James T. Carroll
President of the American Catholic Historical Association, 2020–2022

THE CATHOLIC
HISTORICAL REVIEW
VOL. 108

SPRING 2022

NO. 2

Neighbors to the East of the River:
Cast of Leaders in the Diocese of Brooklyn,
1920–1960
JAMES T. CARROLL*
Presidential Address to the
American Catholic Historical Association
January 2022
New Orleans, Louisiana
By analyzing the motives and philosophies of major figures in the Diocese of Brooklyn and the City of New York, this essay shows that strategy and careful planning were central components of the development
of the parochial school system in the diocese. These visionaries, mostly
clerics but also a prominent civil servant, understood long before the
growth of suburbia that Catholic education and infrastructure were on
parallel tracks. In 1920, Catholic education was centered in Brooklyn
with a small representation in Queens; by 1960, a comprehensive and
coherent system of schools were established across Long Island. This
essay also argues that growth and success was predicated on decisive
actions by forward-looking and insightful individuals in the first half
of the twentieth century.
Keywords: Robert Moses, Dominican Sisters (Regensburg, Germany), The Tablet, Diocese of Rockville Center, Msgr. Joseph
McClancy, religious brothers, Academy of Public Education, community supervisors, Patrick F. Scanlan, regional diocesan high
schools
*James T. Carroll is Professor of History, Iona College, New Rochelle, N.Y., email:
jcarroll@iona.edu. A version of this paper was originally delivered at the annual meeting of
the American Catholic Historical Association, January 8, 2022, in New Orleans.

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Introduction
The history of Catholic education in the United States and of other
settler societies has occupied my research interests for the last generation.
While a momentary foray carried me to mine the archival holdings of the
War Crimes Trials (P.T.O.) and to collect oral histories of Catholic religious from the United States who were interned and brutalized during the
Japanese occupation of the Philippine Islands, my focus always returned to
the prominent social feature of Catholicism in the United States: education. My doctoral dissertation examined how government policies (Grant’s
Peace Policy) shaped experiences at Native American boarding schools in
Dakota Territory in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Later, prompted by Thomas Bender’s efforts to include transnationalism in
an expanded evaluation of American history, my research interests turned
to indigenous education in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and
Canada. A year-long sabbatical and appointment as a visiting professor at
the University of Notre Dame Australia (Fremantle campus) allowed
ample time and funding to explore this topic.1 Finally, my current interests
are far afield from the Dakotas and antipodes and very close to home—
Catholic education in the Diocese of Brooklyn between 1920 and 1960. I
was baptized and received my primary education in the diocese.
How did an Irish-Catholic kid raised in a row house in a workingclass neighborhood in Queens, New York, manage to be standing before
all of you?2 The answer is pretty clear: my parent’s unyielding devotion to
educating their sons and the corresponding commitment of the local
Catholic community to support a system that achieved that objective. This
is true for tens of millions of Americans who passed through the portals of
Catholic schools. The income and educational strata of American
Catholics, particularly Irish-Catholics, in the twenty-first century is clear
testimony to its success.
The Catholic school system that developed in the United States is the
most significant private philanthropic endeavor in world history.3 The herculean efforts of the hierarchy, local pastors, faithful parishioners, and
1. Thomas Bender, Rethinking American History in a Global Age (Berkeley, 2002).
2. At the ACHA annual luncheon at the AHA meeting in New Orleans in January 2022.
3. With rare exceptions (Native-American schools, Faribault-Stillwater Plan, etc.),
Catholic schools were funded by parish assessments and fundraising, tuition, diocesan subsidies, and gratuitous services of religious communities. See Joseph Moreau, “Rise of the
(Catholic) American Nation: United States History and Parochial Schools, 1878–1925,”
American Studies, 38, no. 3 (1997), 67–90.

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countless religious teachers, particularly Catholic sisters, provided a wellregulated path for young Catholics to become well educated and firmly situated in the middle and upper classes. Most important, however, was passing the tenets of the Catholic faith to the next generation. The “trinity” of
faith, education, and acceptance were products of parochial schools.4
Background
The Diocese of Brooklyn was erected in 1853 and John Loughlin, a
native of County Down, Ireland, and a priest of the Diocese of New York,
was named its first bishop. His leadership philosophy was gleaned from his
close relationship with Archbishop John Hughes of New York. Loughlin
was a veteran of school wars, anti-Catholicism, and political chicanery in
New York City, which equipped him well for challenges in the City of
Brooklyn. The intimate personal relationship between Loughlin and
Hughes prompted a request to Roman authorities to name Loughlin as
coadjutor bishop in New York. A combination of a desire to quell the
incessant pattern of appointing Irish bishops in the United States and
doubts related to Loughlin’s fitness for leading a major diocese led to his
appointment to the newly-formed diocese on Long Island. Interestingly, a
major point of debate during discussions regarding the creation of the Diocese of Brooklyn was the legal/ecclesial status of Calvary Cemetery in
Queens County. In the end, the cemetery—the largest in the United
States—remained under the jurisdiction of New York (the 3,000,000 committals to date at Calvary Cemetery remain under the care of the Trustees
of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan).5
Despite questions regarding the need for a new diocese in Brooklyn,
Loughlin was named as bishop on June 19, 1853. He served as diocesan
leader until 1891—the longest-serving bishop in the history of the diocese.
Hughes was comforted by the fact that he was only separated from Loughlin “by a river,” easily traversed by a short ferry ride. Loughlin embraced
Hughes’ objectives, minus an acerbic personality, authoritarian demeanor,
and acidic pen, of fostering church expansion, improving relations with

4. The steady rise in the socio-economic status of American Catholics is outlined in
William B. Prendergast, The Catholic Voter in American Politics: The Passing of the Democratic
Monolith (Washington, D.C., 1999). Prendergast’s statistical analysis (c. the late 1990s) of
socio-economic strata point to Irish Catholics as having both the highest level of educational
attainment and economic status.
5. See Francis B. Donnelly, “Erection of the Diocese of Brooklyn: A Providential
Afterthought,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 1, no. 4 (1981), 106–32.

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civic leaders, and combating anti-Catholicism.6 He established 125
parishes and ninety-three parochial schools.7
However, Loughlin’s appointment was not greeted with universal
applause among the nativist societies who maintained significant sway in
the twin cities of New York and Brooklyn. The City of Brooklyn (consolidation with New York City did not occur until 1898) was home to sixtyplus racist and xenophobic societies. Shortly after Loughlin crossed the
river to assume his episcopal see he was followed by numerous water vessels
packed with hooligans seeking to disrupt an election that seemingly
favored Catholic candidates. At that very moment the Dominican Sisters
from Regensburg, Germany, arrived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, they
“sheltered in place” against the marauders.8 Nonetheless, the newly-erected
diocese prospered in short order under the leadership of Bishop Loughlin.
His replacement, Bishop Charles McDonnell, was appointed in 1892.
He was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York who served as secretary to
both Cardinal John McCloskey and Archbishop Michael Corrigan. While
described as “cultured, elegant, and witty he was at the same time methodical, conservative, and private.”9 Most important, however, he “crossed the
river” with firmly-held philosophical views related to bureaucratic efficiency and academic excellence. Immediately, he set forth to achieve these
goals. An important and prescient decision was sending Thomas Edmund
Molloy to the prestigious North American College in Rome to study theology, where he carefully observed the universality of Catholicism, studied
with intense diligence, and mingled with many future twentieth-century
6. See John Loughery, Dagger John: Archbishop John Hughes and the Making of Irish
America, (Ithaca, 2018). See also, James Carroll, “Dagger John,” Journal of Church and State,
61, no. 3 (2019), 522–24.
7. For an intriguing and compelling discussion related to the ecclesial disagreements
and cultural pressures for providing a Catholic education for all children in the United States,
see Robert C. Serow, “Catholic Education for All Catholic Children: Canon 1374 and the
Limits of Church Authority,” American Catholic Studies, 132, no. 1 (2021), 51–77. It was clear
in the early twentieth century that the Catholic Church could never provide a desk for every
Catholic child. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle opined on June 6, 1911, that if “Catholic children
were withdrawn from public schools, there would be no place for them to go. There are not
enough Catholic schools in the city to accommodate all of the Catholic children.” This was
the reality in the Diocese of Brooklyn until the 1960s.
8. The rioters were led by William Poole (“Bill the Butcher”), a well-known leader of
the Know-Nothing Party and a member of the Bowery Boys, who feared the growing prominence of Catholics in New York.
9. Joseph W. Coen, Patrick J. McNamara, and Peter I. Vaccari, Diocese of Immigrants:
The Brooklyn Catholic Experience, 1853–2003 (Strasbourg, France, 2004), 57.

