Studies Of Polish Church-state Relations In 1945 - Changed And Unchanged In The Balance

Church-state Relations is always one most important element which can deeply affect the stability of the state and the relation between the religion and other social elements. Atheism’s prevailing and developing in20th century in many socialist countries has strongly influenced these societies and even with some conflicts against the original religion, which related to God. In Poland, as the frontier in the Eastern-European Socialist Camp with its Catholic tradition, showed its special position in these kind of conflicts.There are few Chinese researchers studying the Church-state Relations in Poland. Researchers from Poland, US or other European countries mostly based their research on political science perspective. Though these studies gave pioneering efforts for our further research either from theoretical discussion to empirical investigation, or from longitudinal historic study to one certain aspect. There are still more blanks to be filled. Many papers involved what the government has done, but few involved whether the regulating policies were appropriate or not, they did not give suitable suggestions while they always appealed that the religion should adapt the institution of Socialism. This article will try to explore what happened in Church-state relations in Poland after the transformation of Eastern Europe in late1980’s.There are four parts in the paper.The first part introduces the general situation and the history of Roman Catholic Church in Poland. Whenever in peace or at war, the Roman Catholic is the nature and consensus of Polish people.The second part is about the Church-state relations in the period from 1945to1989under the management of the communist regime. It is infeasible to change a state with over1000years’ Catholic tradition into atheistic in decades. Though the Church-state separation is put into practice by Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR), they still need the power of the Catholic Church in practice. The result was that PZPR played cat and mouse with church, and the boundary between government and church was indefinable. The government’s excessive intervening in internal affairs of the church finally led the church go to the opposite.The third part discusses the Church-state relations in Poland after Eastern Europe communism collapse. The Church-state separation remains the only rule dealing with the affairs between church and state. While the Pope John Paul Ⅱ begun to reign, the power of Catholic increased significantly. The Polish Church even attempted to establish a legal system with the core value of Christianity. The discussion also includes many conflicts in politics and public affairs, such as religious education in public schools, abortion, election, and so on.The last part is a comparison study of Polish religious policies before and after the collapse of communism. Along with the changes of the political ideology, the balance of power changed, the Church-state relations changed as well. But the only rule, Church-state separation, stays unchangeable. The Polish people always hope "God’s to god, Caesar’s to Caesar" all the time. People is always the only balance between Church and government.