Polish traditions in Catholic churches of the Ruhr area

Ruhr-Polish veneration of saints
 

The immigrant Poles felt connected to some saints that also enjoyed international veneration. However, their veneration of Mary comprised a specifically nationalistic Polish aspect. In reference to the icon of the “Black Madonna” at the pilgrimage site Częstochowa, the Mother of God was also worshipped as “Queen of Poland” in the Ruhr area. [ ., ., . ] Prussian authorities criticised this veneration as inadmissible nationalistic propaganda. In Essen-Schonnebeck, for example, a church association flag was changed upon police order for this reason; the Madonna portrait was removed.

Holy Joseph, husband of the Mother of God and Jesus’ foster father, was worshipped in the Ruhr area by both German and Polish Catholics. [ ., . ] There were seven churches dedicated to him in the Dortmund city district alone. As a trained carpenter (see. Book of Matthew, 13:55), he is still considered a patron saint by Catholic workers worldwide. 

There is an even closer emotional connection to the mining industry than carpenter Joseph: mining patron saint Barbara. According to widespread legend, Barbara lived in the Roman Empire in late antiquity. Following her conversion to Christianity, her pagan father punished Barbara by locking her in a stone tower and ultimately executing her. In the industrial era the themes of being locked in the darkness and the continual risk of death were interpreted as a link to mining. Barbara was introduced to the Ruhr area as the patron saint of miners by immigrants from Upper Silesia in around 1890. After 1945, her cult received more momentum in Western Germany from Silesian refugees and displaced people. Churches in the Polish (and Czech) mining districts often depict her holding – as in the Ruhr area – a vessel for Communion bread to bring food for the last journey of injured miners. [ ., ., ., . ]

Multiple association names refer to Polish patron saints that were not worshipped in the Ruhr coal district before the industrial era: Kasimir and Hyazinth, Bronisław and Czesław, Wacław and Jadwiga. Jadwiga is Hedwig of Anjou, Queen of Poland from 1373–1399. [ . ] Wojciech und Stanisław Kostka were especially popular in the Ruhr area. Today, pictorial representations of them only exist in two churches in Herne and Recklinghausen. They are presented and interpreted below. [ ., . ]

Ruhr Poles who fought and fell for the German Empire during the First World War are commemorated still in some churches with plaques bearing Polish family names. [ ., . ] The situation changed significantly following the November Revolution of 1918. Many miners moved to the newly founded Polish state or to the coal districts in northern France. Although there was no longer any pressure for Germanisation in the Weimar Republic, an assimilation process for the remaining families in West Germany accelerated at the cost of their Polish identity. At the same time, the appreciation of national Polish traditions in the churches of the Ruhr area declined. 

In the Second World War, some sacred artefacts fell victim to Allied bomb attacks, e.g. a Stanislaus Kostka window in St. Magdalene Church in Dortmund-Lütgendortmund. In many places, liturgical items were replaced by more modern inventory after 1945, including a Mary altar in the Church of Our Lady in Herne-Baukau which was donated in 1900 by the local Polish Brotherhood of the Rosary. In Gelsenkirchen-Schalke there was a much-venerated Madonna of the Rosary, whose dark face resembled the “Queen of Poland in Częstochowa”, for a long time. Even after its rescue from the rubble of the ruined Joseph’s Church, the Mary figure received an honorary place in the temporary church during the post-war period until it was “destroyed to avoid necessary renovation” in the 1960s. [ ., Quote in Brandt, Schalke, p. 391] Meanwhile Duchess Hedwig of Silesia (1174–1243) was canonised as a protective saint for refugees and displaced people who had to find a new home in the Federal Republic of Germany. [ . ]