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As in other countries dominated by the traditional interpretation of Marxist-Leninist ideology, Poland during its time under communism conducted efforts aimed towards the goal of removing the presence of religion in order to make the atheistic society that communism required. To this effect the regime conducted anti-religious propaganda and persecutions of believers. As in most other communist countries, religion was never outlawed and was permitted by the constitution, however, the state nevertheless directed efforts at achieving the goal of an atheistic society.

The catholic church, as the religion of most poles, was seen as a rival competing for the citizens' allegiance by the government, and therefore the government attempted to suppress it.

The Catholic Church in Poland provided strong resistance to the communist regime and Poland itself had a long history of dissent to foreign rule. The polish nation rallied to the church, just as occurred in neighbouring Lithuania, which made it more difficult for the regime to impose its antireligious policies in the same fashion as it had in the USSR, wherein the populace did not hold mass solidarity with the Russian Orthodox church. The Catholic Church unequivocally condemned communist ideology.. This led to the antireligious activity in Poland being compelled to take a more cautious and conciliatory line than in other communist countries. The communists in Poland largely failed in their attempt to suppress and control the Polish church.

1945–1956

The experiences in world war II, wherein the large Jewish minority was annihilated by the Nazis, the large German minority was forcibly expelled from the country at the end of the war, along with the loss of the eastern territories that were heavily populated by Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians, led to Poland becoming more homogenously Catholic than it had been in previous times.

After Soviet troops occupied Poland at the end of World War II, the Soviet-backed government then enacted a gradual approach aimed at gaining control of the Catholic Church in Poland. In 1950 the Polish government created the Bureau for Religious Affairs, which had jurisdiction over personnel decisions and organisational functions.

The polish government made many concessions to the church that antagonized Moscow; on the other hand, the campaign against the church weakened their public support and made them dependent on the Soviets . One important concession included the retention of religious instruction in schools, which was upheld from as early as 1945; at the same time, the state made manoeuvres to try to limit and eliminate such instruction through other means.

The regime sought to eliminate the presence of Catholicism and religion from the culture, and to this effect it pursued a policy of isolation from the Vatican, creation of public opinion antagonistic towards the universal church, and provoking antagonisms within the church itself by replacing religious leaders with people who worked with the regim .

Polish society was prepared for the persecutions post-1945 due to its long history prior to the Bolshevik revolution of operation underneath the rule of regimes that were hostile to it. Underground universities taught uncensored history and ethics lessons, and many people openly attended church in protest against the communist government.

A notable feature of the antirelgious campaign in Poland included "Patriot Priests" who opposed the church hierarchy and supported communism. In return they were rewarded and even sometimes allowed to travel to Rome. These priests could be blackmailed into cooperation. The core of their group was often formed by men who had experienced the camps and been tortured (some of whom had developed psychological complexes that made it easier for the government to coerce them); some of them had been chaplains to the Red Army during world war II. The bishops often let them remain at their posts, although they were commonly ostracized by the laity and these priests failed to achieve much popular support.. The state nurtured priests who collaborated with them and the remainder of the clergy was accused of reactionary activities, lack of solidarity with the nation and conspiracy with the Vatican .

The government achieved some success in these efforts; an estimated 1700 out of 11000 priests in Poland had attended conferences of the "progressives" by 1955 . In 1949, the President of Communist Poland, Boleslaw Bierut, held a reception at the Belweder Palace in Warsaw for priests who were participating in a conference held by the Union of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy (ZBoWiD). At this conference some of the priests told Bierut that a lack of agreement between the hierarchy and the government, made the work of clergy difficult. Bierut blamed this problem on the hierarchy:

the unfavourable attitude of higher church authorities toward the People's state... In many cases one can hear from priests...words which are often simply criminal, anti-state.

Bierut also gave privileges to these cooperative priests including vacations, financial support, tax exemption and protection from punishments under canon law (which penalties the state had made it allow for the church to carry out)

Following this conference, a Commission of Priests attached to ZBoWiD was created, which in the following year commenced publication of a bi-weekly entitled Citizen Priest (Ksiadz obywatel), superseded in the same year by Priests' Forge (Kuznica kaplanska). They held conferences in almost all provincial capitals. Young priests were forced to enroll in special classes on marxism meant to brainwash them in order to create a schism in the church.

The state also attempted to penetrate the church through the creation of several other organizations: the Polish Committee of Peace Partisans, the Catholic Social Club, and the Society of Children's Friends .

