by
May 25, 2021
-The New American
Decrying what he views as unpatriotic, left-wing policies enacted and enabled by President Andrzej Duda, who has led the Republic of Poland since 2015, as well as condemning the Marxist rebels overtaking the pulpits of America, Christian pastor Paweł Chojecki, a figure well known to longtime readers of The New American, is a freedom fighter who has devoted his life to both the Christian ministry and anti-communist political activism.
Today, Chojecki faces up to five years in prison in his native Poland for “insulting” the Polish presidency, which he believes has “misappropriated the idea of freedom and civil rights deeply rooted in [Poland’s] history.”
Chojecki, age 58, is the founder of the evangelical New Covenant Church in Lublin, Poland, and the founder and editor-in-chief of the fast-growing online grassroots organization Against the Tide TV, the church’s magazine and publishing house. He also launched the Megachurch project, a mission-based organization built on the “four pillars of strong local churches, modern media, a Christian university, and Christians in politics,” aimed at preparing Christian pastors in Poland to become strong, God-fearing leaders.
Once a member of the free-market, conservative Real Politics Union — in 2008, Poland’s most libertarian community — Chojecki reportedly left that group after it adopted a pro-Russian rhetoric in the once-communist nation. At present, Chojecki exercises his freedom of speech by tackling controversial social issues via his sermons and online Christian conservative platform. Through this work, he has amassed hundreds of thousands of devoted followers and openly criticized “the remnants of communism” in President Duda’s current leadership.
For these “assaults” on the state, Chojecki is charged by the state’s prosecution’s office with “insulting the Polish president, calling for a war with communist North Korea, and offending the religious feelings of Catholics in his sermons at his Protestant church.”
Notably, it was November 2016, when in a stunning proclamation of faith and religious tradition, President Duda joined leaders from both church and state to proclaim Jesus Christ as the King of Poland in a Catholic ceremony in Krakow. This national and historic declaration, which also denounced the evil works of the devil, was repeatedly performed in churches across the country, prompting the Conference of Polish Bishops to suggest the official announcement was “not the culmination but the beginning of the work of enthronement of Jesus Christ in Poland and the Polish nation.”
Yet five years later, in 2021, the outcome remains murky as to what the “enthronement of Jesus Christ in Poland” has meant for the country’s national policies, as Chojecki claims that Duda has worked to re-establish ties with communist China, in violation of his presidential campaign promises of ending any strategic partnership with the country.
Is the Pastor a Criminal?
Chojecki’s absurd criminal trial began this past March, with the third, and possibly final, hearing before sentencing scheduled three days from now, on May 28.
The second hearing, held April 29, saw the state prosecution accuse the pastor, allegedly based on quotes taken out of context, of “offending the religious sensibilities of Catholics, insulting the president, and praising the initiation of aggressive war with North Korea.”
As a long-standing, outspoken supporter of freedom and liberty and harsh opponent of certain Catholic dogma and hypocrisies of the state, Chojecki’s greatest concern is that the current Polish state bears no resemblance to the once-great Western power of yore, before it lost its independence, when, in Chojecki’s own words, “religious disputes were separated from patriotism and a common concern for the state’s good.”
“It is the Poland of that period [the 16th century] that is known for its ingesting of religious freedom and tolerance,” said Chojecki in a recent e-mail interview with The New American. “Poland was the power of Western civilization in the 16th century, which we know as the Golden Age. It was then that the discoveries of the Reformation about the role of the Bible published in national languages and salvation as a personal decision of faith in Christ reached our freedom-loving nation.”
In his impassioned response, Chojecki also expressed that he was “ashamed of the current Polish state…. The mere indictment of a Christian pastor for the exercise of freedom of expression, the right to criticism, and the free proclamation of religious beliefs shows that the power of the Catholic-Socialist Law and Justice party cannot turn Poland into the republic that the founding fathers of the USA and the Polish patriots who fought ‘for your and our freedom’ dreamed of.”
