Fieldnotes, January 30, 2009
( . . . ) Visit at Józek’s house. We sit in the kitchen, in a very vibrant set- ting: a big tile stove, an ensemble of old and new household devices, plastic toys all around the floor. Józek and his wife sit next to me at the table. Their daughter-in-law leans against the stove, keeping the youngest son on her lap. Two other kids run around the kitchen or crawl on the floor. From time to time, one of the adults goes to the stable to feed the cattle. When I arrive, the hosts ask me if I want to eat a plate of tomato soup and potato dumplings; it feels good.
The daughter-in-law is mostly silent, while Józek’s wife tries to outshout her husband. Józek settled in the village when most other Poles did, in 1947. His wife, of Lemko origins, was born in the vil- lage; her father was Polish so the family was allowed to stay. Despite this fact, Józek believes he knows the local history much better than she does. For instance, he makes fun of the alleged cooperation of Lemkos with the UPA as the reason for Operation Vistula, seeing it as illogical: “Ukrainians? Here? We are so far from Ukraine!” At the same time, he says that in 1947 “real” Poles were brought to the area.
All in all, the couple’s account conforms to a now familiar narrative:
first a discussion of resettlements; then a debate on whether com- munism was bad or good; then an account about ex-communists who today occupy the first benches in the church; then the argument that Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to have wives. Eventually, they begin to tell me about the different denominations that inhabit the district:
“There is us, that is Roman Catholics. There are Ruthenians (Rusini), i.e., Lemkos, i.e., Orthodox . . . Then there are Greek Catholics, you know: neither fish nor fowl . . . There are Jehovah’s Witnesses (Jehowi)—in our peasant way we call them ‘tomcats’ (kociarze)1 . . . Then
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there are Baptists or Pentecostals, God only knows . . . And there are Buddhists—those would not even kill a fly!” ( . . . )
In my notes following this encounter, I entered a short comment:
“counting religious communities is undoubtedly the most popular local sport.” Indeed, most of inhabitants I talked to wanted to share with me their knowledge about local religious denominations. They often disagreed, providing an overstated number of different religious confessions and citing examples of communities that they presume settled in the district. Although some of the descriptions had a derog- atory undertone, these were often used in a nonreflective way; I wit- nessed very few conversations in which a pejorative term was employed consciously. Usually, the aim of providing me with the list of all the religious communities laid in highlighting both the uniqueness of the area and the distinctiveness of its inhabitants, who were presented as having developed their own “ecumenism.” However, my conversation with Józek and his wife, above, also provides a glimpse of the ambi- guities inscribed in the discourse on and the practice of diversity. The different ways in which local people “make pluralism” demonstrate communities’ constant balancing between the ideas of sameness and difference, as well as the equivocal outcomes of this process. Despite the activities of numerous inhabitants and policies of local leaders that downplay religious and ethnic divisions, local ecumenism turns out to be very fragile. For all the variations of ethnic, religious, and ethno- religious identities, a Lemko is still always expected to be a cerkiew member and a “real” Pole is still always a Catholic. Concurrently, a religious conversion, frequent in this religiously dynamic area, often entails an ethnic conversion as well.
This phenomenon of the ethnicization of religion and the relation between religion and ethnicity2 more broadly have been addressed by numerous scholars, who compare the importance of religion with that of language (Lockwood 1981), highlight the role of clergymen as ethnic communities’ leaders (Verdery 1985), and discuss the func- tion of religious institutions in the life of ethnic communities (Enloe 1980).3 Their studies demonstrate that religion is a powerful vehicle for expressing ethnicity, given religion’s normative, community- building, and institutional aspects. In light of above remarks on religious-ethnic conversions, it is worth referring these observations to Fredrik Barth’s landmark theory of ethnic boundaries (1969).
