METROPOLITAN DIONYSIUS ON THE NATIONALITY QUESTION IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN INTERWAR POLAND

Metropolitan Dionysius took over management of the Orthodox Church in 1923. He managed the Orthodox Church in the difficult period of the Second Polish Republic. At that time the Orthodox Church was identified with the Russian invader, and seen as a symbol of the partitions as well as of the religious and ethnic oppression of Poles. At the same time it was the largest religious association in Poland, apart from the Roman Catholic Church. During this period, the Orthodox Church embraced several different nationalities among the faithful (including Ukrainians, Belarussians, Russians and others). This posed a significant problem in both the Church's internal relations and in its relations with the Polish state. Some political minority groups tried to make the Orthodox religion an element of national separatism. On the other hand, for the state authorities, the Orthodox Church was an institution which carried out the Church's policy and objectives for the benefit of a particular ethnic minority. Throughout the period of Metropolitan Dionysius' management he had to guide the church in such a way as to meet the needs of ethnically diverse believers, in spite of the basically unfriendly or even hostile attitude of the Polish state towards the Orthodox Church. He had to take into account the tendency of the faithful of Ukrainian, Russian, Belarussian and Polish origins to deal separately with the various political forces existing within the Orthodox Church, while seeking to provide the Church with an appropriate system and a specific political function.