Abstract

During the unifcation congress of eleven veteran organizations, convened in Warsaw on September 1 and 2, 1949, the Union of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy was created, also bringing together „patriot” priests available to the communists. A week later, the Primate of Poland, Stefan Wyszynski, referring to this event in a letter to the clergy of the Archdiocese of Gniezno from September 8, 1949, wrote that he was saddened by so many „tragedies of priestly souls that collapsed under the pressure of various circumstances. „Teir disaster harms both innocent priests and their mission.” Te aim of the article is to show the multilevel relations of Primate Wyszynski with the environment of „patriot” priests and to answer the following research questions: what. what was the attitude of the hierarch towards priests who decided to openly cooperate with the communist authorities?; what actions did the primate take towards this environment?; how did the „regime” clergy react to them?; to imprison the Primate?