16 MILLENIUMkneeling by the roadside. Never, before or since, has anyone in the People's
Republic enjoyed such a massive display of devotion. Every church in Poland
displayed the banner 'SACRUM POLONIAE MILLENIUM, 966-1966'
(Poland's Sacred Millennium) together with the traditional slogans of 'DEO ET
PATRIAE' (For God and Country); 'POLONIA SEMPER FIDELIS' (Poland
Always Faithful); or 'NAROD Z KOSCIOLEM' (The Nation is with the
Church). In St. Peter's at Rome on 15 May 1966, Pope Paul, assisted by the
Cardinal-Primate's Delegate, Bishop Wladyslaw Rubin, celebrated pontifical
mass in honour of the Polish Province. In Santa Maria Maggiore, in San Andrea
al Quirinale, at Monte Cassino, in Glasgow Cathedral, at Lens in the Pas-de-
Calais, in Detroit, anywhere and everywhere which has Polish connections,
Polish Catholics gathered to make witness of their Faith. In his sermon at
Gniezno, Cardinal Wyszynski made this appeal: 'It is my earnest desire that you
take a hard look at the Past and the Present, and, having learned to love the his-
tory of this Christian nation, that you will see the (present) reality of its
Catholicity with open eyes.'^20 The response was overwhelming.
Not to be outdone, the State-and-Party authorities made preparations of their
own. The Sejm of the People's Republic proclaimed the period 1960-6 to be a
'jubilee of Polish statehood and culture'. Archaeological digs were accelerated
at Gniezno, Kalisz, Wislica, and elsewhere, to illuminate the shady state of
knowledge on life in Mieszko's realm. Processions were staged to emphasize
'the patriotic and progressive traditions of the Polish people across the ages'.
Learned societies held open meetings to discuss the significance of dates and
events. Youth organizations launched a huge, voluntary effort to build 'a thous-
and schools for the thousand years'; and the target was surpassed. Anniversary
celebrations proliferated. In 1960, the 550th anniversary of the Battle of
Grunwald was celebrated (though not the fortieth anniversary of the Battle of
Warsaw). In 1961, the 300th anniversary of the first Polish newspaper,
Merkuriusz Polski, was acclaimed together with the birth of the Press. In 1962,
the 350th anniversary of the Polish occupation of the Kremlin was given a miss.
But in 1963, there was the centenary of the January Rising; in 1964 the sexcen-
tenary of the Jagiellonian University, Poland's senior seat of learning, and the
Twentieth Anniversary of the People's Republic; and in 1965 the Twentieth
Anniversary of the Liberation. Finally on 1 May 1966 all the state-and-party
organs participated in countrywide rallies, receiving the congratulations of fra-
ternal parties and foreign well-wishers, whilst staging colossal processions,
marches, reviews, and dancing in the streets.
Amidst the general rejoicing, it would have been churlish to question the
exact object of the celebrations too closely. Yet, it was clear all along that no
general agreement existed as to what the Millennium (or 'Millenium', as the
Poles will have it) really meant. The Church was celebrating a thousand years
of Christianity. As the introduction to its anniversary album declared: 'it
all began with a christening.' For the Church, the baptism of Mieszko I was
all-important. It was a religious, an ecclesiastical occasion. The state-and-party