A Short History of the Diocese of Wloclawek

During the course of its history the Diocese of Wloclawek has undergone extensive and varied changes. These changes affected its name and even the seat of administrative power, making its history one of the most complicated and involved of all Poland’s dioceses.

During the reign of the Piasts, the territory covered by the Diocese of Wloclawek belonged to the sole diocese existing on Polish soil at the time, the Diocese of Poznan. Shortly after, in the year 1000, when the first new dioceses were carved out of Polish territory, the area fell under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Gniezno. The oldest settlements in the region, military forts, developed into the first population centers and subsequently the first parishes. In 1013, as a result of Polish-German wars, another reorganization became necessary, and the reigning monarch, Boleslaw Chrobry, and his son Mieczyslaw –the latter being the ruler of the Kujawy area — financed the establishment of a new diocese which would include both Kujawy and some of the territory in Pomerania. The diocesan administrative center was established in Kruszewica. This diocese’s life was not long, either, falling victim to civil war between Wladyslaw Herman and his sons Zbigniew and Boleslaw. Wladyslaw destroyed the town of Kruszewica and the diocese de facto ceased to exist. His successor, Boleslaw Krzywousty, gave preliminary indications that the diocesan center would be resurrected. In 1123, however, a general reform of the church organization began, the result of which was the creation of yet another new diocese with its administrative center in Wloclawek. Much of the territory of the old Kruszewica Diocese was incorporated into the new diocese, thus it was now more or less a territorial continuation of the former. During this period the official name of the diocese vacillated between “Diocese of Wloclawek,” “Diocese of Kujawa” (the name of the region), as well as “Diocese of Kujawa and Pomerania,” to indicate the latter region’s belonging to the diocese as well. The word “Pomerania” was dropped later, during the time of the Teutonic Knights’ reign in the region.

For the next seven centuries the name of the diocese did not change, but its territorial limits did. In the 1300’s territory was lost to the Pomeranian dioceses, and in recompense the diocese was awarded small portions of its neighbor to the east, the Diocese of Plock. Many of the changes which followed in the 1600’s and 1700’s were relatively small, territorially, and were the result of the bishops’ “trading” land. In 1639, for example, the parishes of Ciechocin, Nowogrod and Dobrzejewice were ceded to Wloclawek from Plock. Other negotiations in the mid 1700’s created the Deanery of Wolborz, an island of land totally surrounded by the Archdiocese of Gniezno. These are but a few of the examples of this practice of territorial bartering, which was not uncommon in Europe.

The period of partitions upset the organizational and territorial integrity of the diocese. In 1772, in the first partition, the diocese lost most of its Pomeranian territory, and the Polish Court and the Holy See, along with diocesan authorities, actively sought to preserve the unity of the remainder of the diocese, to combat Prussian plans to annex even more territory administratively.

As a result of the second and third partitions, the “new” international frontiers between Russia and Prussia cut through the diocese’s territory. The ultimate fate of what was to become of this territory was to be decided by Rome and the Partitioning Powers. In the early 1800’s the latter were planning to eliminate the diocese completely. The expected elimination did not materialize, however, but the territorial limits of the diocese changed dramatically with the addition of 272 parishes from the Archdiocese of Gniezno, several from the Diocese of Poznan, and 11 parishes from the Diocese of Wroclaw. The name of the diocese was changed to Wloclawek-Kalisz, and as a result of the changes described here, the diocese became the largest in the “Kingdom of Poland.”

The end of the 19th and the early 20th centuries witnessed a great increase of new church buildings, many of them imposing neo-Gothic structures, and some much too large and ostentatious vis-a-vis the needs and size of the various parishes. World War I put an end to new construction, and the post-war reorganization of Poland’s dioceses once again changed the borders of Wloclawek diocese. Polish bishops negotiated, re-drew and re-formed plans for Poland’s ecclesiastical future until 1925, when the new diocesan borders were finalized. The Wloclawek-Kalisz diocese, in the eyes of its leaders, “lost a great deal and gained very little.” 50 parishes were ceded to the Diocese of Lodz, 123 parishes went to the new Diocese of Czestochowa, and minor territory to the Diocese of Plock. In other words, the Diocese lost approximately half of its population and territory.

World War II’s brutality interrupted the placid interwar period. The territory of the Diocese of Wloclawek was annexed to the Third Reich. Persecution of all things Polish and of the clergy was intense. Of 432 priests serving in the diocese at the outbreak of the war, 224 perished, as well as the Bishop, Michal Kozal, who died in the Dachau concentration camp. Many churches were destroyed or desecrated. Reconstruction during the post-war period was a high priority of church officials.

In 1992 Poland once again reorganized its diocesan boundaries. (These changes are described in an earlier issue of this publication). But these changes will not affect the location of older vital records. The pre-1992 boundaries of the Diocese included parts of the following civil provinces: Wloclawek, Konin, Kalisz, Sieradz, plus small portions of the provinces of Plock, Torun, and Bydgoszcz.

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Archival Holdings of Parishes in the Diocese of Wloclawek

Archival holdings are at the parish level. There may be other records at the Diocesan level or in the possession of the State Archive system and local civil Vital Statistics (USC) offices. Researchers should also check LDS microfilm holdings. B = Birth records, M = Marriage records, D = Death records. If only one date is given, it refers to the year of the earliest registers. In most of the parishes, the records are not complete. Expect gaps. Some notable gaps are indicated in this listing.