THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN POLAND 153Prussia, passed in 1818 to the newly created Archbishop of Warsaw who at the
Tsar's request became head of the Church in the Congress Kingdom over seven
recognized dioceses. These arrangements lasted for the next century, with only
minor alterations. The Archbishop of Breslau, who administered the Church in
Brandenburg as well as in Silesia, and the Bishop of Ermeland (Warmia), whose
competence extended over the whole of Pomerania and West Prussia, were
directly subordinated to the Roman Curia. The See of Cracow, which had
declined to the status of a vacant vicarate, was promoted in 1875 to an
Archbishopric, and was conferred in turn on three of the most powerful Polish
churchmen of their day - Cardinal Albin Dunajewski (1817-94), Cardinal-
Prince Jan Puzyna (1842-1911), and Cardinal-Prince Adam Stefan Sapieha
(1867-1951). In 1925, the Concordat signed by the Vatican with the Polish
Republic re-established a united Polish Province with five metropolitan sees, at
Gniezno-Poznaii, Warsaw, Wilno, Lwow, and Cracow.
The office of Primate underwent similar changes of status. Following the
death by suspected suicide in April 1794 of Michal Jerzy Poniatowski, the King's
brother and last Primate of the Republic, the vacancy was not filled. The pri-
matial dignity was conferred between 1806 and 1818, on Count Ignacy
Raczyriski (1741-1823), Archbishop of Gniezno, who reigned over the Church
in the Duchy of Warsaw and then in the Congress Kingdom. From 1818 to 1829,
it was conferred on his successors in Warsaw, but thereafter never reconfirmed.
In Galicia, it was conferred exceptionally on Archbishop Andrzej Alojzy
Ankwicz of Lwow (1774-1838). Since 1919 the office of Primate of Poland has
returned to the See of Gniezno, and has been held in turn by only three men ~ by
Cardinal Edmund Dalbor (1869-1926), by Cardinal Augustyn Hlond OJB
(1881-1948), and since 1948 by the redoubtable Cardinal Stefan Wyszyriski
(b. 1901).
In the era of the Partitions, the governments of the three Empires did not hes-
itate to intervene in religious affairs in general, and in ecclesiastical matters in
particular. In Austria, the Emperor Joseph II (1780-90) initiated a policy of sub-
ordinating Church to State. Appeals to Rome were forbidden. No papal or epis-
copal decrees could be published without imperial approval. Church schools
and theological seminaries were turned into secular, state-run colleges. Some
hundreds of monastic orders were abolished, and their property confiscated.
In Prussia, the Catholic clergy were supervised by the Protestant Consistory.
The gradual dissolution of monastic property, begun in 1816, contributed to the
upkeep of the secular clergy and to the state educational fund. An acrimonious
dispute in 1839-40 over mixed marriages mirrored the events of the Kulturkampf
of the 1870s.
In Russia, the gracious guarantee of religious liberty proclaimed by Catherine
II at the time of the First Partition stood in marked contrast to the long and sorry
history of persecutions to which the Roman Catholics, and especially the
Uniates, were subjected. In the case of the Catholics, Tsarist policy was designed
to subordinate all ecclesiastical affairs to the direct control of the secular