Church and State in Communist Poland

Church and State in Communist Poland PDF Author: Marian S. Mazgaj
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786460105
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
This text explores the nature of Polish Catholicism in the first half of the twentieth century and the changes it underwent under the policies of Soviet Communism. Of particular note are the laws and policies that were employed by the state in order to destroy religion in general, and Catholicism in particular. The text also explores the way that the strong tradition of Polish culture prepared the populace to be uniquely resistant to attempts to destroy its Christian religious life. It is ultimately, a story of the triumph of the people over the state.

Church and State in Communist Poland

Church and State in Communist Poland PDF Author: Marian S. Mazgaj
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786460105
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Get Book Here

Book Description
This text explores the nature of Polish Catholicism in the first half of the twentieth century and the changes it underwent under the policies of Soviet Communism. Of particular note are the laws and policies that were employed by the state in order to destroy religion in general, and Catholicism in particular. The text also explores the way that the strong tradition of Polish culture prepared the populace to be uniquely resistant to attempts to destroy its Christian religious life. It is ultimately, a story of the triumph of the people over the state.

The Crosses of Auschwitz

The Crosses of Auschwitz PDF Author: Geneviève Zubrzycki
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226993051
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
In the summer and fall of 1998, ultranationalist Polish Catholics erected hundreds of crosses outside Auschwitz, setting off a fierce debate that pitted Catholics and Jews against one another. While this controversy had ramifications that extended well beyond Poland’s borders, Geneviève Zubrzycki sees it as a particularly crucial moment in the development of post-Communist Poland’s statehood and its changing relationship to Catholicism. In The Crosses of Auschwitz, Zubrzycki skillfully demonstrates how this episode crystallized latent social conflicts regarding the significance of Catholicism in defining “Polishness” and the role of anti-Semitism in the construction of a new Polish identity. Since the fall of Communism, the binding that has held Polish identity and Catholicism together has begun to erode, creating unease among ultranationalists. Within their construction of Polish identity also exists pride in the Polish people’s long history of suffering. For the ultranationalists, then, the crosses at Auschwitz were not only symbols of their ethno-Catholic vision, but also an attempt to lay claim to what they perceived was a Jewish monopoly over martyrdom. This gripping account of the emotional and aesthetic aspects of the scene of the crosses at Auschwitz offers profound insights into what Polishness is today and what it may become.

The Pope in Poland

The Pope in Poland PDF Author: James Ramon Felak
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822987341
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in over 500 years, and the first Slavic pontiff in history. Shortly after his election to the papacy in 1978, he launched a series of visits to his native Poland, then in the midst of dramatic social changes that heralded the end of Communism. In this groundbreaking book, James Ramon Felak carefully examines the Pope’s first four visits to his homeland in June of 1979, 1983, 1987, and 1991 in the late Communist and immediate post-Communist period. Careful analysis of speeches, press coverage, and documents from the Communist Party, government, and police show how the Pope and the Communist authorities engaged one another. Felak gives equal attention to John Paul’s political and religious messages, highlighting how he astutely maneuvered between the rising hopes of the Polish people and the dangerous fears of a dying regime. The Pope in Poland recreates and explicates these dramatic visits that played a major role in the collapse of Communism in Poland as well as laid out a papal vision for Poland’s post-Communist future.

Religion, Politics, and Values in Poland

Religion, Politics, and Values in Poland PDF Author: Sabrina P. Ramet
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137437510
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
This volume brings together leading scholars to examine how the Church has brought its values into the political sphere and, in the process, alienated some of the younger generation. Since the disintegration of the communist one-party state at the end of the 1980s, the Catholic Church has pushed its agenda to ban abortion, introduce religious instruction in the state schools, and protect Poland from secular influences emanating from the European Union. As one of the consequences, Polish society has become polarized along religious lines, with conservative forces such as Fr. Rydzyk’s Radio Maryja seeking to counter the influence of the European Union and liberals on the left trying to protect secular values. This volume casts a wide net in topics, with chapters on Pope John Paul II, Radio Maryja, religious education, the Church’s campaign against what it calls “genderism,” and the privatization of religious belief, among other topics.

Church, State, and Democracy in Expanding Europe

Church, State, and Democracy in Expanding Europe PDF Author: Lavinia Stan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199714126
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu examine the relationship between religion and politics in ten former communist Eastern European countries. Contrary to widespread theories of increasing secularization, Stan and Turcescu argue that in most of these countries, the populations have shown themselves to remain religious even as they embrace modernization and democratization. Church-state relations in the new EU member states can be seen in political representation for church leaders, governmental subsidies, registration of religions by the state, and religious instruction in public schools. Stan and Turcescu outline three major models: the Czech church-state separation model, in which religion is private and the government secular; the pluralist model of Hungary, Bulgaria and Latvia, which views society as a group of complementary but autonomous spheres - for example, education, the family, and religion - each of which is worthy of recognition and support from the state; and the dominant religion model that exists in Poland, Romania, Estonia, and Lithuania, in which the government maintains informal ties to the religious majority. Church, State, and Democracy in Expanding Europe offers critical tools for understanding church-state relations in an increasingly modern and democratic Eastern Europe.

