Caritas na pograniczu kulturowym

Abstract

Caritas at the cultural borderline. Roman Catholic standards and the charity of a Greek Catholic Church in Galicia From the very beginning, the development of the forms of organized charity in the Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic Churches revealed a clear disproportion in its scale and dynamics. Massive Polonization of Ruthenian elites caused the Orthodox Church first and then the Greek Catholic one to irrevocably lose wealthy and influential patrons who had been providing patronage not only of the church organizations, but also of all the spheres of church activity, including charity work. In comparison to the Roman Catholic Church, the poor financial situation of the Greek Catholic institution as well as sluggish activity of its clergymen within the community condemned its charity work to a slowdown. In the second half of the 19th century, the recovery of the Greek Catholic Church after a slump and the development of its structures based on the models borrowed from the Roman Catholic church acted as catalysts for the revival of different forms of organized charity in Galicia. It was noticeable in establishing new active congregations modelled after the Roman Catholic ones and setting up modern charitable organizations in all the Greek Catholic dioceses in the Interwar Period.