Classification Protestant Polity Episcopal Origin 16th century | Orientation Lutheranism Region Poland | |
 | ||
Associations Conference of European Churches,
Lutheran World Federation,
Polish Ecumenical Council,
World Council of Churches | ||
The Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland (Polish: Kościół Ewangelicko-Augsburski w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej) is a Lutheran denomination and the largest Protestant body in Poland with about 60,000 members and 189 parishes.
Contents
History
The Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession is rooted in the Reformation. The first Lutheran sermons were held in 1518, and in 1523 the first Lutheran dean, Johann Heß, was called to the city of Breslau, whence Lutheranism was spread into the Polish lands. Today the Church has its primary adherents in the Polish part of Cieszyn Silesia.
The church in Poland suffered during and after World War II. The ranks of pastors, teachers and other church leadership were somewhat diminished by persecution, imprisonment, and death. During the early postwar years, a staggering number of church properties were taken over for other purposes, and the connections of Protestant Lutheranism to the German cultural sphere made authorities and Polish locals inimical towards the Lutherans left. Gradually, the Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession in Poland has been reshaped into an active body. On 12 October 2008, Polish president Lech Kaczyński—himself of the Catholic faith—visited the Lutheran Protestant Jesus Church in Cieszyn, becoming the first Polish president who ever visited a Protestant place of worship.
Contemporary
The church's six dioceses form a wide swath from north to south down the middle of Poland—from Warmia-Masuria and Gdańsk in the north, near the Baltic, to the region west and southwest of Kraków in the south, toward the Czech Republic border. Direct descendants of Reformation forebears live in the south, around Upper Silesia.
The church has 189 congregations, 130 parishes, and 150 chapels, and is served by 169 pastors and other church workers. Many pastors serve multiple preaching points and are challenged by diverse demands as well as the need for innovation in a rapidly changing society. The congregations are self-governing, and each has its own parish council.
Though numbers of church members are currently lower than they have been in the past (86,880 baptized members in 2001, 75,000 in 2009), the Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession in Poland still remains as the largest Protestant body in Poland. As of 2012, there were 61,663 adherent faithful in this church.
As a Lutheran church in a country that is nearly 90 percent Roman Catholic, the church faces challenges in upholding a Protestant education at various levels, whether in Sunday schools, catechetical instruction, or in connection with the public schools, where Catholic religious education is part of the curriculum. The main priorities of the church are in diaconic work among single, old, and disabled persons; women's and youth work; and in evangelism.