Day-VII Architecture

Day-VII Architecture PDF Author: Izabela Cichońska
Publisher: Dom Publishers
ISBN: 9783869227412
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Over 3,000 churches were built in Poland between 1945 and 1989, despite the socialist state's hostility towards religion. We call this Day-VII Architecture. Built by parishioners from scavenged or pinched materials, the churches were at once an expression of faith and a form of anti-government protest. Their fantastic designs broke with the state's rigid urbanism. Neither legal nor prohibited, the construction of churches during this period engaged the most talented architects and craftspeople, who in turn enabled parish communities to build their own houses of worship. These community projects eventually became crucial sites for the democratization of Poland. Unearthing the history of these churches through photography and interviews with their designers, this publication sheds new light on the architectural dimension of Poland's trans­formation from state socialism to capitalism.

The Seeds of Triumph

The Seeds of Triumph PDF Author: Hannah Diskin
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633864704
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
The Roman Catholic Church has played a unique role in the history of Poland in the twentieth century: the people and the Church drew closer and closer together during Nazi rule, the Stalinist period and the somewhat milder, though strongly anti-religious and repressive Gomulka regime (1956-1970). The power struggle between the Church and the communist government did in fact play a role in shaping world politics, the Polish Church having been the force behind the opposition movement in Poland. Against this background, a Polish pope appeared and made a major contribution to the collapse of communism. The Seeds of Triumph, the most comprehensive recent book on the opposition of Church and State in post-war Poland, compares the characteristics and consequences of this relationship during three different periods: the first and second periods of Gomulka's rule, and the Stalinist era between the two Gomulka periods. It examines the balance of power, studying to what degree the Church and other factors in the political environment influenced governmental policy-making. The author disproves the common stereotype, held at the time, that domestic conditions played only a marginal role. In examining the regime's policies, she covers the legal background, the general policy characteristics, the specific policies implemented during the period, and the role of the individual actors, most notably the pivotal role of the two main protagonists, Cardinal Wyszynski and Wladislaw Gomulka. In her landmark study, Diskin makes a significant contribution to the study of authoritarian systems and greatly enhances our understanding of the centrality of the Church in recent Polish history.

The Polish Catholic Church under German Occupation

The Polish Catholic Church under German Occupation PDF Author: Jonathan Huener
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253054036
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, it aimed to destroy Polish national consciousness. As a symbol of Polish national identity and the religious faith of approximately two-thirds of Poland's population, the Roman Catholic Church was an obvious target of the Nazi regime's policies of ethnic, racial, and cultural Germanization. Jonathan Huener reveals in The Polish Catholic Church under German Occupation that the persecution of the church was most severe in the Reichsgau Wartheland, a region of Poland annexed to Nazi Germany. Here Catholics witnessed the execution of priests, the incarceration of hundreds of clergymen and nuns in prisons and concentration camps, the closure of churches, the destruction and confiscation of church property, and countless restrictions on public expression of the Catholic faith. Huener also illustrates how some among the Nazi elite viewed this area as a testing ground for anti-church policies to be launched in the Reich after the successful completion of the war. Based on largely untapped sources from state and church archives, punctuated by vivid archival photographs, and marked by nuance and balance, The Polish Catholic Church under German Occupation exposes both the brutalities and the limitations of Nazi church policy. The first English-language investigation of German policy toward the Catholic Church in occupied Poland, this compelling story also offers insight into the varied ways in which Catholics—from Pope Pius XII, to members of the Polish episcopate, to the Polish laity at the parish level—responded to the Nazi regime's repressive measures.

The Catholic Church in Communist Poland, 1945-1985

The Catholic Church in Communist Poland, 1945-1985 PDF Author: Ronald C. Monticone
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
A systematic analysis of Church and State relations in communist Poland.

Catholics on the Barricades

Catholics on the Barricades PDF Author: Piotr H. Kosicki
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300231482
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
In Poland in the 1940s and '50s, a new kind of Catholic intended to remake European social and political life—not with guns, but French philosophy This collective intellectual biography examines generations of deeply religious thinkers whose faith drove them into public life, including Karol Wojtyla, future Pope John Paul II, and Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the future prime minister who would dismantle Poland’s Communist regime. Seeking to change the way we understand the Catholic Church, World War II, the Cold War, and communism, this study centers on the idea of “revolution.” It examines two crucial countries, France and Poland, while challenging conventional wisdom among historians and introducing innovations in periodization, geography, and methodology. Why has much of Eastern Europe gone back down the road of exclusionary nationalism and religious prejudice since the end of the Cold War? Piotr H. Kosicki helps to understand the crises of contemporary Europe by examining the intellectual world of Roman Catholicism in Poland and France between the Church's declaration of war on socialism in 1891 and the demise of Stalinism in 1956.