Kapucyni prowincji polskiej wobec wydarzeń lat 1914-1921

The article presents political and domestic situation of the Polish province of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin between 1914 and 1921. The province witnessed a generational change of guard: friars remembering the secularization of monasteries conducted by Czar authorities in 1864 passed on and were replaced by friars accepted to the order after the tolerance decree of 1905. The number of monasteries increased to four: two old ones in Nowe Miasto nad Pilicą and Łomża, and two newly recovered in Warsaw (in 1918) and Lublin (in 1919). A breakthrough event was the visit by Eligiusz Jensen, the general definitor. Since the definitor ordered the return to old monastery practices, which were neglected after the secularization of 1864, for many friars this was equivalent to regaining independence by Poland. The definitor, in accordance with the requirements of the contemporary law of the order, reduced the Polish province to the rank of a commissariat, since it did not have the required number of friars, and changed its name from “Polish” to “Warsaw”, because another department of the order, the Kraków commissariat, was also within the borders of independent Poland. The only Capuchin who actively participated in the efforts for regaining Polish independence was Wiator Rytel (1883-1942). Other friars, focused on recovering old monasteries, could not take part in these actions.