There`s a struggle going on in downtown Warsaw, a little battle over a square block of land.
There`s a gas station there and a car wash, not to mention the State Operetta of Warsaw. The Roman Catholic Church wants it all.
The property claim is among 3,000 that the church has filed across Poland since the Communist regime fell in 1989. The claim appears perfectly legal, but that hasn`t calmed emotions on the block.
”Look, there`s a school across the street-do they want that too?” asked Stanislaw Szuwalski, who has worked at the gas station for 10 years.
”And there`s the Marriott Hotel. Are they going to ask for it? They should ask for the Marriott-not our place. The priest could have his parish house there, a really nice one.”
Indeed the Marriott, Warsaw`s most elegant hotel, is across Emilii Plater Street and kitty-corner to the gas station. It is choice downtown real estate in a city where prices are skyrocketing.
Until a government decree nationalized it in the 1940s, the block was owned by the Catholic Church. St. Barbara`s Church still occupies part of the block, but what had been the parish garden is now the gas station said the priest, Rev. Stefan Kosnik. A concert hall became the State Operetta.
St. Barbara`s claim for the property is No. 176 of the 3,000 filed by the Catholic Church, according to Jozef Boldak, a member of Poland`s Property Commission. Since 1990, the commission has been handling church demands for the return of property seized during the Communist era.
”The commission`s task is to settle all the Catholic Church`s claims in a friendly way,” Boldak said.
Not all have been friendly.
In Krakow there was a fight over a building being used as an orphanage, Boldak said. Warsaw University is protesting the return of a church building that now houses its political science and journalism departments.
And there is dismay among those who work for the State Operetta.
”The church administration has said it can`t run an operetta because it`s not a proper thing for a church administration to do,” said Jacek Jarzyna, the operetta`s director.
”I understand that law is law,” Jarzyna said. ”But this operetta`s character is very special, and there`s only one place like it in town. . . . The operetta serves our society-our Polish society. It is us that it serves. It`s unjust to blindly give everything back to the church.”
Kosnik said the church is working on a compromise that would allow the businesses to continue operating-at least temporarily. And he says the block`s history clearly shows the church`s right to claim it.
Donations from priests paid for the operetta building, which originally was called Roma, Kosnik said. ”It was built by the church, completed in 1936.”
The building had a concert hall that was used for parliament`s sessions after the Nazis destroyed most of Warsaw. After parliament moved, the state gave Roma to the opera and later to the operetta, despite protests from the church.
Many Poles feel the Catholic Church is not only the rightful owner but the best owner of some seized properties, such as hospitals or orphanages. Others fear the church is getting too powerful now that the nation is free of Communist domination.
”The church had buildings where there are now nurseries, kindergartens, schools and hospitals, and they`re saying, `This is ours. We`re going to take it.` And they don`t necessarily guarantee that the kindergarten or hospital will remain,” Jarzyna said.
In the case of the Warsaw block, the law ”leaves no doubt” that the church`s claim is legal, Boldak said.
The state has expanded the operetta building to twice its size. The state-run gas station employs several people, and the same family has run the car wash for more than 30 years.
”This is how we make our living and support our family,” said Maria Zielinska, who runs the car wash with her husband.
Soon their fate will be decided. Proceedings have started in 875 of the 3,000 church cases, including St. Barbara`s, said Stefan Wasilewicz, the commission`s secretary.
”Of those, 225 have been decided, and I can say that two-thirds were settled on the side of the church,” he said.
More than 90 percent of Poles are Catholic, and half the commission`s members represent the church. Commission decisions are final, but cases can be taken to court if there`s a tie vote.
Though the church can claim its seized property, parliament is still debating a bill that would allow individuals to do so. The government is hesitating, Wasilewicz said, because those claims could total some 130 trillion zlotys ($10 billion).
Financially, the government can handle the church cases more easily. At times, though, the claims may go too far.
Catholic officials reached back to 1867, when Poland was split among three empires, to claim the building now used by Warsaw University`s political science and journalism departments. That claim`s legality will be decided by the Constitutional Tribunal, Wasilewicz said.
”And some Warsaw church came in about property taken during the reign of one of our kings, 300 years ago,” he said. ”We sent them away.”
