Bleeding on the Bellflowers: The Persecution of Lemkos and the Byzantine Ruthenian Church in Post-War Poland

• In Event: Choices in Postwar Poland: Trials, Religion, and Displacement

Abstract

In the aftermath of World War II, Poland’s (along with most of Eastern Europe’s) annexation into the Soviet Union meant more persecution after suffering at the hands of the Nazis. In particular, religious entities and ethnic minorities were targeted; forced conversions to Orthodoxy and assassinations of religious leaders were not uncommon. Perhaps the most drastic move of these postwar years was the expulsion of Lemkos (both Ukranian and Polish) in Operation Vistula, which forced these communities in and around the Carpathian Mountains to move either further east in the Soviet Union or to the former Nazi territories in northwest Poland.

In research involving religious entities in postwar Poland, the focus has tended to be the Roman Catholic (Latin Rite) Church. Yet those Catholics were not the only ones who suffered in a post-Nazi Communist world. This paper will examine the persecution of the Byzantine Ruthenian Church (also called Greek Catholic), focusing on the persecution but also the destruction left in its wake, which permanently altered the landscape of the lands of the Rusyn (Carpatho-Rusyn) people. By examining this branch of Catholicism in the beginnings of Communism, we can gain a more precise picture of the damage inflicted on the religious ethnic minorities of Poland.

Author

• Karen Lin Uslin, Stockton U / Defiant Requiem Foundation