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The Controversy over Former Uniate Property in Interwar Poland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Andrej Chojnowski
Andrej Chojnowski*
Affiliation:
Warsaw University (Poland)
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Abstract

National relations in the Second Republic contained a number of problems which throughout the entire interwar period did not find an appropriate solution. Among those was the question of the Orthodox Church in Poland. Although its believers comprised over 11 percent of the country's population, up to 1938 the Polish authorities did not legally regulate the organizational and material situation of the Orthodox Church in Poland, which was founded as a unit independent of the Russian Orthodox Church after the proclamation of an autocephalous status in 1922.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , Fall 1988 , pp. 177 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe 

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References

Notes

1. I have made use of archive material of Polish state institutions kept in the Archiwum Akt Nowych in Warsaw (AAN); I was unable to become acquainted with Church archives. In Polish literature on the subject the fullest examination of this problem is to be found in: Wisłocki, J., Konkordat polski z 1925 r. (Poznań, 1977); idem, Uposażenie Kościoła i duchowieństwa katolickiego w Polsce 1918-1939 (Poznań, 1981).Google Scholar

2. Of that number 39,000 hectares were parceled, 6,000 hectares were taken by the Catholic Church.Google Scholar

3. AAN, zespól Ministerstwa Wyznań Religijnych i Oświecenia Publicznego (MWRiOP) 332, memorial of the Department of Religion of 27 May 1925.Google Scholar

4. Sawicki, J., Studia nad połoźeniem prawnym mniejszości religijnych w państwie polskim, (Warszawo, 1936), p. 264.Google Scholar

5. AAN, MWRiOP, 925, note of the Department of Religion of 30 September 1924.Google Scholar

6. It was headed originally by Bishop A. Szelaźek and as of 1930 by Bishop H. Przeździecki.Google Scholar

7. This commission inaugurated its activity as late as January 1932.Google Scholar

8. Cf. W.G. Wykonanie konkordatu, “Epoka” 326, 27 November 1925.Google Scholar

9. The most important was the verdict passed on 14 October 1931, which stated that the property of which the Church was deprived by the partitioning states, from the moment of the agreement “as long as they remain in possession of the state, should be regarded as belonging to the state.”Google Scholar

10. Verdict of 14 September 1932.Google Scholar

11. They made it possible for the state to buy out land from the Catholic Church for the purpose of a land reform.Google Scholar

12. In a verdict passed on 26 January - 9 February 1932 the Supreme Court stated that although in Russia a ten-year long period of usurpation was sufficient for purchasing an ownership title, it is impossible on the same basis to recognize the loss of the rights of the Catholic Chuch to estates taken over by other physical persons, since in Russia that Church was deprived of the possibility of pushing on its claims.Google Scholar

13. Altogether there were 640 former Uniate church buildings, but 140 were seized prior to 1924 by the Catholic Church, 80 were standing unused, 20 were pulled down and 50 had been destroyed in the course of war operations.Google Scholar

14. AAN, MWRiOP 367, memorial of the Polish episcopate of 15 February 1927.Google Scholar

16. On the basis of the law about executing the land reform of July 1920.Google Scholar

17. AAN, MWRiOP 812, Pro memoria MWRiOP of 1 March 1930. 17AAN, MWRiOP 827, note of the Department of Religion of 8 June 1936.Google Scholar

18. AAN, MWRiOP 823, a writ of the Department of Religion to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of 30 January 1930.Google Scholar

19. AAN, MWRiOP 833, note of the Department of Religion entitled: “Controversial churches and chapels—court cases (30 January 1930).”Google Scholar

20. AAN, Presidium of the Council of Ministers (PRM), 97-16, Pro memoria of Bishop Przeździecki from a conversation with Prime Minister Sławek of 13 June 1930.Google Scholar

21. AAN, MWRiOP 813, note of the Department of Catholic Creeds (January 1933).Google Scholar

22. AAM, MWRiOP, protocol from a conference of government delegates and the Papal Commission of 25 November 1932.Google Scholar

23. Sawicki, , op.cit., p. 265–266.Google Scholar

24. AAN, ensemble of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MSZ), 2839, note of Nuncio Marmaggi to Beck of 27 May 1935.Google Scholar

25. AAN, (MSZ), 2843, protocol of an inter-ministry conference of 30 March 1936. The matter at stake was not only former Uniate buildings but all sorts of former church buildings. Up to 1936 they were administered by a Mixed Commission.Google Scholar

26. AAN, PRM, 97-72, protocol from a conference between Hlond and Świętochowski of 26 June 1936.Google Scholar

27. AAN, MSZ, 2848, note of the Department of International Organizations of 7 Dezember 1937.Google Scholar

28. Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1939, no. 39, item 222.Google Scholar

29. Cf. Stehle, H., Die Ostpolitik des Vatikans 1917-1975, (München, 1976)Google Scholar

30. Cf. Chojnowski, A., Koncepcje polityki narodowościowej rzadów polskich w latach 1921-1939 (Wroclaw, 1979).Google Scholar

31. Cf. Pasternak, E., The Outline of the History of the Kholm and Podlachie Lands (Winnipeg, 1968).Google Scholar