Navigation
In other projects
Learn more
Core topics
Bahá’í Faith
Central Figures
Teachings
Practices

Poland

From Bahaipedia
 Poland
Delegates of Poland to Thirteenth International Convention, 2023.
Location of Poland
National AssemblyPoland
Statistics:
Total Population
 -  UN 2021[1] 38,307,726
Bahá'í pop.
 -  Bahá'í source  
 -  Non-Bahá'í source 757
History:
Firsts
 -  Bahá'í to visit 1926, Martha Root 
 -  Local Bahá'í 1926, Lydia Zamenhof 
 -  Local Assembly 1991, Warsaw 
 -  National Assembly 1992 
Official Website http://www.bahai.org.pl/
Related media
Categories: Poland • People

The Republic of Poland is a country in Central Europe. Christianity is the predominant religion and Polish is the official language.

In recent history the region became the independent nation of Poland in 1918. It was the site of the beginning of the Second World War being invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. After the Second World War it became a communist republic until 1989 when it was reconstituted as a democratic state.

The Bahá’í Faith was first actively taught in Poland in the 1920s however the Second World War prevented the establishment of a community. A small community was established in the late 1940s however government restrictions prevented development and it was not until the 1990s that an active community was firmly established.

History[edit]

In 1914 the Rector of the Catholic University of Lublin in Poland met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá while visiting the Holy Land and in 1915 a Polish translation of Paris Talks was published in Silesia.[2]

Martha Root visited Poland in April, 1926, staying with the Zamenhof family in Warsaw and attending the dedication of a monument to Ludwig Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto. She assisted Lydia Zamenhof in learning English and studied Esperanto under her while staying with the Zamenhof's and Lydia became a Bahá’í.[3][4]

Root briefly returned to Poland in 1927 visiting Danzig,[5] and she made a third visit in 1932 to assist Lydia Zamenhof in teaching the Faith in Warsaw as Zamenhof was moving out of the country.[6] In 1938 Zamenhof returned to Poland, settling in Warsaw, and she visited Kremenetz in early 1939 where she gave a talk on the Faith which resulted in Vasyl Dorosenko, who was originally from Ukraine, becoming a Bahá’í.[7] After Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany Zamenhof was arrested and placed in a concentration camp due to her Jewish heritage as were her family members. She was murdered by gas chamber at Treblinka Concentration Camp in 1944.[8]

After the end of the Second World War the Faith began to be taught in Poland again with several people in the country requesting information on the religion and Bahá’í literature after hearing of the Faith through the Bahá’í Esperanto bulletin in 1947,[9][10][11] and by the end of the year there were nine people in the country studying the Faith via correspondence.[12] In 1948 a regular Bahá’í study group was established in Warsaw,[13] and in 1949 Amelia Collins visited the country.[14] As of 1950 there were Bahá’ís living in seven cities across Poland,[15] however that year the government of Poland enacted harsh restrictions on all religious activities.[16] Due to governmental restrictions teaching the Faith was not possible however there was at least one Bahá’í living in Warsaw as of 1963.[17] There were thirteen Bahá’ís in Poland as of 1986,[18] and a Bahá’í Booth was allowed at the World Esperanto Congress held in Poland in 1987.[19]

The 1989 change in government allowed for the Faith to be taught in Poland and in 1990 Bahá’í travel teachers began visiting the country and the first Polish Bahá’í Summer School was held that year.[20] In 1991 Ola Pawlowska pioneered to Warsaw and in March that year the Local Spiritual Assembly of Warsaw was established. Assemblies were then established in Białystok, Gdańsk, Kraków, Katowice, Lublin, Łódź, Poznań, Szczecin, and Wrocław,[2] and by 1992 there were eighty Bahá’ís and seven Local Spiritual Assemblies in Poland. In 1992 the Faith was registered with and recognized by Poland's Department of Religious Affairs and Council of Ministers and the National Spiritual Assembly of Poland was established with Rúḥíyyih Khánum attending the countries first National Convention.[18]

