Geografia prawosławia w Polsce

Geography of the Orthodox Church in Poland

Summary: The Orthodox Church is the second largest religious community in Poland and it amounts, depending on the source of information, from 500,000 to 1 mln the faithful. Orthodox people live in Poland as a result of baptism of Russia in 988 as well as continuous changes of the east border of the Polish land. Together with Russian people settling down on the present land of East Poland, first the Orthodox churches were founded. It is known that they were built in Mielnik, Uhrusk and Chełm in XII and XIII centuries. Creation of an independent Orthodox church administration in Poland played an important role. It was started in 1370 when Casimir the Great established the metropolitante of Halicz. Short after that the Lithuanian metropolitante was in Jagiellonian country too. Since XVII century a gradual loss of independence of the Orthodox Church in Poland was taking place and in the second half of XVIII century the Orthodox Church in Poland became an integral part of Moscow Church. In XIX century the Orthodox Church made a stronger influence on the areas which at the times of partitions belonged to Russian Empire. That influence spread also over the Polish Kingdom depended on Russia. In 1918 the Orthodox Church in Poland got a broad autonomy and in 1948 it got an autocephaly. In the history of the Orthodox Church in Poland an important event was the Union of Brest announced at a synod at Brest in 1596. It resulted in a breakup in the Orthodox Eastern Church and a creation of the Uniat Church (the Greek Catholic Church). The Polish Orthodox Church is autocephalic one. In terms of administrative division it makes a metropolitante of Warsaw which consists of one archdiocese - Warsaw-Bielsk and five dioceses: Białystok-Gdańsk, Lublin-Chełm, Przemyśl-Nowy Sącz, Łódź-Poznań, Wrocław-Szczecin. There are more than 240 parishes, slightly over 300 orthodox churches and chapels, three monasteries and three convents. About 40% of all Orthodox parishes can be found in the Białystok region. More than half of priests work there and over half of Orthodox Church members live there. It is in Bialystok region that the centre of the Orthodox Church in Poland can be found - the Holy Hill of the Transfiguration of Our Saviour, near Grabarka village, 9 km east off Siemiatycze. On the areas that lie south off the Bug River, Orthodox people live in not so compact communities as in the Bialystok region and they are also much more mixed with Catholics but there are still widely known centres of the Orthodox Church. In south Podlasia there is an Orthodox monastery in Jableczna, the second, after the Holy Hill near Grabarka, on the list of the most often visited Orthodox sanctuaries in Poland. In the south of the country there is Jawor Hill, a local centre of Orthodox believers. In the west and north parts of Poland, which are the areas included in the territory of Poland after the II World War, many Orthodox parishes can be found there now. As a result of deportation, Orthodox people were moved there. In central Poland the Orthodox faithful are hardly noticeable. The history of the Orthodox Church on Polish land is long. Nowadays Orthodox people live all over the country but the number of the faithful and the number of parishes and servicing priests differs from place to place.

Peregrinus Cracoviensis, 1998, z.6, s. 175-187.

Instytut Geografii i Gospodarki Przestrzennej UJ

ISSN 1425-1922, ISBN 83-907568-5-4

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