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Last month Poland crowned Jesus Christ as King (though technically the coronation didn't make clear what he was king of). Functionally and legally the move makes no difference to the way the Polish constitution or government works. But nor was this some empty gesture made as a protest against the way in which Poland is run – among those at the coronation in Krakow was the Polish President Andrzej Duda.
It all seems faintly ludicrous. For me it conjured up images of cabinet meetings with Jesus descending from heaven to have a quick say on infrastructure investment. Of course the real point is a powerful piece of state-sponsored symbolism – a statement of the centrality of (Catholic) Christian identity to the Polish nation.
In that respect this is only the latest flashpoint in the difficult working out of relationships between state and Church in the post-Communist era. There is no doubt that the Catholic Church continues to have considerable cultural power in Poland. During this communist era it acted as a reminder of a national identity against Russian oppression – not least in the person of John Paul II. The recent World Youth day gives some sense of the continued power.
However, how that relates to political presence, privilege and authority has always been a more vexed question. In a sense under communism things were more easily understood. What is the role of the Church today? After a remarkable initial revival in the numbers of Poles calling themselves religious in the 1990s, today Polish Catholic numbers are , so far as can be easily ascertained, in a mild decline – particularly among younger Poles. An association with conservative values and politics can, and at times does, lead to the Church finding itself in alliance with right wing and nationalist parties.
This is the crucial context for the crowning of Jesus. Poland has form in this area. In 1656 John II Casimir (Jan II Kazimierz Waza) crowned the Virgin Mary as Queen of Poland. Nor is it first time that making Jesus king has been mooted in 21st century Poland. A movement to have Jesus crowned has roots back to the vision of a nurse in 1900s who foresaw the demise of Poland without Jesus as king. This led to a campaign in 2006, which was led by a number of parliamentarians, but failed for a lack of support both in parliament and from a rather lukewarm Church.
The interesting question is to ask what’s changed? Why in 2006 was this motion widely dismissed but in 2016 Poland went ahead and crowned Jesus? Poland is not more religious now than it was in 2006 (the census of 2002 compared to that of 2011 indicates a slight decline in Catholic numbers, though significantly less than in Western Europe). The real change, in common with that across Europe, is in self-confidence in national identity. In 2006 the motion was dismissed because no one really cared. A really powerful gesture of Poland’s Christian identity was simply not felt to be required.
In the intervening years the collapse of confidence in institutions, and the pervasive fear of refugees and Islam has shattered the complacency of European states in their own values and identities. Populist parties, of both the right and left, are growing in power and influence across the continent precisely because of a fear that who we are and what we stand for is no longer assumed. The more these things are not assumed the more dramatic the gestures being made to shore up what’s left. Crowning Jesus king of Poland is a gesture of that sort. It does not come from a place of confidence or strength, but from a fear that Christianity is under siege, and the nation state with it.
All Christians, of course, recognise Jesus as Lord. But that statement is no more true in Poland after this coronation than it was the day before. The Kingdom of God, it ought to go without saying, will never be synonymous with any single nation-state. This crowning is a statement, but not of the strength of Christian Europe, quite the reverse. It reveals only the siege mentality that is taking force everywhere.
Ben Ryan is Researcher at Theos | @BenedictWRyan
Image by roDesignment, via Pixabay, available under CreativeCommons
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