This is a single-volume history of Christianity in Poland, a subject at the core of religious history and European secular history alike. The book covers the development of Polish Christianity from the tenth century to the year 2000, placing it in the broader context of East-Central European political, social, religious and cultural history. Jewish-Christian relations, and the problematic religious history of the Jews in the region, play an important part in the story, and there are pervasive references to countries historically linked to Poland, such as Lithuania, Belarus and the Ukraine. Jerzy Kloczowski shows how the history of Poland, and Polish Christianity, are embedded in the complex systems of relations with other countries and religious denominations. A History of Polish Christianity should be read by anyone interested in the confrontation between Christianity and the totalitarian systems of the twentieth century, and in the interplay between Eastern and Western Christianity.
1. Foundations; 2. The turning-point: the thirteenth century; 3. The expansion of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; 4. Great reforms; 5. Post-Tridentine Catholicism and Polish baroque; 6. Enlightenment and partitions; 7. Slow revival in Bondage; 8. The twentieth century defeats and successes; 9. Postscript: after 1989.
Review of the hardback: 'Cambridge University Press are therefore to be congratulated for publishing this comprehensive yet accessible account by Poland's most distinguished living Church historian … this is an excellent book by the master of his field.' Journal of Ecclesiastical History
