Abstract

The Superior General Fr Egidio Vigano, in his decree of December 16th in 1979 made a new division of salesian provinces in Poland. The Province of St Adalbert, with its headquarters in Pila, was made from the existing St. Stanislaw Kostka Province. Some confreres were involved in different pastoral services, outside the salesian congregation, because there were not too many pastoral institutions in our society at that time. Six of them fulfilled the functions that were entrusted to the congregation by the Conference of the Archbischops of Poland. Five of the others worked for “The Spiritual Support of Vocations”, leading vocational retreats in different dioceses, in cooperation with religious orders of sisters. There were also three diocesan parishes, in Ketrzyn, Sztum and Ostroda where a diocesan priest was a parish priest and salesians were employed in pastoral service. Shortly after the Province of St Stanislaw Kostka was divided, there were 15 religious communities in the province. The confreres were working in 24 parishes as parish priests, 10 of the others were chaplains and 6 were involved in pastoral service in different parishes. There were 270 confreres in the province including 167 priests, 25 brothers, 57 seminarians and 21 novices. Political and social changes that took place in Poland after 1989 were noticeable also in the Warsaw Province. First of all the new opportunity to open and own catholic schools and other institutions of this kind enabled our confreres to work in educational institutions. The first school came into being in 1991. It was a salesian grammar school in Lodz, in Wodna Street. Other grammar and comprehensive schools were in demand in many regions of the province: in Sokolow Podlaski (1993), in Minsk Mazowiecki (1994), in Ostroda (1995) in Legonowo (1998). We also started to run school dormitories and boarding schools. The congregation opened a borstal for boys from Podlaskie voivodship. The salesians could start the special activity when we took over holiday camps in Ostroda (1992) and Lutomiersk (1994). Also the mass media that were available to us after the political changes in Poland gave us new opportunities in pastoral work for the young. Thanks to this the youth internet website bosco.pl (2001) and the salesian internet website salezjanie.pl started to work. There were formation houses in the province. A novice house in Czerwinsk has been working incessantly for 25 years. The noviciate was common for the two north provinces till 1983. The following postnoviciate formation in Kutno-Wozniaków, started in 1981, was carried on for two provinces utill 1996. In 1992 the postnoviciate was moved to Lodz. The salesian seminary for seminarians of the Warsaw province has been working in Lodz from 1996. At present there are 311 confreres, including 237 priests, 21 brothers and 53 seminarians, in the Warsaw province. There are 6 novices in the noviciate. The average age of our confreres is 44,02. The confreres live in 26 religious communities, running 26 parishes, 17 schools and 3 independent chaplancy centres. For 25 years – after the province was divided – the duty of the superior provincial was fulfilled by: Fr Wojciech Szulczynski (till 1984), Fr Zdzislaw Weder (1984–1990), Fr Zbigniew Malinowski (1990–1997), Fr Jozef Struś (1997–2002), Fr Jan Nieweglowski (at present).