Remarks on Some Aspects of Messianism

Abstract

This is an English translation of a paper by Emilia Ehrlich OSU (1924–2006), a long-time secretary and close associate of John Paul II, published in Polish in 1982. Ehrlich reviews the history of Polish Messianism and propounds its original theological interpretation. She compares Polish messianic ideas with the biblical sense of Messianism as well as with the concept of the messianic people found in the documents of Second Vatican Council and developed by Cardinal Karol Wojtyła in his Sources of Renewal. The teaching of the three offices of Christ, as she argues, allows a new theological assessment of many claims of Polish Messianism.