The ZBoWiD priests' commission supported the Peace Campaign, supported the government's protests against the remilitarization of West Germany, supported the planned economy, claimed the grain deliveries were just and that the new constitution was fully in conformance with moral principles and Christian conscience . The most successful effort they achieved in terms of mass popularity was the support of Poland's retention of the western territories (formerly part of Germany) .

The government's attempt at producing a schism in the church through this means failed badly, as a result of lack of popular support. Therefore the government disbanded the organization in 1955 and called on people to instead join the movement for peace parisans.

The Main Commission of Intellectuals and Catholic Activists attached to the Peace Committee of Polish Partisans, was founded in 1950 and originally comprised members of theological faculties, representatives from the catholic university in Lublin and active church workers. In 1950, this group participated in the second International Peace Congress in Warsaw. In 1951, this organization sponsored the first national conference of clergy and laymen representing catholic public opinion. This organization attempted to mould public opinion and formulate principles pertaining to the behaviour of Catholics. It actively promoted the peace campaign, as well as government protests against remilitarization in West Germany and for support of holding the western territories. It criticized the Catholic Church in West Germany for allegedly being exploited for anti-Polish purposes .

Another organization, called the Catholic Social Club, that supported the regime and even had representation in the Polish parliament, however, it lacked popular support . It attempted to reconcile catholic teaching with dialectical materialism.

The Society of Children's Friends (TPD) was created in 1949, which operated both public schools, kindergartens, teachers' colleges, dormitories, camps, recreation centres, theatres and other projects. All of these institutions were mandated with instilling atheism and bringing up the younger generations as supporters of the regime . Parents were pressured to register their children with the Society, which grew in influence while catholic education was being eroded.

The official press launched a campaign to safeguard Poland from subversion (this was in reference to the Vatican). The government conducted a propaganda campaign in the early years that depicted the Vatican and polish hierarchy as germanophiles; the Vatican refused to change Poland's diocesan boundaries to mark the state's new territory.. Beginning in 1951, the government began liquidating the temporary ecclesiastical administration in the western (former German) territories and removed apostolic administrators from these areas. The vatican began to appoint polish bishops to these bisophrics after this point.

Beginning in 1953, the government required all ecclesiastical posts to receive government approval. The government used this power, as well as other measures aimed at controlling the church's activities in thes years, to weaken the church in order to aid in helping to remove it from society .

The church signed an agreement with the government in 1950, after the old 1925 concordat was thrown away by the government on grounds that the Vatican had violated it by supporting Germany in World War II. This agreement contained some features favourable to the church (which the government would not always observe in the following years), including the right to teach religion in schools and to allow children to receive religious instruction outside of the school, permitting the catholic university of Lublin to continue operating, catholic organizations still being permitted to exist, allowing the catholic press to exist, allowing public worship in churches to continue to exist, allowing pilgrimages, allowing religious processions, allowing religious care in the armed forces, allowing monastic orders to continue to function and continuing to allow the church to conduct charity work (many of these things had been outlawed in the neighbouring USSR, in great contrast). In return the state required the church to submit to it politically and condemn catholic activities that the state did not permit.

Persecutions of individuals for religion in the first few years were rare, because the state initially was concerned strictly with suppressing armed political resistance. From 1947-1953, the Catholic Church in Poland became the primary target for persecution in Communist Poland. All social and charitable organizations affiliated with the church were made illegal, catholic schools were closed, crosses were removed from classrooms and hospitals, and a terror campaign was enacted against parishes and monasteries; clergy began to be arrested and put on trial (this included the notable arrest of a group of Jesuits headed by Father Tomasz Rostworowski).. Many bishops were arrested or removed from their positions, with government approved administrators then taking over the dioceses; in some cases the government sent people loyal to it to "assist" the bishop in running his diocese .

The state tried to take control of the Polish Orthodox Church (with a membership of about half a million) in order to use it as a weapon against the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, and it attempted to control the person who was named as Metropolitan for the Polish Orthodox Church; Metropolitan Dionizy (the post-war head of the POC) was arrested and retired from service after his release.