In 1996 a three week teaching project was undertaken in Poland in connection with the visit of a Bahá’í youth theatre and dance group from Canada and the Polish Ambassador to Israel visited the Bahá’í World Centre.[21] In 1997 the European Bahá’í Youth Council organized seminars for youth in Poland,[22] and a presentation on the Faith was made at Kopernik University's Institute of Sociology in Torun with similar presentations going on to be made annually until at least 2000.[23]

In 2000 the European Family Life Task Force held a conference to discuss promoting Bahá’í values on family life at the Polish National Bahá’í Centre,[23] and in 2006 a new National Bahá’í Centre was dedicated in Warsaw with several prominent people and media representatives attending the event.[24] In 2015 the Bahá’í International Community was represented at the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, the largest annual human rights and democracy conference in Europe, held in Warsaw.[25]

In 2024 the Kitab-i-Aqdas was published in Polish for the first time.[26]

See also[edit]


External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ "World Population Prospects 2022". population.un.org. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "History in Poland". Official Webpage of the Baháʼís of Poland. National Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of Poland. 2008. Archived from the original on 2009-01-24. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
  3. ↑ M.R. Garis, Martha Root: Lioness at the Threshold, Baha'i Publishing Trust: Wilmette, p 250
  4. ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1976). Bahá’í World Centre. Haifa. Volume 15 (1968-1973), Pg(s) 418. View as PDF.
  5. ↑ M.R. Garis, Martha Root: Lioness at the Threshold, Baha'i Publishing Trust: Wilmette, p 263
  6. ↑ M.R. Garis, Martha Root: Lioness at the Threshold, Baha'i Publishing Trust: Wilmette, p 385
  7. ↑ Baha'i News (1946). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. No 183, Pg(s) 8. View as PDF.
  8. ↑ M.R. Garis, Martha Root: Lioness at the Threshold, Baha'i Publishing Trust: Wilmette, p 472
  9. ↑ Baha'i News (1947). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. No 198, Pg(s) 10. View as PDF.
  10. ↑ Baha'i News (1947). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. No 196, Pg(s) 4. View as PDF.
  11. ↑ Baha'i News (1947). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. No 199, Pg(s) 16. View as PDF.
  12. ↑ Baha'i News (1947). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. No 201, Pg(s) 3. View as PDF.
  13. ↑ Baha'i News (1948). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. No 207, Pg(s) 2. View as PDF.
  14. ↑ Baha'i News (1949). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. No 226, Pg(s) 7. View as PDF.
  15. ↑ Baha'i News (1950). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. No 238, Pg(s) 9. View as PDF.
  16. ↑ Walaszek Zdzislawa, An Open Issue of Legitimacy: The State and the Church in Poland, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 483, Religion and the State: The Struggle for Legitimacy and Power, Jan. 1986, pp. 118-134
  17. ↑ Hans of the Cause (comp.), The Bahá'í Faith: 1844-1963, Information Statistical and Comparative, p 109
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1998). Bahá’í World Centre. Haifa. Volume 20 (1986-1992), Pg(s) 219. View as PDF.
  19. ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1998). Bahá’í World Centre. Haifa. Volume 20 (1986-1992), Pg(s) 199. View as PDF.
  20. ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1998). Bahá’í World Centre. Haifa. Volume 20 (1986-1992), Pg(s) 350. View as PDF.
  21. ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1997). Bahá’í World Centre. Haifa. Volume 24 (1995-1996), Pg(s) 70. View as PDF.
  22. ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1999). Bahá’í World Centre. Haifa. Volume 26 (1997-1998), Pg(s) 142. View as PDF.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (2001). Bahá’í World Centre. Haifa. Volume 28 (1999-2000), Pg(s) 96. View as PDF.
  24. ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (2007). Bahá’í World Centre. Haifa. Volume 34 (2005-2006), Pg(s) 63. View as PDF.
  25. ↑ https://news.bahai.org/story/1072/
  26. ↑ https://news.bahai.org/story/1712/
Retrieved from "https://bahaipedia.org/index.php?title=Poland&oldid=138382"
Powered by MediaWiki