Lutheran Diocese of Warsaw

Last updated
Diocese of Warsaw

Diecezja warszawska
Pabianice - kosciol ewangelicki.jpg
Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Pabianice
Location
Country Poland
Headquarters Pabianice
Statistics
Parishes21
Congregations29
Members3968
Denomination Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland
Current leadership
BishopJan Cieślar

The Lutheran Diocese of Warsaw is one of the six dioceses of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland (Poland's only Lutheran church), covering most of central and eastern Poland. The Lutheran population in the area in 2016 was 3968, [1] which amounts to about 7% of the total number of adherents of the church in Poland. [2] There were 18 ministers in the diocese in 2016. [1]

Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland

The Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland is a Lutheran denomination and the largest Protestant body in Poland with about 61,000 members and 133 parishes.

Contents

Structure

The Lutheran Diocese of Warsaw has 21 parishes: 6 in Masovian Voivodeship (two parishes in Warsaw, one in Radom, Płock, Żyrardów and Węgrów), 14 in Łódź Voivodeship (in Łódź, Piotrków Trybunalski, Pabianice, Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Zgierz, Kutno, Zduńska Wola, Wieluń, Aleksandrów Łódzki, Ozorków, Łask, Rawa Mazowiecka, Zelów, Poddębice) and 1 in Lublin Voivodeship (in Lublin). [3] The diocese also covers the area of Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, and although there are no independent parishes in the area, church services are held in the regional capital, Kielce, in a filial church that is administratively part of the parish in Radom. The seat of the bishop is the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Pabianice.

Masovian Voivodeship Voivodeship in Poland

Mazovian Voivodeship or Mazovia Province is the largest and most populous of the 16 Polish provinces, or voivodeships, created in 1999. It occupies 35,579 square kilometres (13,737 sq mi) of east-central Poland, and has 5,324,500 inhabitants. Its principal cities are Warsaw in the centre of the Warsaw metropolitan area, Radom (226,000) in the south, Płock (127,000) in the west, Siedlce (77,000) in the east, and Ostrołęka (55,000) in the north. The capital of the voivodeship is the national capital, Warsaw.

Warsaw City metropolis in Masovia, Poland

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula River in east-central Poland and its population is officially estimated at 1.770 million residents within a greater metropolitan area of 3.1 million residents, which makes Warsaw the 8th most-populous capital city in the European Union. The city limits cover 516.9 square kilometres (199.6 sq mi), while the metropolitan area covers 6,100.43 square kilometres (2,355.39 sq mi). Warsaw is an alpha global city, a major international tourist destination, and a significant cultural, political and economic hub. Its historical Old Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Radom Place in Masovian, Poland

Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located 100 kilometres south of Poland's capital, Warsaw, on the Mleczna River, in the Masovian Voivodeship, having previously been the capital of Radom Voivodeship (1975–1998). Despite being part of the Masovian Voivodeship, the city historically belongs to Lesser Poland. For centuries, Radom was part of the Sandomierz Voivodeship of the Kingdom of Poland and the later Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was an important center of administration, having served as seat of the Crown Council. The Pact of Vilnius and Radom was signed there in 1401, and the Nihil novi and Łaski's Statute were adopted by the Sejm at Radom's Royal Castle in 1505. In 1976, it was a center of anti Communist street protests. Radom is the fourteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in the voivodeship with a population of 214,566 as of 2017, down from 221,287 in 2011.

History

The territorial division of the Diocese of Warsaw as affirmed by the presidential decree of 1936 included 17 parishes, including two in the city of Warsaw itself. [4] In 1939 the Lutheran population of the diocese was 49,405, of which 61.8% were German and 38.2% Polish. [5] Although the total figure was ten times larger than the current numbers, the area of the diocese was significantly smaller than it is nowadays. With separate dioceses in Płock, Lublin, Piotrków and Łódź, the bishop of Warsaw in the Second Polish Republic was responsible for a far smaller area than is currently the case.

Second Polish Republic 1918-1939 republic in Eastern Europe

The Second Polish Republic, commonly known as interwar Poland, refers to the country of Poland in the period between the First and Second World Wars (1918–1939). Officially known as the Republic of Poland, sometimes Commonwealth of Poland, the Polish state was re-established in 1918, in the aftermath of World War I. When, after several regional conflicts, the borders of the state were fixed in 1922, Poland's neighbours were Czechoslovakia, Germany, the Free City of Danzig, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania and the Soviet Union. It had access to the Baltic Sea via a short strip of coastline either side of the city of Gdynia. Between March and August 1939, Poland also shared a border with the then-Hungarian governorate of Subcarpathia. The Second Republic ceased to exist in 1939, when Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and the Slovak Republic, marking the beginning of the European theatre of World War II.