Salesian schools and orphanages were closed. All church private schools were closed by 1950; this was accomplished by the authorities simply refusing to grant work permits to the catholic schools that applied for them (as religious instruction was still officially permitted, these means were instead used to eliminate catholic education). Government-run private schools, of course, did not possess religious instruction; despite the provision in the 1950 agreement permitting religious instruction in schools, this right was being eroded. Priests were dismissed from instructor positions for refusing to sign the Stockholm Peace Appeal, and nuns were barred from teaching in public schools, thereby leading to a common situation where other teachers were not available to give religious instruction; in some places the religious instruction was taken away on account of alleged demands of parents. By 1955 the only catholic institution of higher learning still existent in Poland was the Catholic University of Lublin, which was being slowly liquidated by the regime. A total of 59 seminaries were closed between 1952–1956 and restrictions were imposed on training new priests . The Rozanystok seminary, which was created in 1949, was brutally liquidated in 1954. It had been moved from Wilno and had been run by Salesians for training candidates for the priesthood as well as for giving catholic education for boys. The seminary was situated in Eastern Poland, it employed former residents of the territory annexedd by the USSR in 1939, and it had arisen great concern to the government, provoking its brutal closure.

Much landed property was confiscated from the church, severe limitations were placed on charitable activities associated with the church, and the government took control of the recording of vital statistics . In 1950, all church property was nationalized without compensation, except that which was used by parish priests for their own subsistence (but such land could not exceed 50 hectares, and any income from such land had to be used religious and charitable purposes).

When the Vatican published its order excommunicating catholics who actively supported communism in July 1949, the government called it an act of interference in Polish internal affairs and that clergy found trying to enforce the order would be punished by Polish law .

Cardinal Primate of Poland, Stefan Wyszynski, was jailed for three years from 1953-1956 for his refusal to cooperate with the government . This was initially done in secret, but became public knowledge; the government offered to release him in 1955 if he stepped down from resuming his post as cardinal-primate.

Catholic publications continued to exist, although under pressure from the state. These publications included Tygodnik Warszawski (which was defiant to the regime and closed in 1949), Tygodnik Powszechny (whose editors resigned under pressure in 1953 but returned in 1956), and Dzi's i Jutro (a publication that attempted to promote coexistence of Catholicism and communism). This was a liberty that was not allowed to other places in the Soviet bloc (including the USSR most notably, which had banned church publications in 1929). The founders of Tygodnik Warszawski were incarcerated, of which Father Zygmunt Kaczynski and Antoni Antczak both died in prison. Cardinal Wyszynski attempted to intervene on behalf of Father Zygmunt. Tygodnik Powszechny was taken over by pro-regime Catholics after its confiscation in 1953, and before this time had been critical of the Catholic Social Club.

Following with the forcible conversion of Eastern Catholics in the USSR to Orthodoxy, the Polish government called on the Orthodox church in Poland to assume 'pastoral care' of the eastern Catholics in Poland. After the removal of Metropolitan Dionizy from leadership of the Polish Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Macarius was placed in charge. He was from western Ukraine (previously eastern Poland) and who had been instrumental in the compulsory conversion of eastern Catholics to orthodoxy there. Polish security forces assisted him in suppressing resistance in his taking control of eastern catholic parishes. Many eastern Catholics who remained in Poland after the postwar border adjustments were resettled in Western Poland in the newly acquired territories from Germany. The state in Poland gave the POC a greater number of privileges than the Roman Catholic Church in Poland; the state even gave money to this church, although it often defaulted on promised payments, leading to a perpetual financial crisis for the POC.

1956–1970

A period of de-stalinization occurring in the 1950s in the Eastern Bloc, as well as the recognition of the problems communism was facing when faced with the unique situation in Poland, led to Wladyslaw Gomulka returning to power (he had earlier been the leader before he was replaced by Bierut in 1948). The state lightened its restrictions on the eastern catholic churches which began to grow back, partly with assistance from the rest of the Catholics.. The state moved away from its attempt to control and manipulate the church for state purposes, as it had earlier planned in its first years of existence, and moved more towards a strategy of combatting it through legislation and force.

Catholic education came back to some extent in public schools, but was no longer compulsory and only existed in schools where a majority of parents requested it; just as before, however, the state immediately took measures aimed at eroding this concession. Thousands of members of religious orders had their teaching licenses suspended, leaving many schools without teachers of religion and other indirect means were used to eliminate the legally permitted religious instruction in public schools. As the situation progressed, however, the state came to officially legally eliminate religious instruction in 1961.

Gomulka stated during the seventh plenary sessions of the Central Committee of that year:

The school in People's Poland is a lay school. Its task is to train enlightened, superstition-free and rationally thinking citizens. The state authorities will not create obstacles for parents who want their children to receive religious education. However, in the interest . . . of all parents - believers and non-believers alike - these children should receive religious instruction outside the school.

