Poland Church Directories

A church directory lists church officials, dioceses, and parishes. The following are some of the many genealogical uses for church directories:


 * They list all the parishes in a diocese, so you can determine if your ancestor’s village had a parish church. Many directories list all villages belonging to a parish.
 * They usually provide the earliest date the parish existed.
 * They may include historical information about each parish.
 * They group parishes by clerical district, so you can easily determine all neighboring parishes.
 * They provide the complete address (phone numbers may be outdated) of parishes and the address of the diocese headquarters.

Church directories exist for all of the dioceses in Poland. The Family History Library has copies of directories for many of the dioceses. Depending on the date of publication, information such as the priest’s name may be out-of-date. The addresses and parish histories are usually still valid.

Church directories are listed in the Family History Library Catalog under:

POLAND - CHURCH DIRECTORIES

POLAND, (COUNTY), (CITY OF DIOCESE) CHURCH DIRECTORIES

To determine which Roman Catholic diocese has jurisdiction over the parish your ancestor lived in, use:


 * Müllerowa, Lidia. Sie. parafialna Kościoła katolickiego w Polsce w 1970–72 r. (Network of Parishes of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland for the years 1970–72). Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, 1975. (FHL book 943.8 K24m; FHL film 1045455.) Beginning on page 66, all Catholic parishes in Poland are listed in alphabetical order with the diocese and deanery to which they belong.

There is a directory for the Protestant parishes that still existed in 1979. To find which towns still have Evangelical Lutheran parishes, see:


 * Kalendarz ewangelicki, 1992. (Evangelical Yearbook, 1992). Warszawa: Zwiastun, 1 991. (FHL book 943.8 K24ke [1992]; film 1183508 item 4 [1979]). Yearbook of the list of evangelical parishes with addresses is found on pages 279–97.


 * Many Lutheran parishes still existing in Poland have their own websites. For central Lutheran Church headquarters, see http://www.luteranie.pl/eng/index.htm (a few pages in English, many more in Polish).  Links to existing church websites can be found there.

Most Catholic dioceses have sites on the Internet where you can obtain information about parishes.