The Origins of the Polish Ethnic Parish of Our Lady of the Victories in Chatham, Ontario, and the Problem it Had to Preserve Its Status

Abstract

The Poles who started settling in the vicinity of Chatham, Ontario, in the 1930s, were - due to their low number - deprived of pastoral care. Rev. Jan Andrzejewski, the former parish priest from Windsor, helped them. Having retired, he lived in the Chatham hospital of St Joseph's. After 1945 the Polish community in Chatham started to grow, and the Czech Jesuit, Fr. Franciszek Dostal, the parish priest of St. Anthony's, took care about them along with Rev. Jan Achtabowski from Leamington, later from Thamesville. Rev. Jan Achtabowski had to come to Chatham more and more often. In 1956 there was a fire in St. Anthony's church. Due to these two facts a plan was conceived to establish here a Polish ethnic parish. It was made possible not only due to the integration of the Polish community and somewhat regular pastoral care, but, above all, as a result of Rev. Jan Achtabowski's uncompromising attitude. It was he who during talks with the then bishop of the diocese of London, John C. Cody, pointed to Rev. Wawrzyniec Wnuk as a potential parish priest of the new parish. Owing to his endeavours, the bishop created a Polish parish in Chatham on 2 April, 1957, with the invocation of Our Lady of the Victories, and made Rev. W. Wnuk its parish priest. The latter bought a lot (10 acres) from the collections of the faithful and with the aid from various milieus in Canada and the USA. In October 1957 he started to build his own church, and as early as 27 April, 1958, the church was consecrated by the local bishop. For almost twenty years the developing parish functioned in accord with the American custom, i.e. as an ethnic unit. In 1974 Rev. Mieczysław Kamiński, the fourth consecutive parish priest, launched an initiative to rename the parish into an ethnic-territorial one, so that it could attract the English speaking parishioners, all the more that the English language was becoming more and more common in the church. The then bishop had the same expectations, nevertheless after many discussions, sittings and petitions from the majority of parishioners the hitherto status of the parish had been maintained, the fact which was confirmed by Bishop E. Carter on 13 December, 1977. What Polonia meant was, above all, to save its own identity, culture, language and tradition, and this does not exclude in the least (as it is now) the English speaking faithful from an active participation in the life of the community.