The Department was established at the University of Nicolas Copernicus on October 1st, 2001. Its faculty members were recruited from among the theologians working in two diocesan Seminaries – in Torun and in Włocławek. The first dean was prof. dr hab. George Bagrowicz. His successor, prof. dr hab. John Perszon was elected in 2005, to be then reelected in 2008. Currently, the Department comprises forty two full-time faculty members who specialize in various theological disciplines. There are 480 students.

The Department offers graduate degrees, i.e., master’s and doctoral degrees. Students can choose from among four diff erent specializations: priestly, pastoralcatechetic, “Caritas” social work and studies on the family. The programs operate with the Polish grading system as the formal grading, but students are also graded according to the ECTS grading scale.

One of the highest priorities of the Department has always been promoting international cooperation with other centers of theological studies. Among them, especially three are to be mentioned: Th e School of Theology of the University of Navarra (Spain), Katolisch-Theologische Fakultät of the University of Würzburg (Germany), The Department of Theology of the Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania). Conferences attended by foreign theologians have been organized in Torun and our faculty members actively participated in conferences organized abroad.

The main academic periodical of the Department is “Teologia i Człowiek” (“Theology and Man”). There are also four theological series where members of the Faculty publish their papers: Euntes Docete, Scripta Theologica Thorunensia, Biblia et Patristica Thorunensia and Series Biblica Paulina. In cooperation with the Department of Pedagogy another semi-annual journal “Paedagogia Christiana”.

Among the most recent academic projects created by the Department of Th eology is an online collection of biblical articles (www.biblistyka.umk.pl). It is an indispensible means for research for all Polish theologians. The project is entirely sponsored by the University of Nicolas Copernicus.

For at least two centuries Europeans, in particular the political elites of Europe, have assumed that modernity and the rational character of the civilization require a marginalization of religion. A separation and juxtaposition of reason and faith, sci-ence and religion or the state and the church are regarded as almost obvious. Gradual-ly the legitimate principle of religious freedom has started to be understood as a pos-tulate of “purification” of public life from any references to sacrum and religion itself as an area of irrational and random opinions has been located in the private sphere. This has led to the conviction that religion (Christianity) does not have or should not have any significance in social life, the public order, the legal system or the widely understood political sphere . The central issue of the paper, which is the possibility of reversing the direction taken by European civilization, is conditioned not only by making the secularist policy of the West more friendly towards Christian tradition (for instance by grounding it on natural law) but still more by the revitalization of religious life of the Churches and Christian communities.

This paper constitutes out of necessity only a partial/fragmentary analysis of the infuence of Christianity on the culture of the United Sates. There is no doubt that the wish to create a truly Christian society which could be a “new Israel” was a strong motive which became the underlying cause for the founding of the USA. The “founding myth” has been refected not only in the proclaimed constitution with a pioneering principle of separating the state from the religion but also present in everyday life of a rapidly developing nation, continually fuelled by Protestant leaders. The power of the myth was sustained and spontaneously stimulated by the successive waves of European immigrants systematically Americanized by the local population. the inseparable element of American lifestyle is a specifc presence of Christianity in the public sphere in the form of civil religion. After the crisis associated with the expansion of secularism (intellectuals’ heresy after the Second World War) there was a great revival of Christianity in the eighties of the previous century. It was infuenced by a fervent religious rhetoric of President R. Reagan and by the attack of Protestant conservatives soon allied with conservatism of Catholic writers/publicists. Despite the growing attitudes of religious indifference, political and social life of contemporary America is permeated with religious elements, declaration of faith in God being perceived positively. A marked religious revival although encompassing only some part of the society makes America, in contrast to Europe, a country of a clearly Christian character.