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Bishop Charles Edward McDonnell, 1914, photograph. Image is on page 528
of “The Catholic Church in the United States of America: Undertaken to
Celebrate the Golden Jubilee of His Holiness, Pope Pius X, Volume 3.” The
image is in the public domain.

church leaders. These experiences informed his insightful and forwardlooking vision for the Diocese of Brooklyn. However, Molloy’s most
important “classroom” were his years as secretary to Auxiliary Bishop
George Mundelein (1909–15). He was an apt observer. It is very clear that
he gleaned several important qualities from his mentor: administrative
acumen, bureaucratic efficiency, centrist leanings, financial astuteness, clarity of purpose, and an appreciation of the importance of real estate.10
The arguments presented here regarding Catholic education in the
Diocese of Brooklyn focus on notable individuals who forged a comprehensive and superb system of schools, ranging from institutions for children with special needs to four-year colleges. There was a remarkable con10. There is no definitive biography of Thomas Edmund Molloy. A brief snapshot is
found in Coen et al., Diocese of Immigrants, 89-116. See also “Archbishop Molloy Dies at 71,
Headed Brooklyn See 35 Years,” New York Times, November 27, 1956, p. 37. For a comprehensive treatment of Cardinal Mundelein, see Edward R, Kantowicz, Corporation Sole: Cardinal Mundelein and Chicago Catholicism (Notre Dame, IN, 1983).

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vergence of competent and visionary leaders who plotted, strategized,11
and sometimes even conspired to launch and expand the enterprise of
Catholic education on Long Island (Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk). The facts that all were each skilled in very specific components of the
endeavor and that many were very long-serving figures in Catholic education in the diocese make them excellent characters for historical inquiry.
They were: McDonnell and Mundelein; Molloy and Joseph McClancy
(and Robert Moses); and Sister Marie de la Salle Maher, C.S.J., and Sister
Letitia Maria Flanagan, C.S.J., (Brentwood) and Sister Thomas Aquin,
O.P., (Amityville).12 The chronological coverage spans from 1920 to
1960—a bit longer than a generation and frequently characterized as the
“golden era of [urban] American Catholicism.”
Context
It is important to note that when Catholic historians refer to the
Brooklyn diocese it should be understood as the entirety of Long Island
until 1957, when the Diocese of Rockville Center was established. However, this story starts in Kings County (a.k.a. Brooklyn). A little-referenced
cultural/historical/demographic/social account of Brooklyn—Brooklyn is
America13—defines ethnically distinct (sometimes exclusive) neighborhoods with very clearly defined physical boundaries—Eastern Parkway
(Jews), Stuyvesant Heights/Bedford (African-American), Greenpoint
(Polish). The Irish and Italians were everywhere, though Flatbush and
Sunset Park were Irish-dominated and Mill Basin and Dyker Heights were
preferred by the Italians. Much like Chicago, the neighborhoods transcended socioeconomic status and were marked by ethnic/religious symbolism: church architecture, sodalities/feasts, language preferences,
11. For a specific example of “strategy,” see Marian Ronan, “Rewriting the History of
Catholic Schools in America: The Resurrection of ‘Dagger John,’” Religious Dispatches,
December 1, 2020, https://religiondispatches.org/rewriting-the-history-of-catholic-schoolsin-america/.
12. “Community Supervisors of Schools List,” Government/Administrative Directors
folder, Sisters of Saint Joseph Brentwood Archives, Brentwood New York (hereinafter cited
as CSJ Archives). While the Diocese of Brooklyn was served by thirty-two religious congregations by the 1940s—twenty-six congregations of sisters and six communities of brothers—
the largest were the Brentwood Josephites and Amityville Dominicans. The sisters serving as
community supervisors from these communities were luminaries: recipients of degrees from
secular colleges, veterans of public school teaching before admission, founders of sister-training and state-chartered colleges for women, advocates of professional development and
teacher certification, and mentors of young religious teachers. Several were chosen as general
superiors of the community.
13. Ralph Foster Weld, Brooklyn is America (New York, 1950).

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273

George William Mundelein (July 2, 1872–October 2, 1939), 1916, photograph. Auxiliary Bishop Mundelein of Brooklyn (1900–1915) became the third
archbishop of Chicago in 1916. The photograph is from the George Grantham
Bain collection at the Library of Congress, and is in the public domain.

schools, religious orders, etc. A quick review of borough politics in 1920
demonstrates the dominant presence of Catholics, particularly the Irish, in
Brooklyn.14 The incredible diversity among Brooklynites was succinctly
noted by a European-born Jew: “every shape and form of Jewish life I knew
in Europe before the war existed in Brooklyn in the 1950s: the Bund, the
leftists, the observant, the Hasidic. Brooklyn was an area rich in Jewish cultures.”15 This description applies equally to Catholics.
Thomas J. Shelley, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York and professor emeritus of Church History at Fordham University, noted accurately
that developments in the archdiocese have absorbed the energies and efforts
of historians who have published numerous monographs on archdiocesan
history, institutional milestones, and ecclesial leaders throughout the twen14. Irish-born (County Mayo) William O’Dwyer who settled and served in various
political roles in Brooklyn was elected mayor in absentia in 1946 (he was completing his military service in Europe).
15. Myrna Frommer, It Happened in Brooklyn: An Oral History of Growing Up in the
Borough in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s (Madison, WI, 2004), 152.

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NEIGHBORS TO THE EAST OF THE RIVER

tieth century, yet very few treatments of the Diocese of Brooklyn have
emerged. Shelley’s review of Diocese of Immigrants: The Brooklyn Catholic
Experience, 1853–2003 is only the second comprehensive (institutional and
social) history of the diocese. The first, History of the Diocese of Brooklyn,
1853–1953, by John Sharp, appeared in 1954. Currently, the most useful
overview of diocesan history is Patrick McNamara’s The Tablet: The First
Hundred Years, which addresses developments at the diocesan newspaper,
The Tablet.16
In terms of Catholic education, Shelley goes on to note that “the secretary of education of the archdiocese [of New York] boasted some years
ago about the number of students in parochial schools in New York
City[;] he omitted to mention that the majority of them were in the
schools of the diocese of Brooklyn.” The historical record frequently omits
the Diocese of Brooklyn.17 Time-consuming and tedious calculations
decennially using The Official Catholic Directory (P.J. Kennedy and Sons)
clearly show that the vast majority of enrollments were in Brooklyn, followed by Queens, and later, to a much lesser extent, “Out East.”18 The
transportation plans, both those achieved in part and those scuttled by
politics and finances, were important points of “strategic” planning for
diocesan leaders. The diocese—from Downtown Brooklyn to the Twin
Forks of Long Island (Orient and Montauk Points)—spanned more than
eighty miles, much of it lightly populated in 1920. This paper will now
turn to an eclectic group of strategists who laid the groundwork for
Catholic education on Long Island.

16. Thomas Shelley, “Diocese of Immigrants: The Brooklyn Catholic Experience,
1853–2003 (review),” The Catholic Historical Review, 92, no. 2 (April 2006), 304; John Sharp,
History of the Diocese of Brooklyn, 1853–1953 (New York, 1954); and Patrick McNamara, The
Tablet: The First Hundred Years (Brooklyn, 2008). See also Patrick McNamara, “Catholic
Journalism with Its Sleeves Rolled Up: Patrick F. Scanlan and the Brooklyn ‘Tablet,’ 1917–
1968,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 25, no. 3 (Summer, 2007), 87–107. There are several masters’
theses on the history of the diocese, many completed by religious and conferred by College of
Saint John the Baptist (later St. John’s University) in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
17. The enrollments in parochial schools in New York City (five boroughs) in 1920
were approximately 152,000 (74,500 in Brooklyn and 77,800 in New York), and in 1950 were
252,000 (142,000 in Brooklyn and 110,000 in New York). Beyond 1950 calculations have a
subtle complication: the Archdiocese of New York began reporting enrollments for the entire
diocese (ten counties).
18. See Joseph Raskin, “Why the No. 7 Line Stops in Flushing,” and “To the City
Limits and Beyond,” in: Joseph Raskin, The Routes Not Taken: A Trip through New York City’s
Unbuilt Subway System (New York, 2014).

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Pictorial Rendering of Bishop McDonnell Memorial High School, 260
Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1926. Stored in Archives—Sisters of St.
Joseph, Brentwood, N.Y.

