The Archbishop of Białystok Romuald Jałbrzykowski and His Curia’s Efforts to Release Priests Arrested in the USSR After the Second World War

Abstract

After World War II had ended, the Soviet authorities expelled the Metropolitan Archbishop of Vilnius Romuald Jałbrzykowski from Vilnius. He ended up in Białystok, where he established the structures of the local Church known today as the Archdiocese of Białystok. Persecuted and imprisoned by the NKVD, Archbishop Romuald Jałbrzykowski did not forget the priests of the Archdiocese of Vilnius, who were detained, imprisoned, and/or sent to labor camps in the summer of 1945. He made efforts to work with the Polish People’s Republic to release those who were being detained. The leaders of the Communist Party in Poland considered the archbishop an enemy of the socialist regime that prevailed in Poland after World War II had ended.