Religious Life of Poles in Harbin (1901-1925)

Abstract

In the first quarter of the century Harbin was the biggest Polish settlement in the Far East. In 1904 the number of Poles, mostly insurgents of 1863 and other political activists, reached 4,000. The Poles of Harbin were employed in the construction of Eastern-Chinese railway initiated by the Russian government. Being Roman Catholices they wanted their own church and a Polish priest. Originally services for Poles were held in a chapel at the outskirts of Harbin; in 1904 a building plot for the future church was secured and the actual construction began in 1906. A catholic parish, part of the Mohylow archidiocese was constituted in 1909. The gothic-style church was consecrated in 1909.

Flourishing of Polish religious and cultural life in Harbin is connected with the person of the parish priest, Father Władysław Ostrowski. In 1923 Pius XI constituted the diocese with a Pole, Karol Sliwowski as the first ordinary consecrated by the apostolic delegate Archbishop Cełso Constahtihi. The Polish parish of Harbin was incorporated into the new diocese and a Catholic seminary was transferred from Wladivostok to Harbin.

The parish was active in charity, cultural and educational work. Thanks to the efforts of Father Ostrowski Primary School for Polish children was founded in 1912, followed by Henryk Sienkiewicz Grammar School in 1915. In 1917 a, special building was set up for both schools. The duty to send children to Polish schools only was particularly stressed by the Catholic Congress of the Polish parish in Harbin convoked by Father Ostrowski in 1921. In 1923 the Grammar School was given the same rights as government schools in Poland-, and in 1924 its diploma was officially recognized.

In 1922 Father Ostrowski launched the Polish Weekly (Tygodnik Polski) which was then the only Polish magazine in Asia. Thus the Polish clergy of Harbin deserves the credit for not only - deepening the religious life of Poles but also for keeping up the national and patriotic spirit and cultivating the links with the native land and culture.