The Black Madonna of Częstochowa looks much like other Eastern religious icons, with its deep golden halos and sombre colour palette.

But the painting, whose origin is still unknown, has come to represent not only Catholicism in Poland, but also Polish national pride.

Each year, more than 120,000 pilgrims make the journey to the shrine to pay homage to an image once described as the "Queen of Poland".

In the late 1980s, the face of the Black Madonna appeared on Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa's lapel.

Pilgrims risked their lives to travel on foot to the monastery during the German Nazi occupation of Poland, and a rosary made from concentration camp beads is on display as one of many relics of the nation's painful past.

An attempted robbery of the icon in 1430 left two slashes on the Virgin Mary's face, reminding its viewers of what the icon and its home country have been through.

For Renata Zabłocka, 49, raised in a Catholic family in small-town southeastern Poland, the church was the centre of public life. "Everything revolved around the church," she says - cultural events, social life and shared values.

But now she has stopped attending weekly mass on Sundays, even though she still describes herself as a believer in God. She says she felt "forgotten and judged" by the church, which used to be her main mechanism of support, after she divorced her husband of 20 years last year.

"When I needed help, no one came to check if I was okay," she says. "I can't say that I'm no longer faithful, but my thinking on certain issues has changed."

Poland has been experiencing increasing scepticism towards the Catholic church in the past few years. That phenomenon is most visible among the young and in big cities.

According to data from CBOS, a state research agency, today less than 25% of young Poles regularly practise their religion, down from around 70% in the early 1990s.

"In big cities like Warsaw, church attendance is around 20% of what it once was", says Franciszek Mróz, a professor of geography at the Pedagogical University of Kraków specialising in religious tourism. But he also notes that, even in small villages, that figure is around 80%, indicating a decline in conservative rural areas.

However, falling involvement with the Catholic church as an institution does not necessarily mean that Poles are losing their faith in God.

CBOS data show that, among all Poles, weekly religious practice has declined from almost 70% in the early 1990s to 42% now. The church's own figures tell a similar story. Read more

The court said it did not see evidence of a crime.

The activists had been charged with producing and distributing posters of an altered icon of the Mother of God of Czestochowa - also called the "Black Madonna of Czestochowa."

They had changed the icon so the Madonna and Child sported rainbow images as halos.

They distributed the posters in the Polish city of Plock in 2019.

They told the court their aim was to protest what they saw as the hostility of Poland's Catholic Church toward LGBT people.

When the trial opened in January, one defendant said the poster distribution was spurred by an installation at the city's St. Dominic's Church that associated LGBT people with crime and sins.

She said she was arrested in an early morning police raid on her apartment in 2019, held for several hours and questioned over the posters.

A court later said the detention was unnecessary and ordered damages of about $2,000 awarded to her.

All three defendants faced up to two years of prison if found guilty of desecration.

Poland's desecration provision in its penal code "leaves a door open to use it against people who think a bit differently," one activist said.

The conservative Life and Family Foundation, which brought the case, says it plans to appeal the ruling.

"Defending the honor of the Mother of God is the responsibility of each of us, and the guilt of the accused is indisputable," the group's founder said on Facebook.

"The courts of the Republic of Poland should protect (Catholics) from violence, including by LGBT activists."

However, the court found the activists were not motivated by a desire to offend anyone's religious feelings. Rather, they wanted to defend those facing discrimination, Polish media reports.

An LGBT rights group, Love Does Not Exclude, welcomed the ruling as a "breakthrough."

"This is a triumph for the LGBT+ resistance movement in the most homophobic country of the European Union," it said.

Because of all the attention, the altered icon has received, it is now a very recognized image in Poland, one sometimes seen at street protests.

The case was seen in Poland as a freedom of speech test. The country's "deeply conservative government" has been pushing back against secularization and liberal views.

Source

• AP
• Image: Get Your Guide