Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne. 70 lat istnienia (1924—1994)

Abstract

The Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne [Polish Theological Society] was founded in Lwów in 1924 by a group of theologians teaching at the University in that city, and led by Father Aleksy Klawek and Father Teofil Długosz. The aims of this organisation were to revive interest in theology and theological studies, which had dwindled over the previous century following the Partitions of Poland and the effects of secularisation, and to provide education and training in theology for candidates to the priesthood and ordained priests. The Society’s activities spread as new centres were created in the university towns, such as Cracow, Warsaw, and Wilno. Lecturing, publishing, and librarianship activities were the chief methods which the Society used to pursue its statutory aims. The Second World War interrupted the Society’s activities, while after the War the Communist authorities did not permit its restoration in its pre-war form, tolerating the registration of a drastically trimmed version restricted by the Act of 1946 to activities in and around Cracow. Nevertheless the Society continued its specialist interests, and later on (when the opportunity came) in new regional divisions, too, while the publishing branch issued a bimonthly, Ruch Biblijny i Liturgiczny [The Biblical and Liturgical Movement], an annual, Analecta Cracoviensia, and numerous books on theology, philosophy, and history. Along with the social and political changes of 1989, steps were made to amend the former strait-jacket statute. In 1992 a new Statute was ratified, creating the opportunity for expansion to cover the entire country and to restore the Society to its pre-war legal status wherever practicable. The Society currently consists of 12 specialist sections, 6 regional divisions and the publishing company, Unum. Administered by the leading Cracovian theologians, philosophers and historians academically associated with the Faculty of Theology in the Jagiellonian University and later (after the abolition of this Faculty in 1954 by the Communist authorities) in the Pontifical Faculty of Theology (the status of which changed in 1981, with a change of name to the Pontifical Academy of Theology), the Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne has experienced an extraordinary amount of change in the seventy years of its history. Nonetheless, or perhaps because of this, it may well be considered a kind of unofficial representative body for the theologians of Cracow.