The Episcopate in the face of Polish land integration after World War II. Selected issues from the latest literature and sources

Abstract

The article presents selected issues concerning Polish Primates cardinal August Hlond and cardinal Stefan Wyszyński and other bishops’ engagement in the case of emergence and stabilisation of the Polish church administration on the Western and Northern Lands after World War II. It covers the most important stages in the chronology of events related to this topic (1945 – 1951 – 1956 – 1972). The most significant decisions were made in August 1945, when five apostolic administrations were created for the dioceses of Warmia and Gdańsk, Gorzów, Opole Silesia and Lower Silesia. In June 1972, after the Bundestag’s ratification of the border agreement between the Polish People's Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany, the temporary nature of the Polish ecclesiastical structures on the so-called Recovered Territories came to an end. In his bull Episcoporum Poloniae coetus, Pope Paul VI liquidated apostolic administrations and created four new dioceses (Gorzów, Koszalin-Kołobrzeg, Szczecin-Kamieńsk and Opole). In the twenty-seven-year long process of stabilisation of the Polish ecclesiastical structures, the position of successive Popes and the Holy See was decisive. They were taking into account the views of the German and Polish episcopates and the state of Polish-German relations in the matter of the boundary line approval. The most active among the Polish hierarchy was Bishop Bolesław Kominek (apostolic administrator in Opole, archbishop of Wrocław, and cardinal). The basis of the article’s synthetic narrative is the selection of the latest Polish publications on state-church relations in Poland after the Second World War, and source editions. The personal notes of Primate Wyszyński – Pro memoria, pastoral letters of the Polish Episcopate, announcements of the Episcopal Conference of Poland, and official statements of bishops, among others, were used.