The Archives today

      The Archdiocesan Archives are situated in the Metropolitan Curia building in Katowice (right next to Christ King’s Cathedral) in 39 Jordana Street. There are Wita Stwosza Street (The Metropolitan Court, Silesian University’s Theological Library, and Upper Silesian Clergy Seminary) and Plebiscytowa Street nearby.

You can get to our Archives through Curia’s main entrance

Turn right at the reception desk behind the door, and then left into the corridor until you reach the end.

      The Archdiocesan Archives have two office rooms, a hall where we welcome our guests, store rooms, and a reading room with six working places. You can plug in your laptop at each of them. The room is air-conditioned.

A place where we welcome our clients

The Archive’s main hall and a stairway to the reading room

Office // Reading room // Staircase to store rooms

Certificate Records // Collection of Legacies // Local Files // Factual Files

      A growing collection of our Archives is divided into units. Catalogued files are parts of larger units, i.e. Bishop Adamski’s Office, or Local Files (coming from different parishes of our diocese).

      In order to provide the best possible conditions for stored materials our Archives systematically buy folders and boxes made of non-acid cardboard (some books made us order custom made boxes) produced by Beskid PLUS.

      Each of the records in our Archives is given its signature and is put in a new box (In some of the boxes there is only one book because of their size. The thickest book is 13 cm – it comes from St. Stephen’s parish in Bogucice. ) The record books, documents, and other archival materials are protected from damage caused by humidity or sunlight. The index papers have been recently replaced by non-acid paper.

      Because of acid paper problems (you can read about its history at KUL Library site or at Main Direction of National Archives’ site) our files have been protected with non-acid cardboard folders.

A folder made of non-acid cardboard

      When archival materials arrive to our Archives we produce two copies of protocols. Our Archives also gather heritage materials from deceased people’s families. The files, documents, reminders, and photos are put into Collection of Legaties Unit then.

Transferring heritage materials by priest professor Jerzy Pawlik’s niece – Ms. Blanka Pad??o in August 2009

      The Archives employ two doctors and one MA (doing his doctorate). Our employees communicate in English and German.

      The Archives’ collection has been used to write many masters’ or doctors’ thesis in fields of history, demography (Tychy or Bujaków parishes), history of Church, history of art, architecture (Christ King’s Cathedral), and sociology.

      Our photos and documents’ scans have enriched many exhibitions organized by:
      - History Museum in Katowice,
      - Silesian Museum,
      - Archdiocesan Museum,
      - IPN in Katowice,
      - City Museum in Tychy,
      - Royal Castle in Warsaw,
      - Silesian Library in Katowice

      Our archival materials have also been used in Polish National Television’s cinematic pictures and reportage stories.