«Nothing can be done without informing and authorizing the Delegate»: Zygmunt Zagórowski, an official of the Ministry of Confessions and Public Education, and the Studim of Orthodox Theology at the University of Warsaw in 1929–1939

The Studium of Orthodox Theology at the University of Warsaw (1925–1939), where graduates of the Kyiv Theological Academy also taught, was one of the unique cultural and educational phenomena of interwar Poland. Its history has already been the subject of a number of special studies by Polish, Ukrainian, and Belarusian authors. Most of them, directly or indirectly, emphasize the complexity and intricacy of church-state relations in the II Rzecz Pospolita. There was an obvious desire on the part of the government to control all forms of the Orthodox Church's «life» as much as possible. The functioning of an Orthodox theological faculty in the capital's university is one illustrative example of the implementation of this policy. The Ministry of Confessions and Public Education comprehensively supervised the process of training Orthodox theologians. Its main goal was not concealed - to guarantee the formation of specialists from among the representatives of national minorities who were undoubtedly loyal to the Polish state. And ideally, their complete «polonization».The article provides an overview of the activities of Zygmunt Zagórowski, an official of the ministry, a delegate of the minister of confessions recognition to the affairs of the Studium boarding school for students. During 1929–1939, he was the main «state controller» of the Orthodox faculty and tried to implement a number of «educational» measures. confidently «competing» for influence over the educational institution with its head, the Warsaw Metropolitan Dionizy (Valedynsky). The delegate's work reports and correspondence with the ministry contain a huge amount of information about the daily life of students and lecturers at the Studium, the existence of contradictions between them on national grounds, and their reaction to «civilizing» efforts and measures for «patriotic» education. It can be stated that, despite the official's intentions, rather modest results have been achieved in these areas (given the scale of the efforts made).