Polish traditions in Catholic churches of the Ruhr area

Ruhr-Polish donation inscriptions on altars, mission crosses and a confessional booth
 

Today there are only a few objects with inscriptions referring to Ruhr-Polish donations. It is especially important to highlight the altar of Mary in the St. Barbara Church in Dortmund-Eving. [ ., ., ., . ] There is Polish and German writing on both narrow sides: gewid[met] v[om] S[ank]t Jos[efs] Polenverein in Eving 1900 / Pamiątka od Tawarzytwa (sic!) polskiego św[iętego] Józefa w Eving dnia 19.3.1900 (Donated by Saint Joseph’s Polish Association in Eving 1900). On 9/3/1897, the Ruhr-Polish newspaper “Wiarus Polski” already reported that the local Joseph Association had collected “40.60 marks for an altar in Eving” in the previous year. The parish chronicles of St. Barbara noted that Polish parishioners had donated a total of 4,291 marks for this project in 1900. 

It was a neo-Gothic altar of Mary. The Mother of God is not carrying the Christ child on her arm; as such it does not resemble the depiction in the popular miraculous image of Częstochowa. Instead her hands are folded and with her left foot, as the “new Eva”, she treads on the head of the snake from Paradise holding the apple of temptation in its mouth. Small sculptures of Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anne, are clearly visible on the left and right. 

Around the turn of the century, almost half of the Eving Church parish were immigrants also pursuing national Polish interests. On 30/3/1899, the “Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitung” newspaper reported that the Joseph Association had collected 450 marks that were to be used exclusively for the education of not only Polish-speaking, but also Polish-thinking clerics [quotation according to Brandt, Poland, p. 148]. This took place at the same time as its work for the altar of Mary in St. Barbara.

The Catholic temporary church in Castrop-Rauxel-Schwerin from 1907/08 that was dedicated to the Holy Francis was torn down in 1970 and replaced by an impressive, new modern building. In the course of these measures, a neo-Gothic Mary altar with a Polish donation inscription ended up at the Dioceses Museum in Paderborn and is currently not accessible to the public there. 

In the St. Apostles Church in the Dortmund district of Nordstadt a confessional booth is preserved on which a donation inscription in Polish commemorates the first people’s mission that was held in this place of worship: Pamiątka Missyi świętej 1907 (In remembrance of the Holy Mission 1907). This is surely also an indication that Ruhr-Polish parishioners were able to confess in their native language here. Another inscription is written in Latin: ab occultis meis munda me domine (Free me from my sins, Lord!). The Latin language is a reference to the universal church, to which the Polish-Catholics’ national-religious understanding of faith is also subordinate. A crucifix in St. Apostles Church notes the years of seven people’s missions between 1907 and 1951. However, there is no indication that this cross would have been donated by Ruhr Poles on the occasion of the mission in 1907. The church was closed in 2020; the confessional booth is to be moved elsewhere should the place of worship be deconsecrated in future. [ ., ., ., . ]

A mission cross with a donation inscription in Polish is still at the St. Joseph Church in Dortmund-Nette and is very valued there. The text reads: I, SZA MISYA ŚW W MENGEDE KOL OD I.XII.XIII. DO X.XII.XIII. (First Holy Mission in the Mengede Colony. From 1/12/[19]13 to 10/12/[19]13) By way of clarifying this inscription: The village of Nette had belonged to the Mengede administration since 1889, which was not incorporated as part of Dortmund until 1928. The church parish in Nette only became independent in 1941; beforehand it was a subsidiary parish of the main church St. Remigius in Mengede. The “Mengede Colony” was also part of the Nette subsidiary parish in 1913, and this is evidently what the inscription on the crucifix refers to. [ ., ., . ]

The church parish in Recklinghausen-Hillerheide was also donated a crucifix to mark the occasion of a Polish-speaking people’s mission. A small brass plaque notes: Na pamiątkę Missyi św. 1911 (In remembrance of the Holy Mission 1911). At the beginning of the 21st century, this mission cross was no longer at the modern parish church of St. Gertrudis, erected in 1954 instead of the temporary church of 1908, and instead was stored in one of the church’s own storehouses. Today it belongs to the inventory of RELiGIO, the Westphalian Museum for Religious Culture in Telgte, near Münster. [ ., ., . ]