Historia duszpasterstwa akademickiego w Bydgoszczy w dokumentach SB, lata 1964–1989, zarys problematyki

Abstract

The article offers an outline history of pastoral ministry addressed to Bydgoszcz students in view of surviving documents from communist Poland’s ruling party and secret police. A result of the author’s inquiry in the archival resources of the Institute of National Remembrance, the State Archives in Bydgoszcz and the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw is his outline of the history of local pastoral care in 1964–1989 drafted by the hands of persecutors. The history of the student pastoral care community (SPCC) in Bydgoszcz is depicted as the Church’s response to the establishment of the city’s academic circle. The history encompasses the operation of two dioceses: the Archdiocese of Gniezno and the Diocese of Chełmno; the collective efforts of local diocesan and monastic clergy; and first and foremost the activities of Catholic students learning to take responsibility for themselves, their community, their homeland and the Church. It also covers the encounter between the SPCC and the local college environment, which in the communist period was actively involved in supporting social secularization and atheism promotion. Finally, the history records the surveillance of the city’s SPCC by the local Security Service, which employed secret agents in its persecution of pastoral care, thus condemning the community members to the status of second category citizens.