Between 6 and 7 September 2023 Przemysław Pazik, a postdoctoral researcher in the Sovereignty team participated in the conference “Churches and religious associations behind the »Iron Curtain«. Part one: 1945-1956” organized by the Institute of National Remembrance (Poland), the Nation‘s Memory Institute (Slovakia) and the Committee of National Remembrance (Hungary).
Dr Pazik delivered a presentation entitled Breaking the spirit. Oath of loyalty of the Polish Episcopate and the Completion of the Stalinist frame for Church-State relations, arguing that the oath of loyalty taken by the Polish Episcopate on 17 December 1953 was the culmination of the new phase of persecution and pressure exercised by the communist regime after the signing of modus vivendi between Polish Episcopate and the Government on 14 April 1950.
While the practice of oath-taking was not unknown to the Polish episcopate (the oath of bishops-ordinaries was introduced in the 1925 concordat), taking into account the timing, the means of introduction and the narrative built around it, the 1953 oath was designed to further weaken internal cohesion and moral strength of the Episcopate, thus serving as final step in curtailing Church’s influence among Poles.