Engaging critically with Barth’s conception and two analytical trends that developed out of his work—“circumstantial/situational” and
“constructionist” approaches—Eriksen (1991) and Cornell (1996)
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contend that at the center of an analysis of intergroup relations should be—to paraphrase Barth—the ethnic boundaries that define the group and the cultural “stuff” that the boundaries enclose. Cornell observes that a focus on ethnic identity as a “contingent, volitional, negotiated phenomenon,” should not disregard the fact that “identity, however produced, is both prism and tool through which people interpret and conceptually construct the world” (1996: 267). Distinguishing three types of ethnic attachments—related to interests, institutions, and culture—he argues that these factors interact with external conditions and ultimately influence the patterns of ethnic persistence and change (1996: 268). Religion can be thus perceived as the “tie that binds”
ethnic groups: allows them to perpetuate their ethnic identities and encompasses all three dimensions identified by Cornell. These obser- vations highlight the role of lived religion as a means of expressing eth- nic identity4 but they fail to explain how religion and ethnicity became so normatively entangled in the first place, such that it is expected that a Pole must be a Roman Catholic. Indeed, the bond between Polishness and Catholicism is imbued with so much normative mean- ing that this “tie” appears natural even to non-Catholics.
Henceforth, scrutinizing the complex entanglements between eth- nic and religious identities must constitute the first step in getting familiar with the local religious landscape. I take this step by, first, describing the village of Leśna, inhabited “only” by Roman Catholics and two Eastern Christian denominations. Nonetheless, this focus does not mean leaving aside other religious communities inhabit- ing the area. Quite the contrary, only by examining the relation- ship between Catholicism and Polishness and that between Eastern Christianity and Lemko identity is it possible to understand why the idea of “Pentecostal Lemkos” or “Buddhist Poles” gains little trac- tion in the area and to make sense of the impact of religious-ethnic bonds on the shape of pluralism.
Mapping Pluralism
Leśna, by local standards a middle-size village (around 400 people), is inhabited by Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Greek Catholics.
The latter accounts for only a few families, while the number of Roman Catholics slightly exceeds the number of Orthodox. Most of the inhabitants work in agriculture. Other sources of income include work in the stud horse farms and the rapidly growing area of farm tourism. The village has a grammar school with a public library, a health center, two shops, and a village room where official meetings
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and cultural activities take place. Inhabitants of all denominations bury their dead in the common village cemetery, but they pray in two different shrines: the Orthodox community uses a small chapel while Greek Catholics and Roman Catholics share a cerkiew. Since the mid-1960s, the social life of the village has been organized by a thriving Circle of Rural Housewives, which cooperates closely with the local school, parishes, and two men’s associations: the Voluntary Fire Brigade and the Hunters’ Club. Leśna is considered to be a well-organized village community that socializes, cooperates, and works across ethno-religious divisions. Although no Pentecostals or Jehovah’s Witnesses live in the village, both groups are well known by the inhabitants, and the Witnesses praise the inhabitants of Leśna as the most hospitable of the local villages. Leśna’s hospitality is also praised by recent newcomers, who, enchanted by the tranquility of the area and accessibility of the plots,5 have built summerhouses there. As in Marilyn Strathern’s account of rural England, newcom- ers are surprised to find that there is little public life in the village and that it lacks a well-delineated “open forum” (1984: 53). In fact, public life in Leśna, as in all the localities in Rozstaje, takes the form of microscale encounters among neighbors, school visitors, or people who gather outside the shop for a beer.
In discussing interreligious conviviality, inhabitants emphasize that the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox priest, both of whom live in the village, are very close friends, and set a good example. The priests in question echo this sentiment, emphasizing that they don’t just strive to be present at each other’s important religious celebra- tions, they also socialize in private. They are both in their early for- ties and share many interests. The Orthodox priest’s sons refer to the Roman Catholic priest as “uncle,” and he often joins the Orthodox priest’s family for dinner. During the religious festivities I attended, the priests often reminded their parishioners about the other parish’s festivities or holidays (which, by the way, seemed unnecessary given that familiarity with both religious calendars is deeply ingrained in the local knowledge). In contrast, apart from the village events and ecu- menical services that involve all three clergymen, the Greek Catholic priest is virtually absent from village life. This can be attributed to neither the small number of Greek Catholics nor the fact that the priest resides in a neighboring village. Rather, the crucial factor is the specific configuration of relations between the three creeds. Although both Orthodoxy and Greek Catholicism are considered “Lemko churches,” the position of the latter in Rozstaje is much weaker. The religious history, or, more precisely, histories of Leśna illustrate this
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point, accounting for the observation of Agnieszka Halemba (in press) that the specific ways of practicing Christianity have more to do with local histories than with characteristics of “Orthodoxy” or
“Catholicism” as some kind of theological ideal.