Despite Gomulka's statement, the state also created obstacles for teaching religion outside of the schools. The government frequently declared that buildings that held religious classes were unsafe and therefore were not granted permits. The government also issued legislation to limit such instruction to no more than 2 hours per week, that the religious instructors would be made state employees (the church told the clergy not to register and accept salary to fulfill Jesus' commandment of teaching) and that local school boards would be in control of the education. These restrictions were initially reluctantly enforced, but in 1964 new legislation allowed all such buildings for religious instruction to be inspected for hygiene by the government, which reserved the right to shut them down on such grounds. Cardinal Wyzsynski protested the way this was carried out, and the government rebutted that it was only concerned with protecting students' health and safety .

Public schools instead of having religious instruction, taught militant atheism and contempt for religion to attending students .

From the 1960s onward Poland developed an increasingly vocal Catholic intelligentsia and an active movement of young Catholics. The "Oasis" movement, was created in the 1960s by Father Franciszek Blachniki, and it consisted of church activities including pilgrimages, retreats and various ecumenical endeavours. Intense efforts by the state to undermine it failed.

1970-1990

Beginning in the early 1970s the church moved from a defensive stance to a more aggressive stance in speaking in defence of human rights.

The security apparatus in Poland, as in other communist nations, recruited members of the clergy. The security service used blackmail, psychological manipulation and a variety of material rewards (e.g. needed medicines for ill relatives) in order to secure the cooperation of clergy. In a reversal, the security service and Polish government had also members in its ranks who were secretly providing beneficial information to the church

Catholic youth were forced to enroll in Communist Youth organizations.

Cardinal Primate of Poland, Stefan Wyszynski, believed that Poland had a special role to play in human history and he supported Polish nationalism as a precursor to the liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet role. Such ideas were popular among many Polish Catholics as well. Wyszynski was brought into sharp conflict with the communist authorities on account of this (he also experienced some conflict with the Vatican). He was both a critic of the regime and a mediator between the regime and the rest of civil society. Wyszynski provided a significant obstacle to the communists taking control of the church in Poland; he died in 1981 and was replaced by Cardinal Josef Glemp.

After Cardinal Wojtyla of Krakow became Pope John Paul II, his election was greeted in Poland with great enthusiasm. He visited Poland from June 2–10 in 1979. During his visit he bluntly challenged communist ideology by declaring that Christianity was the route to true human freedom (as opposed to marxism) and called people to non-conformance. Over thirteen million people went into the streets to greet him in his visit, in direct defiance to the Polish government. Dissidents in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe took great notice to this fact. Radoslaw Sikorski in his memoir later said

We realized for the first time that 'we' were more numerous than 'them'

Within a year the independent trade union 'Solidarity' was formed, which was initially based on economic concerns, but it soon became deeply affiliated with the church. The pope promoted Poland's cause as well as the cause of Christians behind the Iron Curtain on an international level, to the great discomfort of the communist governments in the Warsaw pact. The church in Poland played a key role in the revolution against the regime in the 1980s and provided symbols (the Black Madonna, the suffering Christ, etc.) that gave spiritual depth to the struggle against Communism. It also provided spiritual and material comfort to striking workers, and acted as a mediator between the solidarity movement and the government. It also held back the striking workers from excesses .

In December 1981 martial law was imposed on Poland. This caused great trouble to the church, and many were rounded up by the military. Cardinal Glemp initially seemed to justify its imposition as a lesser evil, but many in the church defended the people who were arrested .

The Polish Orthodox Church hierarchy, which had had their position in society strengthened since 1945, spoke out against the Solidarity movement. They refused to send delegates to meetings about human rights issues. Some exceptions occurred, such as Fr Piotr Poplawski, an orthodox priest openly sympathetic to Solidarity who "killed himself" in 1985; several doctors asked to confirm his suicide refused to certify this as the cause of death. A Roman Catholic priest named Jerzy Popielusko had been murdered by the police the previous year, and the doctor who performed his autopsy was brought in and also confirmed that Fr Piotr had committed suicide.

Communist authorities blamed nationalist Catholics for fanning strife between catholic and orthodox populations..

In the Gdansk accords, the church was given permission to perform radio broadcasts.. As the 80s progressed, the church became increasingly critical of the regime and in the last years of the decade it played a critical role in the transition to democracy .

References

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• Religion in Poland