885096452

POLITICAL

JPRS-EER-91-053 25 April 1991

arrest. The last Greek Catholic clergyman arrested in Poland and then sent to the USSR was Rev. Stefan Hrab, a parish priest in Kraków.

The day before the start of the Vistula Campaign, there were only about 110 priests in the Przemysł diocese and Lemkowszczyzna Apostolic Administration. What was their fate? Along with the faithful, about 90 were reset-tled, twenty-two were put in a camp in Jaworzna, and several were arrested and charged with collaborating with the Ukrainian Insurrecton Army.

At the request of Cardinal A. Hlond, the Holy See attempted a temporary resolution of the Greek Catholic Church’s situation in Poland. On the basis of extraordi-nariy plenipotentiary powers, Pope Pius XII gave Car-dinals A. Hlond and A. Sapieze the right to grant Greek Catholic clergy permission to hołd services and carry out liturgical functions in the Latin Rite. A few months later he appointed Cardinal Hlond a special delegate to the Eastem Rites (Greek Catholic and Armenian) in Poland and issued a mandate for the care of and authority over the clergy, faithful, and property of the Greek Catholic Church. What did this mean in practice? That for 10 years Greek Catholics were deprived of religious services in their own rite.

As of June 1946, State authorities ceased recognition of the Greek Catholic Rite as officially and legally existing. Nor did they recognize the aforementioned powers of the Roman Catholic Church. In the initial stage, they inter-vened vigorously in the event of resumption of services in the Greek Catholic Rite, notes historian Eugeniusz Misilo.

In the plan of secular authorities, this situation was supposed to produce a process of gradua! movement of part of the Greek Catholics to the Roman Catholic Church (which was to be associated with polonization of followers) or the Orthodox Church. Admittedly, the situation changed in time, but authorities of the PRL, to the end of its existence, in acknowledging freedom of religion for that rite and the activity of the Greek Catholic clergy, did not accept within that rite the establishment of separate church positions (pastors, bishops) and its own structure.

Toward Normality

The Greek Catholic Church resumed open ministerial activity only after 1956. Services took place in Roman Catholic Church buildings. For Greek Catholic Rite centers were not—because due to orders by secular authories they could not be—parishes. They operated in Koszalin, Olsztyn, Wrocław, Legnica, and Szczecin voivodships. And, of course, in Przemyśl. The clergy— the great majority of whom were born after the war— were educated in Roman Catholic seminaries. Many, like the newly appointed bishop ordinary, graduated from the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw or Lublin Catholic University.

In the 1960’s, despite the lack of a bishop, the Przemyśl Greek Catholic Diocese chapter got its activity under way. On 16 Scptembcr 1989, an assistant bishop to the primate of Poland for the followers of the (Greek] Catholic Rite was consecrated. It might have seemed that the situation was gradually turning toward normality. Unfortunately, the Sejm, in passing the law dated 17 May 1989 on the state’s position on the Roman Catholic Church, did not takc into account the existence of the four rites within that church.

“Theoretically, the legislature might assume that the law will not distinguish such subtleties,” says lawyer Roman Lubieniecki. “But this means that the Greek Catholic Church is deprived of a separate identity, with all the attendant consequences for its legał, social, and financial position, contrary to logie and common sense.”

It is precisely this last issue, the asscts of the Greek Catholic Church, that appears most sensitive today. By the end of the 1940’s, with smali exceptions, the assets were seized as State property. The hypocritical argument for this annexation was the resettlement to the USSR of all pcople included in the operation of that church. Contrary to obvious facts, it was still being repeated in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

The great majority of this property cannot be reclaimcd today for purely practical reasons. Today, followers of the Orthodox or Roman Catholic Church use some of the church buildings, without having the slightest idea of who their former owners were. One must also anticipate obstaclcs of an official, legał naturę. The newly appointed bishop ordinary—according to the law of 1989—has barely two months to prove which buildings belongcd to the church of his rite and commcnce recla-mation proceedings. In such a short time, this is impos-sible.

The faithful of the Greek Catholic Rite pcrceive further dangers in the bill on the state’s position on the Polish Independent Orthodox Church. They fear that this legał instrument will give the Orthodox Church the right to property taken from them in the 1940’s, churches and other buildings.

The Greek Catholics are in a hurry. They have already submitted an application for the return of the seminary building in Przemyśl and eight applications for the return of property of the cathedra! chapter. They also promise action in the matter of returning the property of the bishop’s pałace, although—as they emphasize—they fully understand that this is not possiblc immcdiately, because the valuablc museum collection exhibited there cannot be taken elsewhere overnight.

“We want to come to a compromise on this matter,” new appointed Bishop Martyniak assured PAP joumalists in an interview on 28 January. “But we must remember that up to 1946 Przemyśl had all the church and accom-panying buildings neccssary for the normal operation of the diocese and the church. And that by decrees of the communist authorities we were deprived of them.”