Polish Region

I. Core values and aims

1. Worship and Spirituality

“Only an intense ecumenical spirituality, lived in docility to Christ and in full openness to the suggestions of the Spirit, will help us to live with the necessary energy this intermediate period during which we must take into account our progress and our challenges, the light and shadows on our path to reconciliation”; wrote pope John Paul II in 2003 as a message to the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. We live in difficult times for ecumenism. Experience of institutional dialogue dashes the enthusiasm of our first hopes. As Christians of different denominations, we still stand before curtain of doctrinal difficulties, we still develop various ecclesiastical orders, we still look in another way at the ethical problems of our epoch. But still we are all called to be architects of our Christian world, to be witnesses of Jesus Christ.

One of the bigger achievements of dialogue is the theology emphasizing importance of ecumenical spirituality. It is both the aim and the way of our common belief described by Christ’s call: “That they may be one”, “Ut unum sint”.

To develop ecumenical spirituality is the purpose of Polish Region of International Ecumenical Fellowship. We are deeply convinced that ecumenism and all values bound with it help us to understand better the rules of our Christian life by opening the treasury of values of all Christian traditions. Ecumenism gives us joy in discovering the beauty we wouldn’t find in a different way. It is a condition of our Christian attitude. It is our task and our chance at last.

2. Ecumenism, Discipleship and Theology

As Polish Region, we work for the ecumenical feature of our reality. As we live in the nearly monocatholic country, where the amount of other Christian denominations is small, our activity should be aimed towards informing what ecumenism is and what it should be. We should show values of the tradition of non-catholic Christianity. To cope with this task, we have to increase continuously our ecumenical spirituality and to develop our ecumenical knowledge.

3. Fellowship and Friendship

International Ecumenical Fellowship is ultimately a community of friendship. That is one of the reasons to take part in it. We want to stay together to feel this community, to pray and to care for each other. As members of the Polish Region we established true relations of fellowship.

International congress is really heart of IEF. It becomes a place and a time where and when we can fulfill all dimensions of our community: spirituality, knowledge and friendship.

II. History

The history of Polish Region dates from 1990. The group of young Catholics from Upper Silesia, under leadership of Rev. Piotr Wilk, organized the meeting of IEF – members from Western Europe with Christians of different confessions from Poland. The main aim of this meeting was to get to know the situation of Christianity in Poland after collapse of communism. In the next year the group took part at IEF international congress in Viviers. After this event it was decided to establish the Polish Region of IEF. Polish Region entered then into official structures of International Ecumenical Fellowship in 1992 as a eighth existing national region and the first from Eastern Europe.

The first President of the Polish Region was Rev. Prof. Józef Budniak, then the parish priest in Brenna and the head of ecumenical department of RC diocese in Bielsko-Biała. In cooperation with Erwin Mikler, Lutheran parish priest from Brenna, Polish region organized a lot of ecumenical events, including IEF international congress in Cieszyn in 1995 and the first ecumenical Stations of the Cross in Bielsko-Biała in 1996. The members of IEF took part in ecumenical meetings in Poland and abroad, i.e. in the meeting “Gaude Fest” in Ustroń in 1993, in the European Taizé Meetings, in the celebrations of 350th anniversary of Colloquium Charitativum in Toruń and in the Second European Ecumenical Assembly of 1997 in Graz.

The Vice-President of Polish Region was orthodox parish priest from Sosnowiec: Rev. Sergiusz Dziewiatowski (years 1995-2001), then the acting Vice-President was Piotr Tomica (till 2004). In 2001 the founder of Polish Region, Rev. Piotr Wilk became its acting President. As regards the function of Treasurer, in the years 1992-2001 it was Stanisława Gaś, then Katarzyna Kołodziej, who is the acting Treasurer until today.

10 of June 2006, during the regional meeting in Katowice, as the President of Polish Region was elected Rev. Prof. Przemysław Kantyka, the lecturer of Catholic University in Lublin and Grand Seminary in Kielce. At the same meeting, five new members were admitted into structures of the region.

Today’s Polish Region consists of members who mostly don’t remember its beginnings. They come from different parts of Poland like Upper Silesia, Kielce, Bielsko-Biała, Szczecin, Lublin and Warsaw. Lot of them work as teachers or lecturers, a fact that is important towards the main aim of the region: to show what Ecumenism is. The members recruit also from Roman Catholic seminarists from Kielce. Presents members of the Polish Region participated actively in the international congresses in Trier, Písek, Cluj-Napoca and Lyon.

III. Activities and Conferences

The Heart of Polish Region are the meetings which take place at least twice or thrice a year. During these meetings three aims are pursued: the prayer, the knowledge and the friendship. We the members want to increase our ecumenical spirituality and develop our knowledge about different Christian traditions and about Catholic rules of ecumenism. We pass on ecumenical ideas of IEF in our environments as personal testimony and in specific actions like publishing, ecumenical events or lectures. We hope to grow in number and we work for reflecting ecumenical idea in our life.