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    Published: 22024-11-29 — Updated on 2024-11-29

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    Vol. 66 No. 3 (2024)

    Equal before the law or discriminated? The legal status of religious minorities in Poland

    Tadeusz Zieliński

    https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1195-0637
    https://doi.org/10.36124/rt.2024.22

    Abstract

    According to the provisions of the Polish Constitution, all religious communities have equal rights. Adherence to this principle is guaranteed, among other things, by the imperative of worldview neutrality on the part of the public authorities, which includes the duty of state institutions and representatives to maintain an equal distance from all churches and other religious associations. However, the huge statistical predominance of the Catholic Church in Polish society has made this church into the main recipient of state services to religious communities since the 1989 political breakthrough. In this state of affairs, it is important to determine whether or not the standard of equal rights for religious denominations in Poland is not illusory. This paper reviews the crucial issues in which religious minorities are at risk of discrimination. It starts with an outline of the sizes of the denominations covered by the population census, followed by a description of the legal framework for individual and collective freedom of conscience and religion. A significant part of the paper is devoted to the behaviour of state authorities (administrative practice), especially in the years 2015–2023, when the political groups in power in Poland carried out the destruction of the democratic rule of law and openly declared their ties to Roman Catholicism. The author’s analyses reveal a complex, dynamically changing picture (including changes for the better). Despite many shortcomings in the area of legislation and many unacceptable actions of state representatives in recent years, Poland remains a country in which religious minorities enjoy wide-ranging freedoms and rights.

    Keywords:

    Relations between state and religious communities, Religious minorities, Equality before law, Rule of law, Worldview neutrality of public authorities

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    Zieliński, T. (2024). Equal before the law or discriminated? The legal status of religious minorities in Poland. Theological Yearbook, 66(3), 589–626. https://doi.org/10.36124/rt.2024.22

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