Brooklyn
First, the diocese was led by a team of adaptable visionaries and competent leaders: Bishop Charles McDonnell and Auxiliary Bishop George
Mundelein. Both men, one a New Yorker and the other a Brooklynite,
desired to establish and sustain a thriving parish-based parochial school
system, numbering 117 in 1920, and to plan and campaign for a small
number of superb secondary schools to mimic the prestigious Regis High
School in Manhattan, established in 1914 by the Jesuits. Bishop Loughlin
Memorial High School (an all-boys’ school opened in 1922) and Bishop
McDonnell Memorial High School (an all-girls’ school opened in 1926)
provided high-caliber academic programs with no tuition or fees. Every
parish paid a levy to support the operations of these schools. The admission
process was highly selective (two or three candidates were nominated from
each parish) and most graduates went on to pursue higher education.
While neither of these men was around to see their ideas come to
fruition—Mundelein was sent to Chicago in 1915 and McDonnell died in
1921—the architecture, curriculum, and reputation of both parochial
schools and diocesan high schools reflected their aspirations.19 Both “put
the Church on the map” of Long Island.
19. “He [Molloy] was responsible for the establishment of fifty-four parishes in Brooklyn, thirty in Queens, 21 in Nassau, and 13 in Suffolk. He also opened 58 Catholic elementary
schools.” Ed Wilkinson, “B’klyn’s Second Bishop,” The Tablet, August 10, 2016, https://
thetablet.org/bklyns-second-bishop-kept-building-diocese/. “Before the middle of the

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Brooklyn: Mundelein and Moses
The second pair requires a bit more imagination, context, and analysis
of personal qualities: Mundelein and Robert Moses. Mundelein was wellsuited for serving as chancellor of the diocese and auxiliary bishop. George
Duval, an admirer in Chicago, noting his business acumen, real estate
expertise, and strategic thinking opined to Mundelein that “there was a
great mistake in making you a bishop instead of a financier, for in the
latter case Mr. Morgan would not be without a rival in Wall Street.”20 In
Brooklyn, his close acquaintances were bankers (generally Catholic and
Brooklyn residents), investment advisors, real estate brokers, and philanthropists. It is not an untrue assertion that many of the “wise” investments
and property acquisitions in the first part of the twentieth century contain
Mundelein’s fingerprints.21 While Robert Moses was only casually
acquainted with Mundelein, they shared some common aspirations for
the future of Long Island.
Robert Moses, the park commissioner of both the city and state of
New York and arguably the most powerful man in twentieth-century New
York, envisioned a bucolic and open-air line of residential communities
connected to the urban center by a complex, yet carefully planned, set of
“parkways and causeways” Many were slated to connect various geographic
points within the Diocese of Brooklyn: Belt Parkway, Interboro Parkway
(later renamed for Jackie Robinson), Cross Island, Northern State, Southern State, Captree Causeway (later renamed for Robert Moses), and several others. He appreciated the power of the Roman Catholic Church with
its vast landholdings and its connections to the Democratic Party and labor
unions, and gleaned from dealing with Francis Cardinal Spellman the
importance of quid pro quo. Both the diocese and the park commissioner
needed each other to achieve their goals and objectives. Ironically, this
McDonnell administration, the Gospel was being preached in thirteen languages—English,
German, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, French, Scandinavian, Bohemian, Slovak, Greek, Hungarian, Arabic, and Spanish—by priests well-versed in foreign tongues.” Coen et al., Diocese
of Immigrants, 61.
20. Quoted in Edward R. Kantowicz, “Cardinal Mundelein of Chicago and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century,” The Journal of American History, 68, no. 1 (1981), 54. For the
definitive biography of Cardinal Mundelein see Kantowicz, Corporation Sole.
21. One can travel from the Shore Road in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to Amagansett, in the
Hamptons, for visible proof of Mundelein’s imprint on the properties owned by the diocese—
not to mention shadow corporations (e.g., the “Brooklyn Land Trust”) which allowed the
diocese to purchase property amidst opposition from anti-Catholics, particularly in Suffolk
County.

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Robert Moses with a model of his proposed Battery Bridge, 1939, photograph.
Image is from the New York World-Telegram and Sun collection at the
Library of Congress. The image is in the public domain.

relationship would have a monumental effect on the long-term history of
Catholic education in the diocese.22
The following vignette requires a broader imagination since
Mundelein and Moses’ tenure in Brooklyn did not precisely overlap
(Mundelein departed for Chicago in 1915, while Moses emerged in New
York as the “power broker” in 1924), yet the parallels are compelling. Try
to visualize Robert Moses and George Mundelein on the same eastbound
Long Island Railroad (L.I.R.R.) passenger car heading to Babylon, N.Y.,
the terminus bordering on the east by the outer reaches of Nassau County
and on the south by the Atlantic Ocean. While collecting tickets, the con22. “Most important for Gotham, the roads that Moses built moved people and their
cars from city to suburb, utterly transforming the region socially and economically…He did
not invent the American love of cars and suburbs, but he paved and built to accommodate
that desire.” Josh Fischman, “Land of Moses: The Shrewd Visionary Who Remade New
York,” U.S. News and World Report, 134, no. 23 (June 30, 2003), 38–39. See also Ethan Carr,
“The Parkway in New York City,” in: Parkways: Past, Present, and Future: Proceedings of the
Second Biennial Linear Parks Conference (Boone, N.C., 1987).

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ductor announces “Valley Stream, Lynbrook, Oceanside, Rockville Center,
Freeport, Merrick, Amityville, Brentwood, Lindenhurst, and Babylon.”23
Both men decided to stretch their legs and gaze out the windows of the
door openings and begin an internal conversation about land use.
Mundelein would be ensconced on the south-looking door (towards the
Atlantic Ocean) envisioning parishes, schools, training grounds for
Catholic religious, and simply smart opportunities to bolster the land holdings of the diocese; Moses perused both sides of the train car pondering
parkways, parks, beaches, and suburban communities. Both men were
paving the groundwork for the growth and development of Long Island. If
you travel the Babylon line today, it would be hard to miss the interests of
both Moses and Mundelein—Roman Catholic institutions are visible from
the train stations and access to public recreational facilities abound (albeit
very restricted against African-Americans; buses required permits to enter
state parks and they were not readily available to all visitors until the
1960s).24 A 1950s Brooklynite housewife who pined for a more tranquil
setting on Long Island shouted: “Everybody who’s anybody is moving to
Babylon.”25 Both Moses and Mundelein beat her to that point.
Brooklyn: Molloy and McClancy
McDonnell’s death on August 8, 1921, enkindled observations about
his legacy and the future of Catholicism on Long Island. His achievements
were remarkable and compare favorably to the growth on the other side of
the river. The Catholic population of Long Island swelled to 821,000 and
was on pace to exceed one million in short order. The spiritual and temporal needs of the people were met by the ongoing expansion of “brick and
mortar” Catholicism. McDonnell died in Brentwood, N.Y., cared for by
the Sisters of Saint Joseph, who played a major role in education in the diocese. Fortunately, he left the diocese in the extremely competent care of
Bishop Thomas Molloy and Msgr. Joseph McClancy—both very experienced and capable leaders. In November 1921, Molloy was named one of
the youngest prelates in the Catholic Church in the United States. He was
an attentive student of Mundelein and McDonnell and transitioned into
the new role with ease and confidence. A large measure of Molloy’s

23. Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (New
York, 1974), 157.
24. Caro, Power Broker, 318–19. For a nuanced discussion of suburban Catholicism, see
Stephen M. Koeth, “Crabgrass Catholicism: U.S. Catholics and the Historiography of Postwar Suburbia,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 37, no. 4 (2019), 1–27.
25. Thomas Campanella, Brooklyn: The Once and Future City (Princeton, 2019), 429.

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Map showing the route and connections of the Central Rail Road Extension
Company of Long Island, 1873, map. The map also shows cities, towns and
roads throughout New York City and eastern Long Island. The map is from the
Library of Congress Geography and Map Division and is in the public domain.

assuredness rested on McClancy, who was a trusted advisor and remarkably insightful superintendent of schools.
Molloy’s service to both McDonnell and Mundelein provided a firm
vector of skills needed to navigate significant transitions in the Diocese of
Brooklyn, including significant growth of the Catholic population, massive
expansion of “brick and mortar,” and replicating decades-long advances in
Brooklyn and Queens in Nassau and Suffolk counties. This background
allowed for a seamless transition in the diocese that was acknowledged by
priests of the diocese, civic leaders, superiors of religious congregations, and
the ethnically diverse Catholic faithful.26 His insight and experience led to
a very wise administrative decision when he continued Msgr. McClancy’s
tenure as school superintendent (a position he would hold until his death in
1954).27 Both men shared a common vision and systematic plan for expanding education to all parts of the diocese. Molloy trusted his school superintendent implicitly and gave him a free hand in matters of education. One
26. Sharp, History of the Diocese of Brooklyn, 17.
27. Joseph McClancy was ordained a priest in 1908. For a complete biography, see
Annual Report, 1954–1955, 15–19, Educational Year Book—Superintendent of Schools,
stored in Brooklyn, the Archives of the Diocese of Brooklyn (hereinafter cited as ADB).

