Pastoral Care for Poles in Finnland

Abstract

The reason why Poles lived in Finnland was their military service in the czarist army. The Polish soldiers stationed in this country originated the reviva of Catholicism. Their pastoral care was entrusted to Dominicans. In the years of 1857-1860, Fr. Ignacy Gorbacki supervised the building of St. Henry’s garrison church in the suburs of Helsinki. On April 3^rd, 1917, an association called „Polish Union in Helsingforsa.ie” was established. The history of the Polish diaspora in Finnland was then the history of the Polish Union. Pastoral care was provided by Rev. Adolf Carling.

After World War II the then ordinary bishop of Finnland, Bishop Wilhelm P. Cobben, met the diffciluties of pastoral care among Poles in his country. At a meeting with Polonia he offered his residence, and from October 1959 on a new parish building.

The pastoral care for Polonia gathered momentum at the time when the Polish Grey Ursuli- nes arrived in Finnland. Unti 1974, the Poles there were without any permanent pastoral care. Occasionally Rev. Jan Bukowski from the Polish Catholic Mission from Sweden came. In March 1979 the Polish Union asked the Holy See to appoint a permanent pastor. The request was again sent to the Conference of the Polish episcopate in April 1980. On October 17, 1980, Rev. Ryszard Miś from the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ came to Finnland. This Dutch province of the congregation was responsible for animation of astoral work in this country from 1907 on. Over the period of the recent twenty-five years thirteen Polish priests and one religious friar have experienced the Church in Finnland.

The Catholic fellowship in Finnland is relatively small; the area of 320 ooo km² is inhabited by more than 10.000 Catholics. Despite their small number, the Polish Catholics are a relatively large group within the local Church. They belong to a group of over 90 nationalities, using circa 70 languages. The Finns make up 45% of all Catholics. The Dehonians in Finnland run 5 out of 7 parishes. From 2001 to 2008 this diocese was run an ordinary bishop from Poland, bp Józef Wróbel SCJ.

A Holy Mass in Polish is said at the cathedral in Helsinki on the first Sunday of every month at 16⁰⁰. Holy Masses are said, if possible, in the places of Polish residence. Among the 22 priests working there only two are Finns. The largest number of them are Poles (9), and they are all Dehonians.

Due to the small number of Poles in Finnland, the lack of Polish priests, it was not possible to organise a permanent pastoral care in this country. The main obstacle that made our fellow-countrymen „helpless” was „the Resolution of the Conference of the Episcopate of the Nordic Countries that in those dioceses, due to their small local fellowships, there will not be organised national astoral care, nor any personal parishes”. Nevertheless, the fact that Polish priests were always present in Finnland from the 1980s onwards safeguarded systematic pastoral care for Polonia there. They provided sacramental-liturgical, religious-cultural, and social- charitable ministry.