"Nie sądzę, żeby posądzanie mnie o wrogość do Kościoła było słuszne". Związki Czesława Miłosza z Seminarium Polskim w Paryżu

• "I do not agree it is right to suspect me of hostility towards the church". Czeslaw Milosz's relationship with the Polish seminary in Paris
• Czeslaw Milosz's relationship with the Polish seminary in Paris

ENCzesław Miłosz is counted among the greatest Polish poets, essayists and translators. In 1980, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in recognition of his contribution to literature. He was born in 1911 in Lithuania, where he completed his law studies at the Stephen Báthory University. He was one of the leading activists in the local literary circle in Vilnius. His first book (Poems in Frozen Time) was published in 1933. Before the outbreak of World War II, he worked at Polish Radio. After 1939, he stayed in Romania, then in Vilnius, and eventually managed to reach Warsaw. He took part in the underground cultural life of the occupied capital. After 1945, he began cooperating with the communist authorities. As a diplomat, he worked in New York, Washington and Paris. In 1951, C. Miłosz decided to resign as cultural attaché at the Polish embassy in Paris. It was a beginning of a difficult period for him both materially and morally: he was left destitute, with his marriage (civil union) falling apart. By a happy coincidence, at that time he encountered the then rector of the Polish Seminary in Paris, Rev. Antoni Banaszak, with whose efforts, on 13 January 1956, at the Polish church in rue Saint-Honoré, the writer sanctioned his long-standing relationship by getting married in church. The article takes a closer look at the relations between the rector of the Polish Seminary and the former communist diplomat, who arrived from the United States. Keywords: Czesław Miłosz; Rev. Antoni Banaszak; Polish Seminary in Paris; ‘Kultura’; Aleksander Giedroyc.