By Paulina Guzik
OSV News

KRAKÓW, Poland — Three Kings Parades across Poland Jan. 6 broke records in the Jubilee Year as 2 million people marched down the streets of 905 cities and towns in an initiative that spread abroad from the European country with vibrant popular faith.

Every year on the feast of the Epiphany, Jan. 6, Polish cities are flooded with joyful Three Kings Parades. Designed as theatrical performances that recall the historical event of Jesus’ birth and the visit of the Magi who worshipped Him 2,000 years ago, the parades’ purpose is to familiarize their audiences with the Gospel tradition.

Piotr Giertych, one of the initiators of Three Kings Parades in Poland and a head of the foundation organizing them, told OSV News, “We broke all records this year, of the most towns participating — 25 more than last year — and with 2 million participants, which for an idea that was born out of a school initiative is huge!”

A massive crowd followed the three Magi in the Polish capital with hundreds of kids marching dressed as knights, representatives of all continents, and angels.

On Jan. 6 during his Angelus prayer, Pope Francis said: “I extend my greeting to the participants in the great ‘Procession of the Magi’ in Poland, who with this initiative bear witness to the faith in the churches and streets of Warsaw and many Polish cities, but also abroad, even here in Rome!”

“A greeting to all the Polish,” the pontiff said.

“The Holy Father not only greeted us, but also sent a letter to the participants, which brought us great joy,” Giertych told OSV News.

Pope Francis in his Dec. 30 letter to participants of the parades said that “it is a great joy that in the Jubilee year the newborn Son of God receives public tribute on the streets of so many cities of the world.”

He added, “This common joyful testimony of faith in God unites families and various local communities living in Poland and other countries.”

“The weather was gorgeous; 80,000 crowns were distributed among the crowd,” Giertych said — with one of the crowns decorating the head of the new metropolitan of Warsaw, Archbishop Adrian Galbas, who joined the procession with the apostolic nuncio to Poland, Archbishop Antonio Guido Filipazzi, and Bishop Wieslaw Lechowicz of the Military Ordinariate.

“Jesus makes Himself known not only to those who were closest to Him on the day of His birth, but also to those who are far away. Anyone can come to Jesus. The crowds of people we see today during the Epiphany procession are a testimony to this,” Archbishop Galbas, who was installed as the metropolitan on Dec. 14, told PAP Polish Press Agency. “It is worth asking myself in my daily life. … Am I guided by the light of faith in my daily life, just as the Wise Men were guided by the star?” the archbishop asked.

Two million people participating this year is not a surprise to Giertych.

“I honestly think this huge turnout is due to the fact that we are very authentic — we preach Christ and don’t get involved in politics. We just remind people of the history of 2,000 years ago, encourage them to come, worship, and sing carols,” he told OSV News.

The parades put together two centuries-old Polish traditions of “jaselka,” or Christmas theatrical performance of Christ’s birth, and carol singing, or “koledowanie.”

The event traces its history to 2009, when students in Warsaw decided to perform a live Nativity scene in the “Sternik” association Catholic school, run by Opus Dei.

“But then we thought that the school is to serve not only the school community, but is to emanate this spirit and joy to others, and this we are realizing,” Giertych said.

Within two years, other places had joined Warsaw in holding the parades. Ukraine held the first Three Kings Parade outside Poland in 2013. In 2019, the parade was held in 752 places in Poland and in 22 places abroad, including in Chicago and New York, where smaller parades were organized by the cities’ Polish communities.

The parades in 2025 were organized for the 17th time in Warsaw and for the 15th as a broad country-wide initiative.

Giertych sees it “certainly with great pride and joy, and a sense of responsibility — here in Warsaw, the vast majority of the acting and organizational tasks are on the shoulders of parents and children from our schools,” he said.

“I was also certainly moved by the fact that there are so many volunteers and social activists in Poland who take the challenge to organize the parades, devoting their time and effort, which shows that Poland has a social strength, community and drive for social action,” he told OSV News.

Eliza and Piotr Niemczyk, a couple married for 13 years and parents of six kids — Maksymilian, Ignacy, Stanislaw, Róza, Konstanty, and little Franciszek, who played Jesus — took on the acting task of being the Holy Family during the Jubilee Year Warsaw central parade.

Starting their life together, they didn’t realize that they “would be given the opportunity to have such a rich parenting experience, as well as to be the parents of a son with Down syndrome,” the Three Kings Parade website said. The experience “on the one hand completely changes the attitude to life,” they say, “and at the same time allows you to focus completely on the here and now.”

Giertych added that young adults, many of them alumni of Opus Dei schools in Warsaw also bring the “amazing testimony of faith,” with them as they engage in organizing the parades.

“It is really moving what they say about the mission of evangelization, that they want to testify to the faith in Christ, and these are young people who have already left our schools and all the more they see the value to testify to Christ in their new university environments that are often very far away from God,” Giertych told OSV News.

Polish President Andrzej Duda sent a letter to participants Dec. 31; and, along with first lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda, he wrote that the parade “has already become a regular Christmas custom, for thousands of local communities in Poland and abroad.”

Cutline for featured image: Families with children are seen in Poland on Warsaw’s Castle Square waiting for the three kings, or Magi, to arrive to meet the Christ Child and the Holy Family, played by a Catholic Polish family Jan. 6, 2025. Two million people participated in Three Kings Parades across Poland and in some cities abroad. (OSV News/courtesy Orszak Trzech Kroli)