Workers' Party (the Communist Party in Poland) that favored emulating the Soviet Union. (Politician Władysław Gomułka wanted to create a uniquely Polish system.) Bierut took control of the country in 1948 and attempted to turn Poland into a Stalinist state, wherein religion was actively discouraged in favor of communism. This attempt occurred during a period of generally increasing control and repression in Eastern Bloc countries. The regime sought to eliminate Catholicism and religion from the culture; to this end, the regime used several means: pursuing a policy of isolation from the Vatican, creating public opinion antagonistic to the Church, and provoking antagonisms within the Church itself by replacing religious leaders with regime collaborators.Richard F. Staar. The Church of Silence in Communist Poland. The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Oct., 1956), pp. 296-321 Marriage was secularized in 1945, and civil records were removed from the clergy's jurisdiction in 1949.
Polish society was prepared for the persecutions after 1945 because of its long history before the Bolshevik revolution of operating under regimes hostile to the country. Underground universities taught uncensored history and ethics lessons, and many people openly attended church.Ediger, Ruth M. "History of an institution as a factor for predicting Church institutional behavior: the cases of the Catholic Church in Poland, the Orthodox Church in Romania, and the Protestant churches in East Germany." East European Quarterly 39.3 (2005) A letter by the Primate of Poland on elections, instructing Catholics not to support parties that opposed Catholic teaching, was suppressed in 1946.Post-War Poland and the Church. Edward Dolan. American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Feb., 1955), pp. 84-92
"Patriot priests" A notable feature of the antireligious campaign in Poland included "patriot priests" who opposed the Church hierarchy and supported communism. These priests were rewarded and sometimes allowed to travel to Rome. Some had experienced prison camps; some had been chaplains for the Red Army during World War II. Bishops often let these priests remain in their posts, though they were commonly ostracized by the laity; these priests failed to achieve much popular support. The state supported priests who collaborated with it; the remainder of the clergy was accused of reactionary activities, a lack of solidarity with the nation, and conspiracy with the Vatican.
The government achieved some success in these efforts: an estimated 1,700 out of 11,000 priests in Poland had attended conferences of the "progressives" by 1955. In 1949, Bolesław Bierut held a reception at the Belweder Palace in Warsaw for priests participating in a conference by the Union of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy (ZBoWiD). At this conference, some priests told Bierut that a lack of agreement between the hierarchy and the government made the clergy's work difficult. Bierut blamed this problem on the hierarchy: "the unfavorable attitude of higher Church authorities toward the People's state... In many cases, one can hear from priests...words which are often simply criminal, anti-state." Bierut gave cooperative priests privileges including vacations, financial support, tax exemption, and protection from punishments under canon law (which were permitted by the state).
Following this conference, a Commission of Priests attached to ZBoWiD was created; in the following year, this commission began publishing a biweekly titled Ksiądz obywatel (Citizen Priest), which was superseded that year by Kuźnica kapłańska (Priests' Forge). The commission held conferences in almost all provincial capitals. Young priests were forced to enroll in special classes on Marxism, in order to cause a schism within the Church.
In addition, the state attempted to penetrate the Church by creating several other organizations: the Polish Committee of Peace Partisans, the Catholic Social Club, and the Society of Children's Friends. A lay association, PAX, was founded under the leadership of Bolesław Piasecki, leader of a prewar fascist organization. PAX tried to remove Church members' obligation to obey hierarchy; the organization supported the regime's antireligious efforts, as well as an anti-Semitic campaign in the late 1960s.Leopold Unger. The People Versus the Party. The Wilson Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring, 1983), pp. 48-68
The ZBoWiD priests' commission supported the peace movement; supported the government's protests against the remilitarization of West Germany; supported the planned economy; and stated that the country's new constitution fully conformed with moral principles and Christian conscience. The commission gained mass popularity by supporting Poland's retention of western territories that had been part of Germany. Nevertheless, the government failed to produce a schism in the Church because of a lack of popular support; therefore, it disbanded the organization in 1955, and it called on citizens instead to join the movement for peace partisans.
Bureau for Religious Affairs In 1950, the Polish government created the Bureau for Religious Affairs, which had jurisdiction over personnel decisions and organizational functions.Wynot, Edward D., Jr. "Captive faith: the Polish Orthodox Church, 1945-1989." East European Quarterly 36.3 (2002)
The Main Commission of Intellectuals and Catholic Activists, attached to the Peace Committee of Polish Partisans, was founded in 1950; this commission originally comprised members of theological faculties, representatives from the Catholic University of Lublin, and active Church workers. In 1950, this group participated in the second International Peace Congress in Warsaw. In 1951, the commission sponsored the first national conference of clergy and laymen representing Catholic public opinion. This organization attempted to mold public opinion and formulate principles for the behavior of Catholics. The group actively promoted the peace movement, as well as government protests against remilitarization in West Germany, and it supported holding the western territories. The commission criticized the Catholic Church in West Germany for allegedly being exploited for anti-Polish purposes.
Another organization, called the Catholic Social Club, supported the regime and had representation in the Polish parliament; however, the club lacked popular support. It attempted to reconcile Catholic social teaching with dialectical materialism.