The diocese of Warsaw was re-established in the new territorial division of the church following World War II. The dissolution of the diocese of Łódź in 1952 gave it its present shape. [6]

World War II 1939–1945 global war

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

Number of adherents in the Lutheran diocese of Warsaw
in the 21st century
Year2005200920112012201420152016
Adherents5,500 [7] 4,955 [8] 3,902 [9] 3,951 [9] 3,976 [10] [11] 4,005 [10] 3,968 [1]
Number of adherents in the Lutheran diocese of Warsaw in the 20th century
Year192319391955196019651970197519801985199019952000
Adherents [12] 54,37149,40515,19213,2489,6127,1485,2874,8605,8925,1366,0106,100

List of Bishops

Mieczysław Cieślar Lutheran theologian and bishop

Mieczysław Cieślar was a Lutheran theologian and bishop of the Evangelical Augsburg Church in Poland. He died on April 18, 2010 in a car accident, returning home from attending state funeral services for Lech Kaczyński, Poland's president, who died in the 2010 Smolensk plane crash.

Churches in the Diocese of Warsaw

Holy Trinity Church, Warsaw church

The Holy Trinity Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, also known as Zug's Protestant Church is a Lutheran church in Warsaw, Poland. This is one of two Augsburg Evangelical churches in Warsaw. Designed and constructed by Szymon Bogumił Zug, it is one of the largest churches in Warsaw and one of the most notable for its design.

St. Matthews Church, Łódź Church in Łódź, Poland

St. Matthew’s Church in Łódź is a Lutheran church and a historical landmark located in Piotrkowska Street, at a short distance from the city’s Roman Catholic cathedral. The third Lutheran church in Łódź at the time of its construction, it is now the only church in the city that serves the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland, the country’s largest Protestant denomination.

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 Rocznik Statystyczny Województwa Mazowieckiego 2017 (Statistical Yearbook 2017: Mazowieckie Voivodeship) (PDF) (in Polish and English). Warszawa: Urząd Statystyczny w Warszawie. 2017. p. 123. ISSN   1509-9652.
  2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsbEg38fVQw&t=5s Youtube channel of the Centre for Mission and Evangelization of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland (2:20), data from 2012
  3. ↑ http://www.diec.warszawska.luteranie.pl/nasze_parafie.php Official website of the diocese - list of parishes (pol.)
  4. ↑ "Dekret Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej z dnia 25 listopada 1936 r. o stosunku Państwa do Kościoła Ewangelicko-Augsburskiego w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej". Act No. 88/613 of 25 November 1936 (PDF) (in Polish).
  5. ↑ Ciecieląg, Jóźwiak and Godfrejów-Tarnogórska, p. 65.
  6. ↑ Ciecieląg, Jóźwiak and Godfrejów-Tarnogórska, p. 66.
  7. ↑ Ciecieląg, Jóźwiak and Godfrejów-Tarnogórska, p. 67.
  8. ↑ Ciecieląg, Jóźwiak and Godfrejów-Tarnogórska, p. 76.
  9. 1 2 Rocznik Statystyczny Województwa Łódzkiego 2013 (Statistical Yearbook 2013: Łódź Voivodship) (in Polish and English). Łódź: Urząd Statystyczny w Łodzi. 2014. p. 130. ISSN   0239-7366.
  10. 1 2 Rocznik Statystyczny Województwa Łódzkiego 2016 (Statistical Yearbook 2016: Łódź Voivodship) (PDF) (in Polish and English). Łódź: Urząd Statystyczny w Łodzi. 2017. p. 125. ISSN   0239-7366.
  11. ↑ Wyznania religijne w Polsce 2012-2014 [Religious Denominations in Poland 2012-2014] (PDF). Warszawa: Główny Urząd Statystyczny. 2016. p. 58. ISBN   978-83-7027-612-6.
  12. ↑ Ciecieląg, Jóźwiak and Godfrejów-Tarnogórska, pp. 55 (data for 1923), 65 (data for 1939), 67 (data for 1955-2000).

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References

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