Diocesan Reports of Parish Priests as a Source for Studying Spirituality of the Przemyśl Greek-Catholic Diocese Parish Population in the 1930s
Diocesan Reports of Parish Priests as a Source for Studying Spirituality of the Przemyśl Greek-Catholic Diocese Parish Population in the 1930s

Summary/Abstract: Based on the reports of parish priests, this article presents research on the main religious and moral challenges faced by the Greek-Catholic clergy in the 1930s: the decline of Christian piety due to the spread of sectarian and communist ideologies; impoverishment of the population; the rise of the labour movement; the growing Latinisation and Polonisation of the Ukrainian spiritual culture; and neglect of church commandments. To overcome these negative trends, the Greek Catholic clergy carried out a series of measures: restoration, reorganising and forming church brotherhoods and religious societies; supporting and spreading the Ukrainian Catholic religious publications through the activities of Catholic Action; and spurring Ukrainian cultural and educational societies into action in the public sphere. The reports of parish priests can been considered as a kind of monitoring of the spiritual development of the parish population. The parish clergy were entrusted with the duty of care for the religious, moral, national and patriotic education of the youth. It has been demonstrated that the information from the reports reveals little-known facts about the everyday religious life of parish communities in the 1930s.

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