wfn.org | Poland: Government Rethink Anti-Sect Moves

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March 31, 2001
Adventist Press Service (APD)
Christian B. Schaeffler, Editor-in-chief
CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland
Fax +41-61-261 61 18
APD@stanet.ch
http://www.stanet.ch/APD

Poland: Government Offices Rethink Anti-Sect Moves

Warsaw, Poland.     The Polish government is
reorganizing its campaign against new religious
movements after complaints of harassment from
minority churches. Krzysztof Wiktor, the head of
Poland's Inter-Ministerial Team for New Religious
Movements, after announcing plans to liquidate the
existing team in favour of a new "Inter-Ministerial
Team for Psycho-Manipulative Groups," said, "State
policy is undergoing important qualitative changes,
which will enable us to avoid charges of violating
religious freedom." The reform was dismissed,
however, as a "pretence" by a leader of the Polish
Union of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, who
accused officials of helping "suppress competition"
to the predominant Catholic Church. Wiktor said that
new religious movements had been viewed as the "key
problem" when his team was formed in 1997, but added
that team members were no longer concerned with
groups "merely offering an alternative
religiousness." He said, "An inter-ministerial team
will still be needed, since the sect phenomenon is
too broad and multifaceted to be treated like other
social pathologies. But we are not interested in the
cult activities of this or that church."

Poland's Inter-Ministerial Team denied in a June 2000
report that religious sects posed a "big threat to
society," but called on state institutions to begin
training personnel in how to deal with them.

A Polish police spokesman, Pawel Biedziak, denied in
November 2000 that law enforcers were acting under
pressure from Catholic leaders, but confirmed that
material from Catholic anti-sect groups had been used
for instructing groups of officers from each Polish
county.

Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the Seventh-day
Adventist Church in Poland, Andrzej Sicinski,
testified that Catholic information centres had also
given "sect training sessions" to school directors
and teachers. Sicinski said dissolution of the
existing Inter-Ministerial Team had been expected,
adding that he doubted the new team would survive the
expected collapse of Poland's centre-right government
after autumn 2001 elections. "The new name and
formula are clearly intended to enable Mr. Wiktor and
his team to remain in power a bit longer," said
Sicinski, whose church is one of 15 recognized in
Poland under their own special legislation. "But I
think this is a pretence. The new team will work,
like its predecessor, to suppress competition to the
Catholic Church, using criteria which enable the sect
label to be thrown at all non-Roman Catholics."
Registered Christian minorities in Poland have
frequently cited pressure from the Catholic Church,
which nominally comprises at least 95 percent of the
country's 39 million citizens. Today more than 12,000
Adventist Christian, including 5,638 adult baptised
church members, worship in over 120 congregations in
Poland.

Last year the Council of Ecumenism of the  Conference
of Bishops of the Roman-Catholic Church in Poland and
the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Poland published
a joint statement, which declares that "The Seventh-
day Adventist Church cannot be treated either as 'a
new religious movement,' or as a sect," The
statements recognises: "The Adventist Church that
belongs to the Church of Christ has got in Poland
legal regulation of its status, brings the positive
religious and moral values into the life of our
society and with respect relates to the Catholic
Church as well as the other Christian Churches,
religious and social communities in accordance with
the spirit of the Gospel, human rights and principles
of religious liberty and beliefs."