Secret collaborators (SCs) of the Security Service in the Light-Life (Oasis) Movement Cover Image

Tajni współpracownicy Służby Bezpieczeństwa w oazowym Ruchu Światło-Życie
Secret collaborators (SCs) of the Security Service in the Light-Life (Oasis) Movement

Author(s): Robert Derewenda
Subject(s): History
Published by: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL & Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II
Keywords: Light-Life Movement; oases; Rev. Franciszek Blachnicki; Security Service; secret collaborators; history of the Church; youth; Church renewal movement

Summary/Abstract: The Light-Life Movement, also known as the Oasis Movement, began its work in the period of the Polish People’s Republic. Rev. Franciszek Blachnicki started the first Oases as early as the 1950s. In 1969 the Oasis Movement started work; it was a proposal to children and youths to participate in Christian formation in the style of the pre-war Scouting movement. The dynamically developing Light-Life Movement was a serious alternative to youth organizations „licensed” by the communist authorities. At the beginning of the 1970s the Security Service launched the process of placing the Oasis circles under surveillance. In order to uncover the Movement the Service used secret collaborators who were active in the Church circles, and it also recruited new ones among the animators of the Movement. Most often pupils of final forms of secondary schools agreed to be enlisted, as they were blackmailed with the possibility of failing the maturity exam or of not being admitted to the university. Most secret collaborators in the Light-Life Movement came from the Krakow university circles. This was connected with the rapid development of the Movement there, and at the same time with its strict surveillance conducted by the authorities. The information supplied by the secret collaborators made it possible for the Security Service to precisely learn about the structures of the Oasis Movement. The gathered information was used by the Security Service for conducting disinformation and disintegration actions in the Movement circles at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s. When Rev. Franciszek Blachnicki started pastoral and political work in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1982, the Security Service placed two agents in his immediate vicinity (the married couple, Jolanta and Andrzej Gontarczyks) who used the pseudonyms „Yon” and „Panna”. The agents won Rev. Blachnicki’s trust and performed responsible functions in the Christian Service for the Liberation of Nations and in the Light-Life Movement center in Carlsberg in the FRG. The agents acted to the detriment of Rev. Blachnicki and the works he conducted. They escaped from Carlsberg only half a year after Rev. Blachnicki’s death, in November 1987. Despite the Security Service’s large-scale operation the Oasis Movement developed dynamically. At present it is one of the greatest Church renewal movements in the world.

  • Issue Year: 62/2014
  • Issue No: 02
  • Page Range: 173-190
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Polish