For centuries the ancient West Slavic and
Lechitic peoples inhabiting the lands of modern-day Poland have practiced various forms of
paganism known as
Rodzimowierstwo (“
native faith”). From the beginning of its statehood, different religions coexisted in Poland. With the
baptism of Poland in 966, the old
pagan religions were gradually eradicated over the next few centuries during the
Christianization of Poland. However, this did not put an end to pagan beliefs in the country. The persistence was demonstrated by a series of rebellions known as the
Pagan reaction in the first half of the 11th century, which also showed elements of a peasant uprising against landowners and feudalism, and led to a mutiny that destabilized the country. By the 13th century Catholicism had become the dominant religion throughout the country. Nevertheless, Christian Poles coexisted with a significant Jewish segment of the population. In the 15th century, the
Hussite Wars and the pressure from the
papacy led to religious tensions between Catholics and the emergent
Hussite and subsequent Protestant community, particularly after the
Edict of Wieluń (1424). When Poland
was divided between its neighbors in the late eighteenth century, some Poles were subjected to religious discrimination in the newly expanded
German Prussia and
Russia. Prior to the
Second World War, some 3,500,000
Polish Jews (about 10% of the national population) lived in the
Polish Second Republic, largely in cities. Between the
Germano-Soviet invasions of Poland and the
end of World War II, over 90% of Jews in Poland perished.
The Holocaust (called the "
Shoah" in Hebrew) took the lives of more than three million mostly
Ashkenazi Jews in Poland. Comparatively few managed to survive the
German occupation or to escape eastward into the
territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union, beyond the reach of the
Nazi Germany. As elsewhere in Europe during the
interwar period, there was both official and popular
anti-Semitism in Poland, at times encouraged by the Roman
Catholic Church and by some political parties (particularly the right-wing
endecja and small ONR groups and factions), but not directly by the Polish government itself. According to a 2011 survey by
Ipsos MORI, 85% of the
Poles remain
Christians; 8% are
irreligious,
atheist, or
agnostic; 2% adhere to unspecified other religions; and 5% did not answer the question. According to an opinion poll conducted in "a representative group of 1,000 people" by the
Centre for Public Opinion Research (CBOS), published in 2015, 39% of Poles claim they are "believers following the Church's laws", while 52% answered that they are "believers in their own understanding and way", and 5% stated that they are
atheists. == The Polish Constitution and religion ==