Over the coming decades, there was some growth in the Greek Catholic presence within Poland. By the start of the 1980s, there existed 70 pastoral units in Poland, which were served by 32 diocesan priest and 14 monks. In addition, forms of Greek Catholic monastic life had also emerged, as nuns instructed young students in Greek Catholic traditions and beliefs and also performed charity work within their communities.
While these measures provided some encouraging signs to Greek Catholics in Poland, they paled in comparison to the atmosphere of hopefulness that surrounded the selection of Poland’s own Karol Wojtyla, now known as Pope John Paul II, to the papacy in 1978. Pope John Paul II, born to a Ukrainian mother, provided recognition to the Ukrainian Catholic Church almost immediately, noting in a 1979 pastoral letter the importance of the millennium anniversary of Kyvian-Rus’s conversion to a Byzantine nation in 988. In that same year, he sent a letter to Major Archbishop of Lviv Josyf Slipyj, stating, “I think now that the primary necessity of the moment is to guarantee the right to existence and to citizenship of Ukrainian Catholics in their homeland.” In June 1984, Pope John Paul II sent Archbishop Myroslav S. Marusyn, his Secretary of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, to travel to Poland as his representative, marking the first time a Vatican official had visited Greek Catholics in Poland since World War II. The pope himself made a visit to a Greek Catholic Church in Poland on a visit in June 1987, when he went to a service at the Basilian Greek Catholic Church in Warsaw. Then, in the fall of that same year, Pope John Paul II assembled Polish Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic clergy members in Rome, assigning one Roman Catholic and one Greek Catholic bishop to oversee the meetings. The end result was one of forgiveness between the two Churches in Poland, as both bishops concluded the meeting by acknowledging that “we forgive and ask for forgiveness.”
Opportunities for Greek Catholics in Poland opened up after the Solidarity movement, to which Pope John Paul II provided indirect encouragement, led to the implementation of free elections, which first took place June 4, 1989. One month later, the pope appointed Father Joan Martyniak, a Greek Catholic bishop, to serve the Greek Catholic Church in Poland, marking the first time one had done so since World War II. Fr. Martyniak became the head of the Greek Catholic Diocese in Przemysl in April 1991, when the diocese became the first in Poland to be revived following the Soviet occupation. In 1995, he penned an Apostolic Letter entitled Orientale Lumen, “the Light of the East,” which listed several of the contributions made by the traditions and practices of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Throughout his long papacy, John Paul II would make many trips to Eastern European countries with a Greek Catholic presence. He visited Ukraine in 2001 at the invitation of bishops from the Ukrainian Catholic Church, among others, and beautified 28 Greek Catholics from the nation, many of who died under Soviet occupation.
While these measures provided some encouraging signs to Greek Catholics in Poland, they paled in comparison to the atmosphere of hopefulness that surrounded the selection of Poland’s own Karol Wojtyla, now known as Pope John Paul II, to the papacy in 1978. Pope John Paul II, born to a Ukrainian mother, provided recognition to the Ukrainian Catholic Church almost immediately, noting in a 1979 pastoral letter the importance of the millennium anniversary of Kyvian-Rus’s conversion to a Byzantine nation in 988. In that same year, he sent a letter to Major Archbishop of Lviv Josyf Slipyj, stating, “I think now that the primary necessity of the moment is to guarantee the right to existence and to citizenship of Ukrainian Catholics in their homeland.” In June 1984, Pope John Paul II sent Archbishop Myroslav S. Marusyn, his Secretary of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, to travel to Poland as his representative, marking the first time a Vatican official had visited Greek Catholics in Poland since World War II. The pope himself made a visit to a Greek Catholic Church in Poland on a visit in June 1987, when he went to a service at the Basilian Greek Catholic Church in Warsaw. Then, in the fall of that same year, Pope John Paul II assembled Polish Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic clergy members in Rome, assigning one Roman Catholic and one Greek Catholic bishop to oversee the meetings. The end result was one of forgiveness between the two Churches in Poland, as both bishops concluded the meeting by acknowledging that “we forgive and ask for forgiveness.”
Opportunities for Greek Catholics in Poland opened up after the Solidarity movement, to which Pope John Paul II provided indirect encouragement, led to the implementation of free elections, which first took place June 4, 1989. One month later, the pope appointed Father Joan Martyniak, a Greek Catholic bishop, to serve the Greek Catholic Church in Poland, marking the first time one had done so since World War II. Fr. Martyniak became the head of the Greek Catholic Diocese in Przemysl in April 1991, when the diocese became the first in Poland to be revived following the Soviet occupation. In 1995, he penned an Apostolic Letter entitled Orientale Lumen, “the Light of the East,” which listed several of the contributions made by the traditions and practices of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Throughout his long papacy, John Paul II would make many trips to Eastern European countries with a Greek Catholic presence. He visited Ukraine in 2001 at the invitation of bishops from the Ukrainian Catholic Church, among others, and beautified 28 Greek Catholics from the nation, many of who died under Soviet occupation.