The Liquidation of Lower Seminars Run by the Society of St. Francis de Sales in Poland

Abstract

The so-called Lower Seminars were male secondary boarding schools of a humanist profile, aiming to prepare the youth for their final exams (matura) and for their candidacy for priesthood. The Salesians in Poland ran schools from their earliest days: vocational, secondary schools and the above-mentioned seminars in: Daszawa (near Stryj), Ląd nad Wartą, Pogrzebień, Jaciążek (near Maków Mazowiecki), Reginów (near Baranovichi). These educational institutions were liquidated under the Soviet and Nazi occupation. In a new, post-war reality, it was only the Seminar in Ląd that was revived. The Salesians launched a new seminar in Marszałki (near Kępno).

In the „new” northern and western lands, they opened seminars in Frombork and Środa Śląska. After the monastic mid-level secondary schools had been liquidates by the Communist regime (1948-1949), the Salesians safeguarded the continuity of education for their boys by running private Lower Seminars of: Sokołów Podlaski, Twardogóra, Oświęcim and Różanystok (near Dąbrowa Białostocka). These latter institutions were ruthlessly liquidated in the year 1952 and 1954. The Communists also used the opportunity to take over the Salesians’ premises and equipment (apart from the school in L ˛ ad), and they expelled the Salesians of their estate.

During a short-term October thaw, a new Communist government permitted the Salesians to open two Little Seminars in 1957, but they rejected granting them the status of public schools. Until July 1962, the schools of Sokołów Podlaski (with its branch in Czerwińsk) and in Kopiec (near Częstochowa) had been functional.