Data regarding the population of Leśna at the outbreak of the Second World War vary; although the registers from the late 1930s recorded only Greek Catholics and a few Roman Catholic and Jewish families, the village chronicler observed that “some people deep down belonged to the Orthodox.”6 No Orthodox shrine had been built in the village at that point, but the village was undoubt- edly a site of clashes between “pro-Ukrainian” and “pro-Rusyn”
leaders, the latter associated with the Orthodox creed. The original Greek Catholic cerkiew burned down in 1915 and was rebuilt in 1938. While the church was being rebuilt, the Greek Catholics had prayers in a small chapel. After Operation Vistula, the rebuilt church was taken over by the Roman Catholics, with the eventual return of some Greek Catholic Lemkos in the 1950s. Over the next two decades, fierce conflicts revealed the complexity of religious and ethnic identifications and the clash of very different understandings of “tradition” and “religious belonging.” The first disagreement arose in the early 1970s. At that time, a Greek Catholic priest, who avoided imprisonment and resided in a neighboring village, would come sporadically to the village to say mass in the Eastern rite. On Good Friday (according to the Julian calendar), he was arrested by communist security service when he came to Leśna for a service, and the Greek Catholics’ setting of the Holy Sepulcher was demolished.
While Roman Catholics explain the event in terms of communists’
fight against Greek Catholicism, Greek Catholics assign the fault to local Roman Catholics who, as they recall, shouted “we do not want to have Ukraine here!” while destroying the Holy Sepulcher. They also blame the then Roman Catholic priest, a very influential and hateful clergyman, who went so far as to forbid his parishioners to speak to Lemkos. Afterwards, the Orthodox priest from a neighbor- ing village came to say mass for the local Lemkos. Thanks, in part, to the support of the authorities, who used Orthodoxy to counter the remaining Greek Catholic influences, and the Lemkos’ wish to worship according to the Eastern rite, Orthodoxy was established in the village, attracting most of local Lemkos. The Lemkos renovated the old wooden chapel, which had been repurposed as a storehouse after the war, decorated it with icons from a museum and used for their prayers the ornamental Bible that used to belong to Greek Catholics.
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The second conflict took place at the beginning of the 1980s.
After a morning mass, Roman Catholics and Greek Catholics (i.e., those who did not join the Orthodox church) locked themselves in the church as it was surrounded by the Orthodox population. The reason for the “siege” was the demand of the Orthodox to be able to worship in the cerkiew, too, as the small wooden chapel turned out to be insufficient for the community’s needs. Apart from a few nursing mothers, the people inside the church remained there all day, until the Orthodox priest finally sent his parishioners home. The clash proved unsuccessful, and the Orthodox continued to pray in the wooden chapel. Once again, however, retellings of the event vary, with some people arguing that the issue was really one of communist security services trying to disturb religious practices.
There have also been conflicts between the two Catholic com- munities. In 1985, the Greek Catholic parish was reactivated and in 2004 the shrine was officially given back to its original owners. The decision was controversial, with conflict fuelled by the two respec- tive priests at the time. Both communities claim rights to the shrine, either as rightful owners or as the largest congregation. Today, the shrine continues to be used by both confessions, and though the small Greek Catholic community is now the exclusive “owner,” it struggles financially to maintain the shrine.
Finally, the last conflict occurred between Roman Catholics on one side and the Orthodox and Greek Catholics on the other. In this case, the disagreement centered around the introduction of the village sign in the Lemko language.7 The idea was met with hostility by the Roman Catholics, provoking animosities among people who were otherwise close neighbors and friends. Even though the con- flict regarded an ethnic issue—the rights of an ethnic minority and recognition of its language—it was framed in religious terms; Greek Catholic and Orthodox Lemkos spoke about Roman Catholics’
deceitfulness and hypocrisy and emphasized the Roman Catholic clergy’s opposition to the sign.
Present-day relations between Greek Catholics, Orthodox, and Roman Catholics continue to be ambiguous. They can be seen, alter- nately, as illustrating the unquestionable similarities and closeness of the three creeds, or the hostility and competition that continues to divide them. But while the local realm is marked by changeable
“alliances,” the position of Greek Catholics often turns out to be most precarious, precisely given their intermediary position between Roman Catholics, with whom they share the dogmas, and the Orthodox, with whom they share the liturgy. At the level of church
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authorities, this status of being “neither fish nor fowl” translates into lack of support from either of the other churches; Orthodox priests perceive Greek Catholics as traitors or dissenters, while local Roman Catholic clergymen are often unaware of the fact that Greek Catholics are members of the same church. Relations between the three creeds are much less straightforward at the level of the faithful, illustrating the tension between dogmatic and practical aspects of religious creeds as well as the dynamics between local religious and ethnic identities, which requires a more detailed elaboration.
