POLAND’S Catholics have distanced themselves from the revival of an Easter ritual in which an effigy of an Orthodox Jew is dragged through the streets, beaten and then burnt at the stake.

Concerns over rising anti-semitism were raised after the ritual was staged in the Polish village of Pruchnik last Thursday for the first time since 2011.

Parents encouraged their children to join in as a caricature of Judas, with a hooked nose and the payot sidelocks worn by Orthodox Jews, was beaten with sticks before being set on fire, decapitated and throw into the local river.

World Jewish Congress spokesman Robert Singer said: “Jews are deeply disturbed by this ghastly revival of medieval anti-semitism that led to unimaginable violence and suffering.

“One can only imagine how [Pope] John Paul II, who taught Catholics in his native Poland and all over the world that anti-semitism is a sin against God and man, would have reacted to this flagrant rejection of his teachings.”

Anti-semitism appears to be on the rise in Poland, with a recent poll suggesting that nearly half of the population believe in the existence of a global Jewish conspiracy and a quarter that Jews used to kidnap Christian children.

The revival of the ritual follows a diplomatic row in which Poland walked out of a summit after Israeli ministers claimed that Poles had colluded with the nazis during the Holocaust, in which more than three million Polish Jews were murdered.

Bishop Rafal Markowski said: “The Catholic church will never tolerate manifestations of contempt towards members of any nation, including the Jewish people,” adding that his view was the church’s position.

Polish Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski branded the ritual “idiotic, pseudo-religious chutzpah” that had been revived by “Satans.”