New Scripture a symbol
of church unity in Poland

WARSAW, Poland — The recent launch of the common language Polish interconfessional New Testament and Psalms marked a “milestone in Polish ecumenical relations and a historical event for all Polish churches”, according to Barbara Enholc-Narzynska, General Secretary of the Bible Society in Poland (BSP).

The new Scripture, dedicated on September 26, is part of an ongoing project begun in 1995 as a joint effort by 11 churches to translate the whole Bible. The project, which produced its first fruits in 1997 – the Gospels of Matthew and Mark – was welcomed by Pope John Paul II as an encouraging sign of church unity in the country (see World Report 322/2).

As a symbol of their acceptance of the new translation, the leaders of the participating churches – the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, the Evangelical Church of Augsburg, the Evangelical Reformed Church, the Evangelical Methodist Church, the Polish Catholic Church, the Old Catholic Church of the Mariavites, the Baptist Church, the Pentecostal Church, the Church of Christ and the Seventh-day Adventist Church – signed copies of the New Testament and Psalms.

“Such a visible expression of unity between representatives of Poland’s main churches and others from the minority free churches, such as the Pentecostals, Seventh-day Adventists and so on, is practically unknown, and it underlines the fact that the Bible is the mother of ecumenism and unity,” said Mrs Enholc-Narzynska in an earlier report about the translation project.

“We trust that the new common language translation will raise the profile of both the Bible and the Bible Society in Poland – a country which we feel is dominated by secular values, obsessed by the electronic media and held back by poverty brought about by the 18 per cent unemployment rate.”

When complete, the new common language Polish Bible will the first truly interconfessional Bible in the Polish language – previous translations were produced separately by either Protestant churches or the Roman Catholic Church and were only accepted within their respective denominations.

Protestant churches are currently using an edition of the Polish Bible published in 1975 through a collaboration between Protestant denominations, while Roman Catholics are using an edition translated in 1599 and most recently revised in 1962.