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NEIGHBORS TO THE EAST OF THE RIVER

Archbishop Thomas Molloy with teaching faculty of Bishop McDonnell
Memorial High School, c. 1951. Stored in Archives—Sisters of St. Joseph,
Brentwood, N.Y.

specific area of importance to the bishop was attracting and incorporating
religious brothers into the parochial schools in the diocese. Molloy graduated from Saint Francis College in 1905 (founded by the Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn), a very important part of his intellectual and spiritual development that motivated this impetus. This aspiration appears repeatedly in
the “Educational Year Books” of the Diocesan Superintendent’s Office,
including a less than subtle reminder on April 1, 1933: “The Most Reverend
Bishop is desirous of having the boys in the upper grades of the larger elementary schools under the care of the Brothers.”28 McClancy pursued this
goal with some success in Brooklyn by the 1940s.29
28. Teachers’ Conference, April 1, 1933, Catholic Education Office-Bound Volumes,
September 1926–June 1935, stored in Brooklyn, ADB. See also Annual Report, 1950–51, 21,
Educational Year Book—Superintendent of Schools, stored in Brooklyn, ADB, which reiterated this desire: Religious brothers are needed “for the manly development of the character
of boys and also a fertile field of vocations for the teaching brotherhoods.”
29. The communities of religious brothers working in elementary schools in the Diocese of Brooklyn include Christian Brothers de la Salle, Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn,

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McClancy’s leadership and philosophy left an indelible impression on
Catholic education in the Diocese of Brooklyn. His long tenure of service
(1915–54) and the explosive growth of the system made his impact
inevitable. Equally important, he recognized the need to extend his role as
the diocesan school superintendent beyond the internal mechanisms of the
diocese. His lengthy quest to demonstrate the legitimacy and quality of
Catholic schools required cultivating positive relationships with the New
York State Board of Regents, high-ranking New York City School officials, city and state politicians, borough presidents, members of the secular
press, and non-Catholics, to name a few. This collective campaign of
“building bridges” had several goals, principal among them the general/
popular recognition of the quality of Catholic schools in Brooklyn.
While never stepping out of his clerical role or disavowing the central
mission of Catholic education, he listened attentively to outsiders and carefully recorded their observations and recommendations. He acted very
deliberately on many of the ideas and suggestions. His willingness to entertain seriously the reasonable notions of secular educators earned him
respect and accolades and garnered support and acceptance for Catholic
schools as “equal partners” in NYC. The Superintendent’s Annual Report
observed in 1955 that “[McClancy] was highly esteemed by the State
Department of Education and those of the Board of Education of the City
of New York. He was regarded as an honored colleague by his fellow members in the [secular] Academy of Public Education whose membership
includes the leading educators of the metropolitan area” focused on
advancing urban education.30 These tributes and distinctions were rarely
afforded to a Roman Catholic priest.31

Brothers of the Holy Cross, Marist Brothers, Brothers of Mary, Brothers of the Sacred Heart,
and Xaverian Brothers. This represents the most extensive involvement of religious brothers
in elementary education in the U.S. See also James Carroll, “The Outer Boroughs: Parochial
Schools in the Diocese of Brooklyn, 1920–1957,” AHA/ACHA Annual Meeting, New
York, January 2, 2015 (unpublished transcript, in possession of the author). For varied perspectives on Catholic masculinity in the twentieth century, see Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada
and Katherine Dugan, “Forum: Studying Masculinities, Catholic Style,” American Catholic
Studies, 132, no. 2 (2021), 1–38.
30. Annual Report, 1954–1955, 19, Educational Year Book—Superintendent of
Schools, stored in Brooklyn, ADB.
31. McClancy and Msgr. John Bonner, Superintendent of Schools, Archdiocese of
Philadelphia, 1926-1945, shared similar philosophies and ideas regarding Catholic education.
See “Right Rev. Monsignor John J. Bonner, D.D.,” Records of the American Catholic Historical
Society of Philadelphia, 56, no. 6 (1945), 338–40 and Thomas Donaghy, F.S.C., Philadelphia’s
Finest: A History of Education in the Catholic Archdiocese, 1692–1970 (Philadelphia, 1972).

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NEIGHBORS TO THE EAST OF THE RIVER

How exactly did Monsignor McClancy shape Catholic education in
the Diocese of Brooklyn? First, he centralized the administration of
Catholic education in the diocese. He recruited competent clerics (with
appropriate and high-quality academic credentials), fostered close and
harmonious relationships with “community supervisors”—a cadre of sisters and brothers who formed a phalanx of “associate superintendents”—
and developed a “Handbook” that clearly and succinctly delineated diocesan school regulations and policies. These developments became
increasingly important as the school “system” (an organized framework)
became larger and more complex. These developments were not universally accepted, especially among pastors who coveted their autonomy.
Some examples of “centralization” include: (1) following a uniform curriculum and school calendar; (2) accepting a common set of competencies
to evaluate teacher effectiveness; (3) submitting to the authority of diocesan officials and community supervisors;32 (4) publishing an “Educational
Yearbook,” starting in 1930; (4) collaborating for the rational expansion
of Catholic schools; and (5) implementing the diocesan high school
system.
Second, he formulated plans and approaches to improve the academic
preparation of teachers. In 1938, the Annual Report of the Superintendent
of Schools prescribed that all religious teachers be “a high school graduate
and possessed of a normal school diploma.”33 This requirement was met
with mixed reviews among pastors clamoring for teachers and major superiors searching for funding sources. Some examples of “professionalization” include: (1) arranging quarterly teacher conferences on diverse
topics, ranging from “Hygiene and Cleanliness” (1937) to “Training the
Catholic Young for Combat” (1940); (2) partnering with Catholic colleges to provide degree programs for Catholic teachers (mostly on Saturdays and during the summer); (3) supporting teachers in earning a state
credential—“a magical piece of paper that not only indicated one had
32. The clearest definition of “community supervisors” is found in Sister Mary Evangela
Hanfland, O.S.F., “Current Practices in Administration and Supervision of Catholic
Parochial Schools in the United States” (unpublished master’s thesis, DePaul University,
1958), 4.
33. Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1937–1938, 23, Educational Year Book—Superintendent of Schools, stored in Brooklyn, ADB. A “normal school diploma” consisted of
training in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum administered at a teacher training college.
The major religious communities in the diocese established teacher-training colleges for their
members. A baccalaureate degree did not become the standard credential until after World
War Two. See also Mary Oates, “The Development of Catholic Colleges for Women, 1895–
1960,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 7, no. 4 (1998), 413–28.

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completed a prescribed course of study, but one was a ‘bona fide’
teacher”;34 (4) developing evaluation instruments to measure teacher
effectiveness in the classroom and implementing remediation plans where
needed; and (5) planning to have long-serving “community supervisors”
appointed as directors of studies for their congregations—they had firsthand knowledge of the needs of both the community and the diocese.35
Third, he developed a comprehensive and sustainable plan for
informing a broad swath of the population about the contributions
Catholic schools made to the social, political, and economic life of the
city. The diocesan paper—The Tablet—launched a weekly column entitled “From the Managing Editor’s Desk” in November 1917, the brainchild of the new editor-in-chief, Patrick F. Scanlan. It often highlighted
developments and accomplishments of Catholic schools in the diocese.
While the paper appealed to the ethnic working-class parishioners (it
was hawked after Sunday Mass for a nickel, and approximately 1,500
Masses were celebrated in Brooklyn and Queens in 1917, insuring a
solid reader base), it was in the opinion of many the “most influential
diocesan paper” in the United States.36 It was frequently quoted in The
New York Times, America, and Commonweal, prompting Scanlan to
opine in 1937 that the paper “was no longer merely a diocesan publication. It has become, he said, a ‘national institution.’”37 The paper
included columns on all important matters related to Catholic education. In addition, McClancy cultivated relationships with the editors
and reporters of the Brooklyn Eagle and the Long Island Press (Queens)
to reach wider non-Catholic audiences.38
34. Kevina Keating and Mary Peter Travis, Pioneer Mentoring in Teacher Preparation:
From Voices of Women Religious (St. Cloud, MN, 2001), 44. For an example of the growing
importance of “professionalization” of Catholic teaching sisters who earned the “State Life”
certificates from the New York State Board of Regents, see Mary Ignatius Meany, C.S.J., By
Railway of Rainbow: A History of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Brentwood (Brentwood, N.Y.,
1964), 246–50.
35. See Keating, Pioneer Mentoring, 24, for the significance of the role of director of
studies in religious communities of sisters. For challenges facing underprepared teachers (primarily Catholic sisters), see Darra Mulderry, “Educating ‘Sister Lucy’: The Experiential
Sources of the Movement to Improve Higher Education for Catholic Teaching Sisters, 1949–
1964,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 33, no. 1 (2015), 55–79. Several communities established a
leadership position—“Mistress of Junior Sisters”—who, in the case of Brooklyn, were also
community supervisors.
36. Scanlan, “Catholic Journalism,” 87.
37. Alden Brown, The Tablet: The First Seventy-Five Years (Brooklyn, 1983), 29.
38. Both publications ceased publication; The Brooklyn Eagle in 1955 and The Long
Island Press in 1977.

