It all started with an internet forum. Or rather, I should say – two internet forums. In 2006 the Lutheran Church in Poland launched the pastoral webpage duszpasterz.pl*, which included the “Defragmentacja” (“Defragmentation”) forum. It soon got interest from Lutherans from all over Poland, and it wasn’t long until tensions arose between conservative and more liberal factions. Eventually, in January 2010, a group of users decided to leave “Defragmentacja” and start their own forum, “Konfesyjni” (“Confessional [Lutherans]”), where administrators embraced orthodox Lutheran theology. Soon, more and more people joined the new forum (which remained active until early 2025). To its first administrator, Tomasz Płaziński, it became clear that there was potential for something more than just an internet discussion board.
In 2011, the konfesyjni.pl webpage was established and a year later was officially registered as the journal “Konfesyjni”. The webpage started publishing articles, sermons, and news about the Lutheran Church in Poland. An important contribution came from Rev. Jan Gross, who was a former chairman of the Church Synod and a well-known pastor with many connections. In 2011, he started organising liturgical retreats, which became a biannual opportunity for “Konfesyjni” forum members to meet in person. In 2013, the fanpage “Luteranie Konfesyjni” was founded on Facebook.
This dynamic development came to an abrupt end in 2014 when Rev. Gross passed away. Meetings in person were not continued. Activity on the portal started to decrease. Over time, the messages on the “Konfesyjni” forum also started to appear less frequently. It seemed that the young confessional movement would slowly decline.
Thank God, this wasn’t the case. In the late 2010s, the new administrators of the portal, Aleksander Bieriezjanczuk and Grzegorz Żarnecki, started posting new articles more frequently. Then came the pandemic, and in the new reality of 2020, the online vespers (with Rev. Jakub Retmaniak’s contribution) and the online convention were organised for the followers of the “Konfesyjni” journal. The next year, the convention was organised in person with several editions more in the following years.
In the meantime, a moment of trial came. October 2020 brought political and cultural divisions in Poland to a whole new level. The Constitutional Tribunal ruled that a legal abortion in the case of a fetus’s disability conflicts with the Polish constitution. As a result, the existing status quo in Polish legislation was ended after over 20 years. Massive protests broke out. The Roman-Catholic Church was seen as the main advocate of pro-life views. For the first time in modern Polish history, the numerous acts of vandalism were directed against church properties.
Most of the Polish Lutherans were mildly sympathetic with the protestors. The statement issued by bishops said that the Church should give testimony about morality but not force it on others through legislation. The Lutheran congregation in Wrocław communicated that it “supports free choice”. However, the most controversial blow came from the Synodal Commission for Women, which published an appeal where abortion was referred to as a “reproductive right”. At this point, “Konfesyjni” had to react.
After several days of preparation, a statement was published on “Konfesyjni”. It was deliberately written with a focus not on the legal status of abortion, but rather on the moral evaluation. To start with, authors took the biblical truth that man was created in the image of God [Gen 1:27]. Subsequently, various historical Christian positions followed, which embraced the value of the unborn life (including, importantly, the teaching of the Polish Lutheran Church from 1991). The statement clearly communicated that, from the Christian perspective, abortion is evil. It was signed by 39 members of the Church and was cited by another internet journal. Altogether, the statement received over 25 thousand views. Never before has any initiative of our portal received such support and attention. This was very encouraging.
The year 2021 opened a new chapter in the history of our movement. Based on the initiative of Grzegorz Żarnecki, Mateusz Minkus, and Igor Mędela, a new legal entity was created: Evangelical Association of Confessional Lutherans (Ewangelickie Stowarzyszenie Luteran Konfesyjnych – ESLK). The official goals of the association are evangelization, religious worship, and promoting knowledge about confessional Lutheran church bodies. Currently, there are 10 members of ESLK, including 2 ordained pastors. The current rules for new people to join the association are quite inclusive. An informal policy, accepted in 2022, consists of 5 necessary points that each candidate must agree with: (1) Scripture is inspired by God, (2) Luther explained faithfully the meaning of sacraments in his Small Catechism, (3) Christian marriage is sanctified by God as a union of one woman and one man, (4) the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” includes unborn human life, (5) according to Scripture the office of overseer within the Church is intended for men. These five points correspond to contemporary controversies within Lutheranism and set the frame for opinions within the association.
Soon after the ESLK association was established, the mainline Lutheran Church in Poland introduced women’s presbyter ordination – a move that was met with strong disapproval from most of the association’s members. This fact was even recognized by sociologist Ryszard Michalak in the final chapter of the monograph “Religion and identity. Political conditions”. The author noted: To put it bluntly, confessional Lutherans in Poland are concerned that the increased empowerment of women in the Church is evidence of the growing “Swedishness” of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland and the drift from the Sola Scriptura model towards the Sola Cultura model (…) the Church of Sweden is not so much a promoter of faith ideas as a community commited to solving social problems. Services have the character of social gatherings, and the church is a place to relax and enjoy time with others. (…) Confessional Lutherans in Poland are therefore concerned that adopting the Swedish model will bring a change in theology, abandoning evangelism in favor of social activism, turning pastoral care into psychotherapy, and bring targeted one-sided political activism [R. Michalak (ed.): Religion and identity. Political conditions, 2023, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlag, ISBN 978-3-525-30220-0, pp. 273-4].
In late 2022, members of ESLK agreed that they would like to meet every month in person for liturgical prayer. Several locations were taken into account, including the mainline Lutheran Church parish in Katowice. In May 2023, bishop Marian Niemiec excluded such a possibility, and soon after, the ESLK Representative Grzegorz Żarnecki decided that the best venue would be the Presbyterian congregation in Kraków. In the meantime, Żarnecki contacted the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod to probe about the perspectives on launching a mission in Poland. The first responses were rather cautious; however, in June 2023, pastors from Prague (Martin Damašek and Dale Kaster) expressed interest in visiting Kraków once a month and participating in the services organized by ESLK. Thus, the informal LCMS mission was brought to Kraków. Since September 2023, the monthly Eucharist has been celebrated.
The year 2024 brought closer cooperation with confessional Lutherans from Czechia. One-day liturgical workshop was organized in Český Těšín, with participation of both Czech and Polish Lutherans. Additionally, the Representative of ESLK was invited to the first official meeting of the Lutheran Confessional Alliance, a newly founded Czech NGO. These new relations encouraged several members of ESLK to join the Prague congregation led by pastor Martin Damašek.
Everything indicates that in the coming years, the development of confessional Lutheranism in Poland will be strongly supported by the alliance with the Czechs. With that, a small crack in Polish Lutheranism appeared. No longer does the mainline Church represent all Poles who subscribe to the Augsburg Confession. A new confessional congregation is not quite there yet, but the stage for growth has been set.
Grzegorz Żarnecki, 25.10.2025
*(1) The official name of the Church is Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland (Kościół Ewangelicko-Augsburski w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej). It consists of approximately 60,000 members. (2) The word “duszpasterz” literally means “shepherd of souls”. It is commonly used as a synonym for a Christian minister.
