RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Poissy
Poland, Christianity in
was founded in 968. At first included under the archbishopric of Mainz, it was later incorporated in the archbishopric of Magdeburg. Thus the connection of the Polish Church with the Roman Church was established, and under the influence of the political conditions the Roman Church gained the ascendency over the unwilling Greek element. As the Roman missionaries from Germany did not speak the Polish language, they could not gain that influence over the people to which the Slavonic missionaries owed most of their success. Conflicts arose, and it became very difficult to introduce the institutions of the Roman Church. The pope found it necessary to make temporary concessions; and preaching and liturgy were allowed in the vernacular. Until his death in 992 Mieczyslaw remained a faithful adherent of the imperial power. Under his son from his first marriage, Boleslaw Chrobry, " the Brave " (992 to 1025), one of the most powerful and valiant of the old Polish dukes, the tie of Poland with the Roman Church became still closer. Although Poland had not been fully Christianized even externally, it became under him a center for the further expansion of Christianity among the neighboring peoples, in that he made the mission serve his warlike undertakings. Boleslaw Chrobry had safeguarded St. Adalbert (see Adalbert of Prague) on his missionary tour to Prussia and afterward redeemed his remains; and over his grave in Gnesen he contracted an intimate friendship with Emperor Otto III. Gnesen became an archbishopric and the center of the Polish Church. Seven bishoprics were placed under its jurisdiction, among them Colberg, Cracow, and Breslau; and thus there was established the first comprehensive organization of the Polish Church. But with the foundation of the archbishopric of Gnesen Poland's connection with the archbishopric of Magdeburg and with the German Church and empire was loosened, and there gradually grew up a more immediate connection with Rome. As he had protected Adalbert on his missionary tour to Prussia, so Boleslaw aided powerfully the bold undertaking of Brun of Querfurt, the enthusiastic disciple of Adalbert, to bring the Gospel to the wild people of the far east. Boleslaw also sent to Sweden missionaries whose efforts were very successful. The further he extended his power over the neighboring Slavonic people, the stronger became his desire for a great Christian-Slavonic kingdom, the crown of which he asked from the pope. In 1018 the Greek empire in Constantinople feared its power and the Russian kingdom, in the capital of which, Kief, he erected a Roman Catholic bishopric, succumbed to it.
After the external reception of Christianity, the people still clung tenaciously to heathenism. The annual celebration of the destruction of the old gods at which their images were thrown into the
water, took place for a considerable
3. Reaction time with the singing of dirges. Only
and by harsh penal codes were the uncul-
Turmoils. tured minds of the people turned to
the observance of Christian morals and church usages. Adultery and fornication were punished with mutilation, and eating of flesh dur-
ing Lent with the knocking out of teeth. Mieczyslaw II. carried out his father's policy for the maintenance and extension of the Church. He built churches and founded a new bishopric, Cujavia, in the territory of the Wends on the Vistula. But the terrible disorders in Poland following his death in 1034 involved also the Church. The external and forced Christianization had been so ineffective that the very existence of the Church was threatened. Many of the nobility and the people fell back into heathenism; cities and churches were destroyed, and the laity rebelled against the clergy. From Germany efforts were no longer made to aid and strengthen the Polish Church. Under Conrad II. the archbishopric of Magdeburg had forgotten its missionary duty to the east and especially to Poland. Since 1035 its influence upon the Polish church and the latter's connection with the German Church ceased. The bishopric of Posen was placed under the archbishopric of Gnesen; Gnesen was destroyed by the duke of Bohemia; Casimir, the son of Mieczyslaw II., found refuge in Germany, and after the recovery of his inheritance reestablished the Church by placing land and church under the protection of the royal power of Germany. But a long time passed before the old order was reestablished. Under Boleslaw II., who had regained the throne, a terrible civil war ensued. In the following period the progress of the Church was hindered by political disturbances, so that prosperous development by the planting and fostering of Christian life was impossible, though the missionary activity of the Polish Church was revived under Boleslaw III. From Poland in the second quarter of the twelfth century the Christianization of Pomerania was accomplished by Otho of Bamberg, while Pomerania became politically dependent upon Poland. Strenuous efforts were made to expand the church in Prussia in order to subjugate it the more securely to the dominion of Poland. Such missionary efforts, however, did not indicate vigorous life in the Church so much as political energy in the sovereigns. The division of the kingdom after Boleslaw 's death (1139) among his four sons wrought new ecclesiastical troubles and disturbances; and before the time of the Reformation peaceful developments did not obtain. The princes either showered possessions and privileges upon the clerpy from selfish or party interests at the expense of the nobility and the people, whose hatred was thus intensified while the moral condition of the clergy was corrupted, or they violently attacked the rights and property of the bishoprics. A synod at Leucyka in 1180 forbade princes to appropriate the property of deceased bishops under penalty of excommunication. The favors of the princes to the clergy involved the latter in continual battles with the nobility; violent dissensions between clergy on the one side and nobility and laity on the other were caused by the payment of tithes to the Church, and by the arbitrary extension of clerical jurisdiction.
In close connection with the national element and the opposition of Slavism to Romanism and Teutonism, the opposition to the popes is one of the characteristic features of the Polish church.
Poland, Christianity in