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NEIGHBORS TO THE EAST OF THE RIVER

Fourth and finally, he developed and implemented a reasonable strategy for extending Catholic education “Out East.” When Msgr. McClancy
became superintendent in 1915, most schools were in Brooklyn with gradual growth in Queens following the footprint of public transportation.
Despite a small number of Catholic schools in Nassau and Suffolk (the total
number in 1923 was seventeen, most with low enrollments), McClancy
possessed adequate foresight to plan for future growth in the new “suburbs”
on Long Island. His experience opening schools in Brooklyn and Queens
were proving grounds for Catholic education in the “suburbs.” The opening
of parish schools followed in typical fashion, albeit more dispersed and tepid
than Brooklyn and Queens; however, secondary schools were systematically
erected on Long Island. With a couple of notable exceptions—St. Mary’s
(Manhasset–1949) and St. Dominic’s (Oyster Bay–1928)—the parish high
school did not migrate to the suburbs. McClancy was opposed to these
schools for many reasons and instead, at the end of his life, advanced the
concept of regional diocesan high schools. He firmly believed that the reputation and quality of secondary schools were best safeguarded by the diocese and religious communities.
From 1954 to 1957 the Diocese of Brooklyn experienced major changes
in personnel: Msgr. McClancy died in 1955, and Archbishop Molloy followed within a year. These stalwarts passed a magnificent legacy to Long
Island Catholics: 235 parish elementary schools, six parish high schools,
seven diocesan high schools, and seventeen “community” high schools.
Molloy’s obituary in The Tablet noted that “at the time of his death he was
coordinating the building of thirty-two schools which, when opened, would
add an additional 550 classrooms in the diocese.”39 Herculean efforts to the
end! The complexities facing both men were officially recognized on April
18, 1957 (Holy Thursday), when the Holy See announced the creation of the
Diocese of Rockville Center (Nassau and Suffolk counties).40
Conclusion
The Catholic school system in the Diocese of Brooklyn was built on
the shoulders of men and women who had the foresight to anticipate the

39 Annual Report, 1956–57, 12, Educational Year Book—Superintendent of Schools,
stored in Brooklyn, ADB.
40. St. Brigid, Westbury, N.Y. is the oldest Catholic parish in Nassau County, established in 1856. See Salvatore J. LaGumina, “Immigrants and the Church in Suburbia: The
Long Island Italian-American Experience,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society
of Philadelphia, 98, no 1 (March 1987), 7.

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major changes in American life between 1920 and 1960. As a group—
bishops, school superintendents, community supervisors, a parks commissioner—recognized that settlement patterns would eventually extend
beyond the boundaries of Kings County and planned accordingly. The
“trolley car” suburbs of Flatbush and Coney Island were eventually
trumped by the tentacles of the No. 7 Train into Flushing, Queens, on the
Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT), starting in 1926. The extension of the
Long Island Railroad (LIRR) into the far reaches of Nassau and Suffolk
counties finally connected all parts of the diocese. Molloy, McClancy, and
Moses followed these extensions of territorial and ecclesial boundaries
steadfastly and laid the groundwork to realize their respective goals.
Much of this story has traced developments in the urban core of the
Diocese of Brooklyn. What happened? Quality education, the G.I. Bill,
parkways and causeways, and good strategists left the Catholic community
with a vector and elevator to the emerging middle class. The path pointed
East into the bucolic suburban meccas of eastern Queens (New York City
civil servants were required to live within the city limits until the late
1960s), Nassau, and Suffolk counties. The hypothetical voyage of Moses
and Mundelein to Babylon came full circle—both men were correct.
The generations of Catholics educated in the urban centers of the diocese received an outstanding education on all levels. A simple perusal of
“Who’s Who in NYC” verifies this fact. A true Brooklynite of a certain age
(and a fair number from the other boroughs) recalls, with rancor and disdain, September 24, 1957, when the Dodgers played their last game at
Ebbets Field. Leo Durocher—“Leo the Lip”—observed that, “If someone
had asked me ten years ago, ‘which do you think is the most likely to
move—the Brooklyn Bridge or the Brooklyn Dodgers—I’d have picked the
Bridge.”41 Many Catholics followed the lead of the baseball icons and
migrated not west but east to Valley Stream, Lynbrook, Oceanside,
Rockville Center, Freeport, Merrick, Amityville, Brentwood, Lindenhurst, Babylon, and many other points on Long Island. Despite catcalls to
the most hated man in Brooklyn—“Hitler, Stalin, and Brooklyn Dodgers
owner Walter O’Malley,” so the chorus shouted—many Catholics already
moved “out East” and were dependent on automobiles. The attendance at
Dodger games declined by forty percent between 1947 and 1957 and
spelled an end to an era. “The 1955 world championship Dodgers had one
thing in common with the last-place Pittsburgh Pirates: they were the only

41. Campanella, Brooklyn: The Once and Future City, 445.

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NEIGHBORS TO THE EAST OF THE RIVER

team in the National League with lower attendance than in 1941.”42 Negotiations with the Dodgers were stymied by a pervasive need for parking—
most Brooklyn Dodgers fans were driving to the stadium, including Robert
Moses and Walter O’Malley, who quietly relocated to pastoral settings near
Babylon. Unbeknownst to some contemporary observers, this marked a
major shift in the Catholic population; thus, the erection of a new diocese.
Postscript
The Diocese of Brooklyn continues to educate over 50,000 students in
the only entirely urban diocese in the United States. In Brooklyn and
Queens, Mass is celebrated in thirty-three languages. The “strategists” of
the twentieth century continue to pave the road for many newly arrived
immigrants, many non-Catholic. It continues a noble tradition.
Some areas of future research include: (1) exploring the civic contributions of Brooklyn Catholic school graduates to the City of New York (for
instance, the Catholic Teachers’ Guild is replete with men and women
who graduated from Catholic schools); (2) collecting oral histories from
students from the 1930s–1950s; (3) mining secular archives; and (4) perusing the diaries and memoirs of Catholic “strategists.”

42. Henry Fetter, “Revising the Revisionists: Walter O’Malley, Robert Moses, and the
End of the Brooklyn Dodgers,” New York History, 89, no. 1 (2008), 71.

Using Justice and Mercy:
Antoninus of Florence on the Punishment
of Heresy
THOMAS M. IZBICKI*
Antoninus of Florence (1389–1459) wrote extensively on moral theology, confession, and matters of Christian practice. His Summa
moralis recorded much of his thought on these matters. Comparatively
little has been written about the archbishop’s thought on heresy, particularly concerning the Fraticelli. His treatment of heretics offered mercy
for those who recanted but strict justice for those who did not. Antoninus’s trial of Giovanni de’ Cani, accused of Fraticelli sympathies, illustrates these themes. Offered chances to recant, he refused and was condemned to death. However, these ideas on heretics and their trials
largely disappeared from Antoninus’s reputation as saint and exemplary bishop.
Keywords: Antoninus of Florence, Dominican Order, Pastoral literature, Heresy, Giovanni de’ Cani, Fraticelli.

A a sainted friar and an exemplary bishop. He was, perhaps, the outstanding bishop in fifteenth-century Italy. In his lifetime, Antoninus was
ntoninus, the Dominican archbishop of Florence (1446–59) was both
1

revered for learning, adherence to his vow of poverty, care for the poor and
defense of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. After his death, the archbishop also
was credited with healing miracles at his tomb. Standing in front of the
rood screen at San Marco became a destination for pilgrims, especially
women. His reputation was not for defense of the faith, although he both

* Dr. Thomas M. Izbicki is the humanities librarian emeritus of Rutgers University. His
email address is: tizbicki@emeritus.rutgers.edu. A draft of this article was read by David
Peterson, Washington and Lee University.
1. Carlo Celso Calzolai, Frate Antonino Pierozzi dei domenicani, arcivescovo di Firenze
(Rome, 1961); Peter Howard, Beyond the Written Word: Preaching and Theology in the Florence
of Archbishop Antoninus (Florence, 1995); Ezra Sullivan, “Antonino Pierozzi: A Locus of
Dominican Influence in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Rome,” Angelicum, 93, no. 2
(2016), 345–58.

287

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U SING JUSTICE AND MERCY

FIGURE 1. St. Antonino Pierozzi. Collezione Loeser, bust of Saint Antonino,
painted stucco, xv sec. 1,314 × 1,609. Wikidata.

acted against and wrote about heresy. Omission of the archbishop’s defense
of orthodoxy may have been tied to the campaign for his canonization.2
Antoninus left behind several works of applied theology. The most
significant of his writings is the four-volume Summa moralis or Summa theologica, which addressed many issues of Christian life in a larger doctrinal
context. This work drew on the existing body of theology and law to offer
remedies for a variety of religious problems and issues of human conduct.
One issue that he addressed, heresy, has received little attention. However,
the Summa addressed that matter, arguing, as will be seen below, that both
justice and mercy are required in dealing with heresy.3 Moreover, Antoninus was involved in a notable trial of an accused heretic, denounced as one
of the sect of Fraticelli.
2. Sally J. Cornelison, “Accessing the Holy: Words, Deeds, and the First Tomb of St.
Antoninus in Renaissance Florence,” in: Mendicant Cultures in the Medieval and Early Modern
World, eds. Sally J. Cornelison, Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby and Peter Howard (Turnhout, 2016),
223–44 at 223–26. Antoninus was believed to especially favor women seeking pregnancy or a
safe delivery; see ibid., 232.
3. Two exceptions are mentioned by Decima L. Douie, The Nature and Effect of the
Heresy of the Fraticelli (Manchester, 1932), 267–68. Antoninus’s treatment of actual cases will
be discussed below. Overall, see Peter Howard, Aquinas and Antoninus: A Tale of Two Summae
in Renaissance Florence (Toronto, 2013).

