The Polish Dominican Province To-Day

The Dominican map of Poland is a queer one. It is true that one can hardly find a town in Poland without a Dominican church and priory (the fathers numbered more than 2,000 and had about 200 houses at the first partition in 1772), but the churches do not belong now to the Order and the priories are being used as schools or prisons. For in the provinces occupied by Russia and Germany in 1772 and 1795, i.c. in 80% of the Polish territory, the religious life was proscribed and the monasteries confiscated. What we see now on the Dominican map is the result of this historical fact, combined with the striving of the new Polish Province to re-occupy its right place in Catholic life of the whole country.So it happens that the bulk of the priories is situated in the south, in the former 'Galicia.' There the Dominicans had eleven out of their 16 houses which were nourishing in 1939-among them the venerable Monastery of Cracow, tlie great tormer 'studium generale' of Podkamien with about 300 cells, and the actual seat of the Provincial with its fine baroque church at Lwow. The other priories are small and unimportant relics of the time when the Austrian Government allowed the religious orders to exist only on condition that they occupied themselves exclusively in plain parish work

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