The Princely-Episcopal Committee set up by bishop Adam Stefan Sapieha during World War I

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The article is devoted to the selected issues associated with the activity of the Princely-Episcopal Committee in Support of the Victims of War (KBK), which was set up by the bishop of Kraków Adam Stefan Sapieha at the beginning of 1915. Special emphasis was laid on the circumstances of its origin as well as on its organizational structure. Sapieha managed to win over a number of people (including many professors of the Jagiellonian University), who were ready to offer their disinterested assistance to people who had suffered in the course of the war. Apart from the self-sacrificing people, an issue which was of paramount importance for the functioning of the Committee was a continual flow of funds which poured in both from abroad and from Poland. The money and gifts poured in from generous benefactors as well as from all kinds of collections and initiatives (among others, the Committee organized the so called "Weeks of Help to KBK"). Considerable sums of money flowed in to prince Sapieha’s organization from the so called Vevey Committee in Switzerland. The KBK Episcopal Committee had also undertaken wide-scale cooperation with the existing charities. In the subsequent part of the article, the author presents the first actions of the Princely-Episcopal Committee which comprised, above all, supplying food, clothes and shoes to those most in need. In the first months of the war, it was mainly two KBK sections that became very active, namely the Relief Fund and the Provisions Section, both of which offered assistance to the civilians who had suffered in the effect of the war. Apart from that, Sapieha’s great merit consists in the fact that he managed to harmonize the social activity of many different groups of people. The KBK Committee provided help to the war victims in an extremely efficient and effective way. One should point out here to the charisma as well as the dedication of the archbishop of Krakow, prince Adam Sapieha who was not only a formal president of the Committee which he had helped set up, but also a true source of energy for all the people who were involved in the great task of rescuing people affected by the tragedy of the war.