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289

Antoninus’s Summa fits into a larger literature of moral thought and
pastoral practice, much of it written by friars. The medieval Friars
Preachers, Antoninus among them, operated at the intersection of doctrine and practice, preaching and hearing confessions, roles previously
reserved for the secular clergy. Some friars also served as inquisitors. The
friars’ preaching frequently focused on practical matters (e.g. sin and its
remedies, virtues and vices) and the texts they composed for preaching
were designed to support orthodoxy and the order’s apostolate. One of
these widely-used texts was the Summa de vitiis et virtutibus of Guillelmus Peraldus.4 As Leonard Boyle has demonstrated, the part of the
Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas most frequently copied was the
Secunda secundae, exactly because its treatment of virtues and vices was
useful to preachers.5 Likewise, Dominicans were among the leaders in
writing pastoral manuals and guides for confessors, the frequently-copied
summae de casibus conscientiae employed in judging cases of conscience.
Among these were the summae of Raymond of Peñafort, John of
Freiburg, and Bartholomew of Pisa.6 Likewise the manuals for inquisitors by Friars Preachers, especially Bernard Gui and Nicholas Eimeric,
were practical in nature, guiding new practitioners of the negotium fidei
with everything from information about different sects to forms to be
used in reconciling heretics.7
One of the monuments of this practical theology is Antoninus’s
Summa. It took shape during Antoninus’s tenure as archbishop of Florence, incorporating shorter works dealing with issues like sumptuary law,
simony, the Florentine Monte, and restitution.8 Some of these works are
4. Thomas Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum medii aevi, 4 vols. (Rome, 1970–
93), II, 133–52, IV, 105–06.
5. Leonard E. Boyle, The Setting of the Summa theologiae of Saint Thomas (Toronto,
1982), 23–24. See also Boyle, “The Quodlibets of St. Thomas and Pastoral Care,” in: Pastoral
Care, Clerical Education and Canon Law, 1200–1400: Essays by Leonard E. Boyle (London,
1981), 232–56.
6. Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, I, 157–68, II, 428–36, III, 283–87, IV,
43–44, 151–52, 248; Pierre Michaud-Quantin, Sommes de casuistique et manuels de confession
au Moyen Age (XII–XVI siècles) (Louvain, 1962), 34–53, 60–62.
7. Antoine Dondaine, Le Manuel de l’inquisiteur: 1230–1330 (s.l., 1947); Edward M.
Peters, “Editing Inquisitors’ Manuals in the Sixteenth Century: Francisco Peña and the
Directorium inquisitorum of Nicholas Eymeric,” in: Bibliographical Studies in Honor of Rudolf
Hirsch, eds. William E. Miller, Thomas G. Waldman and Natalie D. Terrell (Philadelphia,
1974), 95–107; Derek Hill, Inquisition in the Fourteenth Century: The Manuals of Bernard Gui
and Nicholas Eymerich (York, 2019).
8. Notes on the relationship of the opuscula to the Summa appear in Antoninus,
Summa theologica, ed. Pietro Ballerini, 4 vols. (Verona, 1740; repr. Graz, 1959), I, lxxi–

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U SING JUSTICE AND MERCY

not easy to date exactly. However, the De ornatu mulierum can be placed
precisely from replies to questions of practice raised by Friars Minor when
visiting Pope Eugenius IV (1431–47) in Bologna in 1440.9 None of these
brief works hints at any inspiration for the compendious Summa, which has
more in common with the summa de casibus literature than with the
author’s three popular manuals for the working confessor, two of them distributed in the vernacular.10
Much has been written about how Antoninus dealt with social and
economic issues in the Summa.11 Some attention also has been given to his
citation by writers like Henricus Institoris and Sylvester Prierias in their
discussions of witchcraft.12 As noted above, however, little has been said
about how Antoninus viewed heresy and its punishment.
The largest part of the treatment of that topic by Antoninus falls in the
context of his writing about sins and crimes in book II of the Summa.
Beginning with the seven deadly sins, avarice (and restitution of ill-gotten
gains), pride, luxury, gluttony, wrath, envy and acidia, the archbishop went
on to address false witness, transgression of vows, and infidelity. Under the
heading of infidelity Antoninus treated superstitions, including divination

lxxxii: “Catalogus operum editorum & manuscriptorum.” Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis
Praedicatorum, I, 80–100, IV, 27–31. See also Raymond Creytens, “Les cas de conscience
soumis à S. Antonin de Florence par Dominique de Catalogne OP,” Archivum Fratrum
Praedicatorum, 28 (1958), 149–220; Jason Aaron Brown, “St. Antonin of Florence on Justice in Buying and Selling: Introduction, Critical Edition and Translation” (PhD diss.,
University of Toronto, 2019).
9. Thomas M. Izbicki, “Pyres of Vanities: Mendicant Preaching on the Vanity of
Women and Its Lay Audience,” in: De ore Domini: Preacher and Word in the Middle Ages, eds.
Thomas L. Amos, Eugene A. Green, and Beverley Mayne Kienzle (Kalamazoo, 1989), 211–
34; Thomas M. Izbicki, “The Origins of the De ornatu mulierum of Antoninus of Florence,”
MLN Italian Issues Supplement, 119, no. 1 (2004), 142–61.
10. Howard, Beyond the Written Word, 24–25. The Confessionale “Defecerunt” appeared
in more than one version; see Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, I, 92–99; Giliberto
Aranci, “I confessionali di S. Antonino Pierozzi e la tradizione catechistica del ’400,” Vivens
homo, 3 (1992), 273–92.
11. For Antoninus’s economic thought, see, among others, Raymond de Roover, Business, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Julius
Kirshner (Chicago, 1974), 20, 22, 26, 29, 33–34, 252–53, 279–80, 310–11, 340.
12. Christopher S. Mackay, trans., The Hammer of Witches: A Complete Translation of
the Malleus maleficarum (Cambridge, 2009); Michael M. Tavuzzi, Prierias: The Life and Works
of Silvestro Mazzolini da Prierio, 1456–1527 (Durham, NC, 1997), 33, 46, 110. Thomas M.
Izbicki, “Antoninus of Florence and the Dominican Witch Theorists,” Memorie Domenicani,
n.s., 43 (2012), 347–61.

THOMAS M. IZBICKI

291

and incantations.13 He closed Book II by resuming the discussion of superstitions and concluding with a treatment of fate.14
Treating infidelity, Antoninus describes it as a vice contrary to the
theological virtue of faith. He described that vice as arising from pride, one
of the seven deadly sins. Persons who, out of pride, did not want to submit
their opinions “to the rules of faith and the sound understanding of the
fathers” fell into that sin. Here Antoninus listed three types of guilty persons: pagans, Jews and heretics, but he added the related category of apostates.15 For those ignorant of the faith, infidelity derived from original sin.
Infidelity could be a mortal sin if it was a willful refusal to believe on
account of pride. Christians were not permitted, however, to say that Jews
or Muslims could be saved by adherence to their own beliefs and practices
which contained a bit of the truth which they expounded falsely. No one,
he said, could be saved without embracing the faith of the Catholic
Church.16 (Antoninus treated heretics elsewhere in his Summa in symbolic
terms as persons who devastated the vineyard of the Lord.17)
Focusing on heresy, Antoninus said that two things are required to be
guilty of that crime: an error in reason about the faith and pertinacity. Per13. Izbicki, “Antoninus of Florence and the Dominican Witch Theorists,” 339–42. In
the vernacular Confessionale “Omnis mortalium cura,” Antoninus referred to a man he knew
who turned to magic out of curiositas, probably a reference to Giovanni de’ Cani; see ibid. 342.
14. See the table of contents in Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2. On the order of the
deadly sins, see Lester K. Little, “Pride Goes before Avarice: Social Change and the Vices in
Latin Christendom,” American Historical Review, 76 (1971), 16–59.
15. Antoninus treated apostasy, giving up the faith, as a form of heresy. Jews and
pagans could not be deprived of civil dominium, but apostate rulers could see their subjects
absolved of oaths of allegiance. Discussing the Emperor Julian, Antoninus said that he was
powerful, and so the Church tolerated him, urging obedience in matters not pertaining to the
faith; see Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1169: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput VI: “De
apostasia multiplici.”
16. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1146–47: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caputm II:
“De triplici infidelitate.” Antoninus cites C. 24 q. 1 c. 22 to support this conclusion. The idea
that there was not salvation outside the church (extra ecclesiam nulla salus) could have political
implications; see James Muldoon, “Extra ecclesiam non est imperium: The Canonists and the
Legitimacy of Secular Power,” Studia Gratiana, 9 (1966), 570–79. Antoninus also treated baptized Jewish converts, even those converted as infants or through fear, as heretics or supporters
of heretics if they returned to the religion of their ancestors; see Antoninus, Summa theologica,
2.1159: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De haeresi, & de poenis haereticorum.”
Christians who converted to Judaism also were heretics; see ibid, 2.1159. Paola Tartakoff, Conversion, Circumcision and Ritual Murder in Medieval Europe (Philadelphia, 2020), 70–124.
17. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 1.386: Tomus I, titulus V, caput II: “De tribus
novissimis.”

