Konflikt na tle języka liturgicznego w parafii prawosławnej w Legnicy

The Orthodox parish in Legnica was founded, despite many difficulties and the opposition of the authorities, after the displacement of Ukrainian and Carpatho-Russian population of the south-eastern part of Poland to Lower Silesia. The Orthodox celebrated their services in the vestry of the local Evangelical church (in Jawor another parish was formed, later on ransformed into a branch of the Legnica parish), baptisms, weddings and funerals were celebrated, in 1965 they started teaching religion in the parish. Though the orthodox community of Legnica was multinational, it’s the Carpatho-Russians who wanted to have their language taught in school and used as the liturgical language and in the parish life. They appealed to their local bishop, to the metropolitan, finally to the state authorities. For some time the Carpatho-Russians went to local Catholic church for services and for lessons of religion, intending to force the Church authorities to assign the Ruthenian-speaking priest, allow the services in their language. Still all the solutions led to some kind of losses in the local orthodox community. Fortunately the problem observed in the 1970s-1980s in Legnica was exceptional in the whole country since generally the Polish Church authorities did not favour the Ukrainian or Carpatho-Russian national tendencies.