In his discussion of “Christianity’s internal frontier,” Chris Hann (1988) notes that “‘ethnicity’ in South-East Poland cannot be reduced to any simple theory of national identity [ . . . ] it is quite possible to be a ‘Lemkian’ at one level, a Ukrainian at another, an Orthodox Slav at another, and a loyal Polish citizen in yet other contexts” (12).
The local people’s identifications are indeed multilayered; not only do they vary in importance but they are also differentially activated according to context through “situation selection” (Evans-Pritchard 1963 [1940]). Unlike in other biethnic and bireligious contexts (e.g., Driessen 1991; Cecil 1993; Pelkmans 2003), in Rozstaje ethnicity can rarely be ascribed to a particular religious identification and even a purely analytical presentation turns out to be quite problematic.
Taking “Poles” and “Lemkos” as two ideal-types, it is possible to describe the local mosaic as follows. In general, the Lemkos belong to either the Greek Catholic or the Orthodox Church, both churches are perceived by Lemkos and by other religious communities as “Lemko churches.” Among the Lemkos, there are also numerous Pentecostals, some Adventists, and some Jehovah’s Witnesses. While the members of the former (Pentecostals) tend to highlight their Lemko identity, the latter (Jehovah’s Witnesses) rarely do so as it is seen as diverging from their creed. As for the Poles, the majority belong to the Roman Catholic Church, but they can also be found among the other reli- gious congregations: Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists, and Buddhists. There are also Poles who attend the Orthodox or the Greek Catholic Church because of family ties, usually marriage;
this is even more common among Lemkos who joined the Roman Catholic community. Further, the description of ethnic and reli- gious identities needs to be supplemented by the Polish civic identity, which also opens a wide field of possibilities. Some Lemkos consider themselves to be simultaneously Lemko and Polish, expressing their attachment to two traditions and two identities. Others clearly distin- guish between their ethnic Lemko identity and their Polish citizen- ship, and still others are hostile toward the Polish identification and
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stress either their Ukrainian identity or claim that the Lemkos are a separate nation (see Michna 1995). And then there are the Buddhists or Pentecostals who, although “ethnically” Polish, may perceive their Polishness quite differently from the way Polish Catholics understand it and, by the same token, their Polishness may be questioned by the Polish majority.
This last observation highlights the problem of self-definition versus the ascription of ethnic difference (Jenkins 1997: 53), and hence the question who and on what basis someone can be defined as Polish or Lemko. The view of Pentecostals who consider them- selves to be Lemkos has to be understood in relation to the opinions of the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Lemkos who do not consider them to be Lemkos. Indeed, for many Eastern Christian Lemkos, a Lemko who does not attend a cerkiew is an oxymoron, a contradic- tion in terms. A similar relation, albeit one that involves even more charged emotions and is highly dependent on the sociohistorical circumstances, exists between Orthodox and Greek Catholics in places like Leśna, where Lemkos can choose to participate in either Orthodox or Greek Catholic services and then claim one of the churches to be “truly Lemko.” Another example of the complexity of these identifications is the local perception of the small group of Buddhists: the inhabitants who had never met them often sug- gested to me that “they must be foreigners” or asked me whether the Buddhists know Polish. All these examples demonstrates a para- doxical composition of religious and ethnic differences: on the one hand, it is impossible to attribute one religious denomination to one ethnic group, but, on the other hand, there are clear expectations and assumptions regarding how these forms of identity map onto one another. Thanks to this widespread “ethnicization of religion,”
there are many circumstances in which self-ascription and categori- zation by others collide.
Further complicating this picture is the prevalence of religious (and ethnic) conversion. Though the act itself means different things to different people and varies widely in terms of “degree,” conversion is part of numerous family biographies. In the case of Lemkos, either their parents or they themselves left the Greek Catholic Church for the Orthodox or began to attend the Roman Catholic Church.
To all this must be added conversions (albeit often temporary) to Pentecostalism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Adventism. The process of conversion continues, and it does so in various “directions.” It is, per- haps, most perceptible in the case of Roman Catholicism, a denomi- nation that gains new members thanks to assimilatory tendencies