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tinacious adherence to a false opinion or doctrine required obstinacy of
will, not just an error in reason.18 Error about religion could involve contradicting an article of faith or denying the inspired contents of Scripture.
In either case, the error had to be embraced voluntarily and pertinaciously
to be heretical. Following Thomas Aquinas, he added that this error could
involve a refusal to accept Christ, as the Jews and pagans did, or “corrupting” the dogmas of the faith, which was heresy properly speaking.19 Antoninus also said that anyone willing to accept correction cannot be called a
heretic. His example of this was Joachim of Flora, whose teachings on the
Trinity were condemned, although he himself was not. The Calabrian
abbot had submitted his writings to correction by the Church, sparing him
personal condemnation.20
Again, following Aquinas, Antoninus left room for opinions about
issues not yet settled by the Church. He was ready to correct doubt based
on weakness, not arrogance, and remedy teachable ignorance about theological matters not necessarily embraced for salvation. Willingness to
accept correction was essential in such cases as thinking Jacob was the
father of Abraham.21
It was in the transition from defining heresy to discussing the treatment of heretics that Antoninus said: “In the punishment of heretics, however, the Church uses justice and mercy.”22
He cited canon law to prove that those who recant heresy are restored
to the sacrament of penance and the Eucharist. The archbishop was clear
that heretics merited punishment, even death, for corrupting the faith, just
as lay rulers executed those who tampered with their coins. The crime of
corrupting the faith, affecting the eternal welfare of souls, was worse than
18. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1156: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.” On earlier teachings about pertinacity, see Takashi Shogimen, Ockham and Political Discourse in the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2007), 88–104.
19. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1155–56: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV:
“De haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.” Antoninus said that heresy was an error about the
faith, not an error about philosophy or geometry.
20. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1156: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum,” citing the Gregorian Decretals at X 1.1.2, the Fourth Lateran Council’s condemnation of Joachim’s attack on Peter Lombard’s doctrine of the Trinity.
21. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1156–57: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV:
“De haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
22. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1157: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV:
“De haeresi & de poenis haereticorum”: “In puniendo autem haereticos ecclesia utitur justitia &
misericordia.”

THOMAS M. IZBICKI

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corrupting or counterfeiting coinage, which only sustains temporal life.23
Nonetheless, he advocated mercy, sparing those who repented a first lapse
into heresy. The penitent heretic could swear on the Scriptures before a
bishop to hold fast to the true faith.24 Even excommunication was merciful, applying medicine to a life-threatening wound.25
Impenitent heretics were to experience the severe justice of execution
and confiscation of goods. Following Thomas Aquinas, the archbishop
argued that this was done for the common good. The relapsed too were
inconstant in faith and likely, if reconciled too easily, to set an example for
others to fall into error.26 Dealing with the execution of relapsed heretics,
the archbishop said that guilty lay persons were to be burned. Clerics, however, had to be degraded from office before being turned over to the secular
arm. Heretics condemned to death who repented at the last moment could
be consigned instead to perpetual imprisonment.27 Antoninus also stated
that a condemned heretic who admitted this to his confessor could not be
condemned because of the seal of confession.28
Those who harbored or abetted heretics were subject to excommunication. If they were suspected of this and failed to clear themselves of the
charge, they risked the legal penalties of infamy (infamia). This included
23. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1157: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum,” citing the Gregorian Decretals, at X 5.2.4. On counterfeit
coins, see Thomas N. Bisson, Conservation of Coinage: Monetary Exploitation and its Restraint
in France, Catalonia, and Aragon (c. A.D. 1000–c. 1225) (Oxford, 1979). Antoninus allowed
the heirs of those who received “consolations” from heretics while gravely ill to argue that they
were not of sound mind, saving property rights for their descendants; but he required that
there be witnesses outside the family and household to prove this; see ibid, 2.1159: Tomus II,
titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
24. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1157: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum,” where Antoninus also addressed punishment of erring
clergy through deprivation of office.
25. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1157: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.” Elisabeth Vodola, Excommunication in the Middle Ages
(Berkeley, 1986).
26. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1157: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum,” also cited Jerome’s account of the death of Arius in Gratian’s Decretum [C. 24 q. 3 c. 16]. On relapsed heretics, see ibid, 2.1159: Tomus II, titulus
duodecimus, caput IV: “De haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.” John Finnis, Aquinas (Oxford,
1998), 292–93, citing Summa theologiae, II.II.11.3.c.39.4.
27. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1158, 1159: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput
IV: “De haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
28. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1159: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”

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the acts of lay officials being nullified and clerics being deposed from
their offices.29
Antoninus’s summary of the penalties for heresy was firmly grounded in
the ecclesiastical tradition, particularly in the Summa of Raymond of
Peñafort.30 The first penalty was automatic excommunication, even of
anyone guilty of hidden rather than open heresy.31 The second penalty was
deposition from office not just for heretics but those who abetted them. Both
clerics and laymen were subject to loss of office. Even a pope or an emperor
was covered by this threat of deposition. Antoninus cited c. Si papa [D. 40
c. 6] and c. Qui contra pacem [C. 24 q. 1 c. 32] of Gratian’s Decretum to document this. His teaching on papal heresy placed Antoninus among those
who embraced the traditional remedy for papal error, loss of the highest
office in the Church. The archbishop also denied ecclesiastical office to the
children of heretics and their supporters “to the second generation.”32 The
third penalty was confiscation of goods. Antoninus warned against lay persons seizing the goods of heretics before an ecclesiastical judge had pronounced a sentence. Raymond’s Summa was cited against those who
attempted to seize these goods purely out of greed. Nonetheless, the archbishop’s strictures extended to the goods of heretics detected only after their
deaths, and this post-mortem confiscation affected their orthodox children.33
Detection of heresy was treated at some length in the Summa, each
statement documented with references to papal decretals found in the
Liber sextus decretalium of Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303). The transition
from discussing punishment to detection is awkward, growing out of an
argument that mere suspicion of relapse might be too light to merit death.
A serious punishment still could be imposed, but not death.34 Antoninus
allowed just about anyone to testify about heresy, even excommunicated

29. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1158–59: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV:
“De haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
30. Summa Sancti Raymundi de Peniafort . . . de poenitentia et de matrimonio cum glossis
Ioannis de Friburgo (Rome, 1603; reprinted Farnborough, 1967), 38–39.
31. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1157: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
32. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1157–58: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV:
“De haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
33. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1158: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
34. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1159: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.” See the Liber sextus decretalium at VI 5.2.5, 5.2.6, 5.2.7,
5.2.8, 5.2.11, 5.2.18.

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persons and those guilty of other crimes. Those who wished to recant false
testimony about heresy, even if it previously was given under oath, could
testify again, as long as they did this out of zeal for the faith, not out of
hatred or desire for gain.35 Also, two religious persons were to be present
when witnesses were examined, probably to prevent false testimony.36
Moreover, Antoninus regarded proof from exterior acts as essential. Only
God knew the hidden motives of individual Christians.37
Lay authorities were expected to support the negotium fidei. Local officials were supposed to swear to help in the defense of the faith upon
request by the bishop, his vicar or inquisitors.38 Even excommunicated lay
persons who had jurisdiction were allowed to help in the rooting out of
heresy if the ordinary or inquisitors requested that they act. This expectation was congruent with the archbishop’s argument that inquisitors could
invoke the aid of the secular arm against persons holding privileges, including members of religious orders or universities.39
Antoninus had advice for inquisitors. Being a friar himself, he pointed
out that bishops should not pursue heretics on their own where others—
meaning inquisitors from the mendicant orders—had been assigned that
role exclusively. Otherwise, cooperation was expected between those
engaged in the same labor (friars and bishops), whether they worked
together or separately.40 Antoninus also said that inquisitors could work
together in their assigned areas or separately as their work required (prout
negotii utilitas suadebit).41 If inquisitors and bishops did work separately in

35. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1159: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
36. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1160: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
37. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1164: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput V: “De
quadam remissione & materia haeresis.” Here Antoninus followed canon law; see Stephan
Kuttner, “Ecclesia de occultis non iudicat: Problemata ex doctrina poenali decretistarum et decretalistarum a Gratiano usque ad Gregorium PP. IX.,” in: Acta congressus iuridici internationalis Romae 1934, 5 vols. (Rome, 1936), III, 225–46.
38. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1160: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
39. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1159–60: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV:
“De haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.” Religious were to be punished more gravely than
other heretics; see ibid, 2.1160.
40. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1160: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
41. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1160: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”

