Listy ks. Wincentego Danka do abp. Józefa Bilczewskiego z lat 1900-1919 (część III)
Letters of Father Wincenty Danek to Abp. Józef Bilczewski from 1900-1919 (Part 3)

Summary/Abstract: This edition of historical sources contains letters written by a priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lviv, Fr Wincenty Danek (1870-1945), to Metropolitan of Lviv Archbishop Józef Bilczewski (1860-1923). The documents are from the years 1900-1919, covering almost the whole pontificate of the Lviv hierarch. As the legacy of the metropolitan, they are held in the Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lviv in Kraków. Unfortunately, Abp. Bilczewski’s letters to Fr Danek have not been preserved, so the letters presented in this edition are all the more valuable; it also because they have never been used in scholarly research before. The letters talk about the efforts of Father Danek, a priest of the Polish diaspora in Budapest, to organise a systematic pastoral ministry for his compatriots and, most of all, to build a church. With the approval of the Hungarian church and state authorities, as well as Abp. Bilczewski, Danek launched an extensive campaign to raise funds and support in Hungarian and Galician circles. He established contacts with Hungarian aristocratic families having blood ties with Polish landowners, won the favours of people connected with the imperial court in Vienna, and gained the trust of some members of the Austro-Hungarian government and parliament, which was intended to secure the financial basis for the planned investment. The noble project of erecting a church was hampered by the outbreak of the World War I, so it did not come to fruition until 1926, when the Church of the Help of the Faithful was completed. The church was blessed, but its consecration took place four years later.

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