WHAT IS THE DOMESTIC CHURCH MOVEMENT?
Domestic Church is a Vatican-recognized lay movement for Sacramentally married couples that provides Catholic Christian community and lifelong spiritual formation through small groups and retreats.
The movement was founded in Poland in the early 1970s by Venerable Fr. Franciszek Blachnicki (pronounced Fron-SHE-shek Block-NEET-skee), with the close guidance and support of his friend and Bishop, Karol Wojtyla (the future Pope St. John Paul II).
Today, there are more than 13,000 couples in Domestic Church in Poland, and nearly 5,000 more Domestic Church couples around the world.
HOW DID DOMESTIC CHURCH BEGIN?
Born out of the larger movement called the Light-Life movement, the Domestic Church was created by Fr. Blachnicki in 1973. The Light-Life movement provided the youth of Communist-occupied Poland with formation and community in their Catholic faith. As young people married and started having children, Fr. Blachnicki saw a need for a family branch of the Light-Life movement that was tailored to the specific needs that arise in marriage and family life.
Fr. Blachnicki combined the formation of the Light-Life movement with the plan of Christian formation (Order of Christian Initiation for Adults, OCIA) document. Its small group format is structured after the Equipes de Notre Dame (Teams of Our Lady), a French movement for married couples. He also incorporated the Light-Life Movement emphasis on retreats into the newly formed marriage and family movement.
WHEN DID DOMESTIC CHURCH COME TO CANADA?
At the end of 1989, Fr. Zbigniew Olbryś from the Polish mission in Scarborough encourages Tomek Olszewski to establish a Home Church circle in the parish. Tomek has been involved in the life of the Polish community for many years, organizing, among others, youth group prayer meetings, and after his wedding in 1989, he turned to Fr. Olbrysia for help in establishing a community for married couples.
The year 1990 was the most significant period in the formation of the DK community in Canada. In March 1990, Tomek leaves for Poland and his home parish of St. Wojciech in Częstochowa, from Fr. Andrzeja brings basic materials about the Home Church: "Meetings in the circle", "The first year of work", and "The role of the priest". Also in March 1990, other families who were in the DK community in Poland came to Toronto: Barbara and Kazimierz (Grzegorz) Nega and Jadwiga and Mieczysław Rokiccy.
The Negs were invited to the Home Church on their wedding day and until they left Poland, they actively participated in the life of the Home Church for five years.
In September 1990, in the house of Małgorzata and Tomasz Olszewski, in the presence of Fr. Tadeusz Walczyk from Scarborough, the first meeting of a family circle in Canada takes place, the course of which is based on DK materials.
WHY IS DOMESTIC CHURCH IMPORTANT IN CANADA?
The name “Domestic Church” comes from a passage in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that beautifully states, “in our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living, radiant faith. For this reason the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the family the ecclesia domestica [the domestic church]” [CCC 1656].
Couples find Domestic Church deeply enriches each spouse’s personal faith journey while nurturing the couple’s spiritual life together. Pope St. John Paul II wrote, “so goes the family, so goes the world.” Domestic Church offers sacramentally married couples the vital support they need to grow in unity, to pass on their faith to their own children, and to navigate faithful Catholic living in a world increasingly hostile to faith. The habits of prayer and healthy communication that couples in Domestic Church develop in the life of their marriage are both the goal and the means to the goal.
Domestic Church is not another program for marriages, but rather a movement that accompanies everyday Catholic couples of all ages through the lifetime of their Sacrament. This movement takes its place alongside many others that God has raised up to serve the diverse needs of Catholic marriages and families in our time.