Clerics from Apostolic Administration in the Czeski Cieszyn studying at the Catholic Theological Faculty of St. Cyril and Methodius in Prague

Abstract

Apostolic Administration in the Czeski Cieszyn is inextricably linked with the history of Cieszyn Silesia and the Polish community, which found themselves as a minority beyond the borders of their own country. History of this administrative structure also illustrates the complicated fate of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia under the influence of communist authority in the difficult period after World War II. Cieszyn Silesia is a region on the Polish-Czech border, currently divided along the river Olza. Originally belonged to the Poland, then to the Kingdom of Bohemia and after World War I became the object of a strife between the fledging states Poland and Czechoslovakia. This region was inhabited by the majority of Poles and many of them found themselves outside their homeland. Area on the west side of Olza river began to be called Zaolzie. The Catholic Church in this territory belonged to the diocese of Wroclaw. After World War II in 1947, the Apostolic Administration was established in the Czeski Cieszyn. It existed to 1978, when was officially incorporated into the Archdiocese of Olomouc. Zaolzie took the greater part of the area of this structure and was originally inhabited mostly by Poles. From 1953 to 1990, all clerics from this part of Czechoslovakia formally educated in the only official seminary in Litomierzyce. Students from Apostolic Administration in the Czech Cieszyn also came there. Many of them descended from the Polish minority in Zaolzie. Some declared as Czechs, the other as Poles. In documents of seminary in Litomierzyce we can find clerics with Polish-sounding or just Czech surnames. Most of them, however, were born in Zaolzie.