Konflikt w parafii prawosławnej w Siemiatyczach w latach 1986–1988
The Conflict in the Orthodox Parish at Siemiatycze in 1986–1988

Summary/Abstract: The early 1980s brought many social and political changes to Poland. These changes greatly impacted the functioning and existence of the Orthodox Church in Poland, especially in the Bialystok region. Both the Orthodox Church authorities and the faithful had to adopt a specific attitude towards social changes and find a place for themselves in this new, dynamic situation. The stance of the Orthodox Church hierarchy in Poland and its believers on the changes in Poland in the 1980s is still an insufficiently researched issue.Parish conflicts within the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church after World War II were nothing unusual. The most serious conflict was between the hierarchy and the clergy in 1944–1946, mainly in Bielsk Podlaski, and concerning Church jurisdiction over the sur- rounding parishes. The conflict in the parish of Sts Peter and Paul at Siemiatycze erupted over the appointment of a new parish priest after former priest Włodzimierz Doroszkiewicz had left the parish. This brought about a mutual correspondence between the Office for Religious Affairs on the one side and the Metropolitan of Warsaw and All Poland Basil and the parishioners of Siemiatycze on the other. Each side saw the situation differently, and the successive appointments of new parish priests did not bring a solution to the conflict. In early 1987, the parishioners formed the so-called “Civic Committee of the Parishioners of the Orthodox Church in Siemiatycze”.The conflict was resolved in March 1988, after Father Andrzej Jakimiuk was appointed parish priest, most probably after the Office for Religious Affairs took action. This thesis, however, requires confirmation in archival documents.

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