Why are Polish so conservative and religious?

As ever it's impossible to generalise too much about 40 million people, however yes, there are a lot of sweary people in PL.

Are they unhappy because you're dating a lot of men, because they're British, or because they're customers in a strip club?

IMO the type of men who spend a lot of time in such places are not great at respecting women, so I could understand if your family had reservations for that reason.

Oh please... the "conservative and religious" thing is just a front.

What do you expect? They are in Poland, the home of the Pope John Paul (even though he's dead).

In home ground Poland, they are more influenced by parents, relatives, priests, bishop, and whatever conservative, moral and religious stuff they're being brain-washed with since young. So you'll see the mommy's boy, daddy's girl type characters all over Poland creeping up. Shy, reserved but deep down, their young souls are screaming to get out of that skin.

I tell you what, with globalization and foreign businesses and rich investors coming in (if they do, and usually it's because of some other obvious reasons), Polish people will soon become less conservative and religious.

I give one solid example:

If you happen to go to the theater recently and be spectate to "Miłosć Blondynki". You'll see that the Polish are becoming more liberal, refined. Public partial nudity has become acceptable albeit to get the sales up, but still, it's a start I think.

"Conservative and religious" does not involve just Roman Catholicism; I assure you. In fact, for example, Liozna (then part of Polish Lithuania) and Podolskie were where Haredi Judaism was founded.

If Poland is so "brainwashed", how come they were one of the more-successful countries in a lot of matters? They even had John Paul the Second, possibly the descendant of a kohenet (Allegedly, Kaczorowska may be "[daughter of] Katzorovski". Even more so, "Katz rov" could be a connection to "כ"צ וראב" or "kohen tzedek v'rav". In Ashkenazi Hebrew and standard Yiddish, "rov" is "Rav" or "Rabbi" or "great". So, John Paul's maternal family may well have come from a rabbi who was a kohen, a great man, or both.).

The globalization and foreign business may well be attributable to Poylishn Yidn in part. For example, the late Warner Brothers and Billy Wilder (significant men in one of the catalysts for globalization, Hollywood) were from Poylisher Yiddish families who were very religious.

I give one solid example:


Seeing a 1965 film for the first time is really "liberal"

Nicki, you do realise that you're talking about many years ago before the war when a whole world vanished, millions died and the country's borders shifted?

How conservative or otherwise someone in America may be has little or nothing to do with Poland today.


The Milos Forman film? Groundbreaking in its day, but Czechoslovakian not Polish.

You need a dictionary to understand what "conservative" means in a general sense.

Perhaps, Nicki, you should look more carefully at the topic of the thread and the original post before embarking on some bizarre rant about people on a different continent.

The discussion is about people in Poland now and whether or not they're conservative and religious. By the way, they are increasingly less of both.

As for Polish women, they are usually very feminine/family oriented and complying with the patriarchal style of life. Polish Roman Catholic strong "traditional" faith is no stranger to that. It also quite controversial, because I haven't met any women that will refuse sex before marriage, but many will keep the child if getting fertilized, even if not telling you.

Look what happened to your country in the last decade. Why do you wish Poland the same?

Again, look at a dictionary.

Nicki, I beg you - the thread is about temporary Poles having conservative and religious views and it has nothing to do with what you said.

So, Poland's historical traditionalism and religiosity has nothing to do with its legacy and its present, as well as its impact on the world and globalization? I see. I didn't realize that the past and present were so disconnected.

Polish are probably so conservative, and religious, because after the partitions of Poland, The Polish who resisted Germanization, and Russification, were most likely to be more conservative, and catholic in beliefs.

Much of the liberal, and atheist Polish most likely didn't see the cultural use in being Polish, so they took the easy path of becoming German, or Russia.

And that's why I find religious people scary.

I find it very interesting that Poles become so much less religious when they themselves become overseas workers in the UK. I wonder if that is because they worry about fitting in in the UK and so stop being openly religious or because when they leave Poland they no longer need to worry about fitting in here and so stop pretending.

I am not sure that is true Harry, I heard that the catholic priests of the UK were delighted as the Polish influx meant their churches were full again. Not to mention church attendance and Catholic schools which are full of Polish children by all accounts.

Do you have anything to base such a statement on Harry or is just your personal opinion ?

