Abstrakt

Helping a man in need has been an inherent part of Church’s mission since its beginning. The clues concerning bringing help can be found in the Bible. The cradle of the organized forms of help was the Christian East which, as it is in the case of the Basilian history, have been an organization model until now. The Orthodox Church in Poland, after gaining autocephaly, was in a difficult situation, in which organized activity for people in need was difficult to accomplish. Nevertheless, in 1925, Warsaw Metropolitan Society of Charity began its activity, which throughout the interwar period took different initiatives being an answer to existing important social issues. About the full bloom of the aid activity as part of PAKP we can only talk referring to the present times. The beginning of the intensification of the Church’s aid activity dates back to the 1990’s. Limits concerning creating parishes, building new sacred buildings, teaching religion, publishing activity or free contacts with sister Orthodox Churches in other countries were abolished at that time. Following it, they started to build new dioceses which, in a considerable way, facilitated pastoral work and intensified institutional development of Orthodox structures. The development of PAKP within the aid activity resulted in the development of charity centers whose main rule is a broadly defined activity helping different people regardless of their social status, origin or education. As part of these means, there function institutions of round-the-clock care and institutions of protective-educational daily support for children and youth from dysfunctional families. Moreover, the aid activity should include special pastoral work and the activity of community centers as part of which people take action where help is perceived as help in development. In XXI millennium reality, the Church faces the task of shaping a believer whose deepened religious reflection will be displayed, first of all, in a practical dimension, in a merciful attitude towards other people.