Of course I do:


ekklesia.co.uk/node/6647

In Poland some 32% of Poles are in church on any given Sunday.

What does church attendance have to do with a persons "Faith", Harry ? (Your grasping here)
No doubt the Priests and Pastors and Reverends like a packed house to fill that collection plate but
church attendance has nothing to do with your religion or faith.
I have no idea why you, jon and Roger (self admitted agnostics) try to promote this false teaching about
religion when you are clueless to what christianity is all about.
We can't talk about Islam faith on this forum yet the Catholic church seems to be fair game.
We can't draw cartoons about Alah because it offends the Muslims faith.
But the Muslim faith also is anti homosexuality yet this forum allows homosexuality to be promoted which offends Islam.
So if the moderators are going to let this thread stray like this then lets throw everything out there.
which described Britain in a recent statement as a "godless civilisation"
So in other words, cesspool, is a fitting word for it.
Just shows me how powerful Satan is to have captured the minds and souls of a whole country.
Even the illiterate lost tribes in South America believe in a supreme being.

Nope, I don't think so.

Basically yes. Many come from small towns and villages with a stifling atmosphere of both conservatism and religiosity where relatives and neighbours know their every move - plenty of pretending for many people. When they leave they find their first taste of freedom.

Most probably so, Jon! I know tons of Poles in Poland who feel forced by families and social environment to go to Church, to have their kids take their communions, to get married, to have kids, and even some who hide their being gay.... Pressure is so strong especially in small towns so when Poles settle abroad, they can ... breathe ;)

Yes. You get the same in any rural society certainly in parts of the UK too, however the pervasive influence not just of the church but of particular conservative tendencies within it as well as the way some families work (plus the Polish/German trait of it being thought acceptable or even desirable to tell people what they should do) intensifies that effect in small-town Poland.

There's a long tradition in PL, going back centuries, of having to leave in order to be oneself.

@Jon: here (Poland) it's much heavier ;). I can count on the fingers of one hand the kids that I know who were not baptised and the people divorcing + marrying 2 or more times... and I'm talking about Warsaw ;)

I'd better be discreet here since I'm talking about somebody without their permission, however a friend's family member got married several years ago. She's a fairly normal occasionally practising Catholic and he (who by the way is a close family member of JPII) is an active member of a protestant congregation. They decided (as many would the world over) to get married in a his protestant church and have their first child christened in a Catholic church. Sounds a great idea? Not really, since they subsequently couldn't find a Catholic parish in their area willing to baptise the kid.

Another awkward thing is the habit in some village parishes of the priest reading out a list of the specific amounts each family donated at the kolendy, when they come round soliciting money. Humiliating for poorer families, a nuisance for those who want to keep up appearances and all about control.

32% is still the highest level in Europe with the possible exception of Malta. To elaborate on the theme of this thread ("Why are Polish so conservative and religious?"), why are Brits so penurious and godless, Scots so frugal, Jews so judaeocentric, Italians so loud and gesticulative, Germans so "Ordnung muß sein"-ish and French so amorous? Because everybody has to be something. It's called diversity!

Expats who despise Poland's religious values and traditions have so many other "progressive" and "agnostic" places to chose from. Szczęśliwej podróży!

All of those are just stereotypes and inaccurate ones at that. The important thing is that the factors that made people cling on to things for the sake of tradition are now largely absent and perhaps for the same reasons religious observance is dropping dramatically.

Because this is part of their culture, it is not bad (in my personal concept, is a huge benefit) and the catholic church was one of the institutions that made the polish resist during their many horrible, difficult moments.

Would you go to Iran and ask why they are religious? Would you go to Israel and ask why they are religious?

No, right? Because this would be a stupid and unrespectful question.

So why make the same question about Poland?


Very well said, very well said. If you want an atheist society, what are you doing in Poland? Better go to Sweden (before they turn into an Islamic State).

History of a country is shaping its attitudes and culture. People are often making erroneous observations basing them on their own cultural background. You are in a different country even if it looks a lot like your country of origin, it doesn't mean that you really understand it.

Whatever made England a land of penny-pinchers must still be there. And the Italians gesticulate just as wildly as ever and the Irish swill their God-awful whiskey like it was going out of style. Why is it that expats who have so many places to choose from come to Poland on their high horse, and judge their host country according to their own nationalistic yardstick and try to impose their prejudices on the people of the host country?