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pursuit of heresy, they were to cross-check each other’s sentences. Where
they could not agree, the matter was to be referred to the apostolic see.42
Similarly, bishops and inquisitors were expected to share oversight of any
prison to which heretics were to be committed. They were each to assign a
keeper to collaborate on the running of the prison.43
The archbishop also reminded inquisitors of the nature of their mission. They were supposed to absolve the converted and impose penances
upon them.44 Antoninus said inquisitors should work simply and in the
open. Testimony was to be kept secret only when witnesses would be
endangered. Once the danger ceased, proceedings were to be published
“just as in other judgments.”45 This set of instructions was supposed to balance justice with mercy for the penitent heretic, but Antoninus said nothing about dealing with inquisitors who might abuse their offices. Although
he required appeal to Rome when the bishop and the inquisitor could not
agree on sentences, his portrait of cooperation seems too ideal to reflect the
practice of the negotium fidei, which could involve not just mendicants and
bishops but royal officials.46
The Summa includes a second discussion of heresy and pertinacity, a
structural anomaly which will be addressed below in the context of the trial
of Giovanni de’ Cani.47 That part of the Summa discussed pertinacious error,
leading to consideration of one group of heretics, the Fraticelli. The archbishop’s focus on the Fraticelli, originally Franciscans who had not conformed to papal rulings on the poverty of Christ and His apostles, may seem
unusual. We might expect Antoninus to show an interest in the contemporary heresy of the Hussites, who had been the focus of failed crusades and
then of efforts at negotiation and theological debate at the Council of Basel
42. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1160–61: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV:
“De haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
43. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1161: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum,” citing c. Multorum of the Clementine Constitutions; see
[Clem. 5.3.1].
44. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1160: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
45. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1160: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput IV: “De
haeresi & de poenis haereticorum.”
46. On the complexities of proceedings against suspected heretics in the Middle Ages,
involving multiple jurisdictions, see Edward Peters, Inquisition (Berkeley, CA, 1988), 40–74.
47. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1162–66: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput V:
“De quadam remissione & materia haeresis.” Antoninus concluded that a heretic was known
properly only to God, but the authorities had to judge according to acts. Pertinacity, even to
death, allowed the Church to presume that a person truly was a heretic.

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FIGURE 2. Pope Nicholas V, painted by Peter Paul Rubens between 1612 and 1616,
oil on panel. Work is in the public domain in the United States.

(1431–49).48 However, the archbishop gave them little attention, except for
an account of the condemnations of Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague by the
Council of Constance (1414–18) in his Chronicle.49
Antoninus, however, did not just write about heresy. His focus on the
Fraticelli may reflect the reality of his episcopate. Antoninus was involved
in the trial of Giovanni de’ Cani of Montecatini, a physician who was tried
in 1450 for holding heretical opinions, “skepticism in matters of faith,” and
practicing magic. Giovanni was described as following the teachings and
customs of the Fraticelli. Whether Giovanni was affiliated with that longstanding group of heretics is uncertain. However, Antoninus seems to have
believed there was such a connection. Giovanni also was accused of denying the legitimacy of Pope Nicholas V (1447–1455) and claiming that
those ordained by the archbishop of Florence were not true priests. In
48. Thomas A. Fudge, The Magnificent Ride: The First Reformation in Hussite Bohemia
(Aldershot, 1998); Thomas A. Fudge, The Crusade against Heretics in Bohemia, 1418–1437:
Sources and Documents for the Hussite Crusades (Aldershot, 2002); Ernest Fraser Jacob, “The
Bohemians at the Council of Basel,” in: Prague Essays, ed. Robert William Seton-Watson
(Oxford, 1948), 81–123.
49. See the excerpt from title XXII Chapter VI of Antoninus’s Chronicle in: Raoul
Morçay, ed., Chroniques de Saint Antonin (Paris, 1913), 21–24.

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addition, Giovanni was believed to have held discussions of theological
issues with lay persons in his home. Despite opportunities to recant and
submit to ecclesiastical authority, de’ Cani refused, suffering death by fire
in the Piazza del Duomo in May of 1450. This illustrates both the availability of mercy, had the physician recanted, and the severe justice imposed
by the archbishop when he proved impenitent.50 The case of Giovanni de’
Cani may explain, at least in part, why Antoninus, a zealous reformer and
an aggressive proponent of orthodox teaching, included among his
archiepiscopal enactments a prohibition of disputations on points of doctrine or the sacraments by the laity.51
A quick examination of proceedings against heretics in late fourteenth
and early fifteenth century Italy shows the persistence of Fraticelli, both de
paupere vitae, Spiritual Franciscans zealous for poverty, and de opinione or
Michaelists, dissident Conventuals. The latter group had followed Michael
of Cesena, the Franciscan minister general, who after he had acquiesced in
the actions of John XXII (1316–1334) against the Spirituals, had been
driven into opposition by the pope’s later decisions about apostolic poverty.
John had rejected the doctrine that Christ and the apostles owned nothing
individually or in common, which had been embraced in the decree Exiit
qui seminat [VI 5.12.3] of Pope Nicholas III (1277–1280). The Michaelists
regarded this rejection of Nicholas’ statement on apostolic poverty as a fatal
lapse by Pope John into heresy.52
The Fraticelli produced a body of polemics that questioned anything
the ecclesiastical authorities had done since the days of John XXII, and
Catholic apologists, like the Franciscan Observant James of the March,
50. Raoul Morçay, Saint Antonin archevêque de Florence (1389–1459) (Paris, 1914),
167–69, 430–31; “Sentenza di S. Antonino contro l’eretico Giovanni de’ Cani,” in: Stefano
Orlandi, ed., Bibliografia Antoniniana (Vatican City, 1962), 16. For a translation of part of the
trial record, see: Gene A. Brucker, ed., The Society of Renaissance Florence: A Documentary Study
(Toronto, 1998), 258–59 no. 127.
51. Richard C. Trexler, “The Episcopal Constitutions of Antoninus of Florence,”
Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 59 (1979), 244–72, here
248–49, 256. For Antoninus’s agenda as a reformer, see David S. Peterson, “State Building,
Church Reform and the Politics of Legitimacy in Florence, 1375–1460,” in: Florentine Tuscany: Structures and Practices of Power, eds. William J. Connell and Andrea Zorzi (Cambridge,
2000), 122-43, here 141–43; Calzolai, Frate Antonino Pierozzi, 134–43.
52. On the evolution of this break, see David Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans: From
Protest to Persecution in the Century after Saint Francis (University Park, PA, 2001). Some
Fraticelli de paupere vitae joined the observant movement of the Franciscan Order; see
Douie, Fraticelli, 209–25, noting that the two groups are hard to distinguish in the surviving sources.

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replied. There may even have been a counter-hierarchy with Fraticelli
bishops governing local flocks.53 The number of Fraticelli apprehended
and tried is difficult to determine. There is anecdotal evidence, however,
that trials occurred occasionally from the late fourteenth to the second
half of the fifteenth century.54 By the end of the fifteenth century, however, inquisitors in northern Italy were no longer interested in pursuing
Fraticelli.55
The Fraticelli whose trials are recorded tended to be found in Tuscany
or the States of the Church. In Florence the Fraticelli were tolerated, at
least by some of the powerful, for much of the fourteenth century. However, after the Revolt of the Ciompi failed, the authorities became more
concerned with enforcing orthodoxy. This issue was taken seriously enough
for the commune to enact in 1382 a statue supporting inquisitorial pursuit
of the Fraticelli.56
Heresy remained a problem in Tuscany thereafter. One high-profile
case in Florence had been the condemnation and execution of Michele
Calci, possibly an adherent of the Fraticelli, in 1389.57 Inquisitors almost
certainly were better pleased with the professed repentance of Bartolommeo Lemmi, who was tried in Lucca in 1411.58 New statutes against
heretics were enacted in Florence in 1415, but the local authorities seem to
have done little to enforce them. Negative reactions to executions for
heresy led the commune of Florence instead to foster confraternities, usually penitential in nature, to divert piety into orthodox channels.59 The de’
Cani trial was one of those which had aroused resentment.60

53. Douie, Fraticelli, 225–47.
54. Douie, Fraticelli, 226–29, 243–45.
55. Waldensians and witches were more common objects of inquisition in the north;
see Michael Tavuzzi, Renaissance Inquisitors: Dominican Inquisitors and Inquisitorial Districts
in Northern Italy, 1474-1527 (Leiden, 2007), 119–208.
56. Marvin Becker, “Florentine Politics and the Diffusion of Heresy in the Trecento:
A Socioeconomic Inquiry,” Speculum, 34, no. 1 (1959), 60–75.
57. Douie, Fraticelli, 226–28; Nicholas Scott Baker, “The Death of a Heretic, Florence
1389,” in: Rituals, Images and Words: Varieties of Cultural Expression in Late Medieval and
Early Modern Europe, eds. F. W. Kent and Charles Zika (Turnhout, 2005), 33–53.
58. Douie, Fraticelli, 229.
59. David S. Peterson, “The War of the Eight Saints in Florentine Memory and Oblivion,” in: Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence, ed. William J. Connell (Berkeley,
1999), 173–214, here 208–09.
60. Peter Howard, “‘It is a great disgrace for our city’: Archbishop Antoninus and
Heresy in Renaissance Florence,” in: Supernatural and Visual Culture: An album amicorum for
Charles Zika, eds. Jennifer Spinks and Dagmar Eichberger (Leiden, 2015), 103–25.

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Giovanni de’ Cani’s case also reflects the reality that most fifteenthcentury efforts to suppress heresy in Italy occurred under papal auspices.
The end of the Great Western Schism (1378–1417) saw the papacy
prompting local ecclesiastics to act against heresy. Martin V first moved
against the Fraticelli in 1419, shortly after the Council of Constance,
which had elected him pope, adjourned, appointing Manfred of Vercelli,
O.P., to act in the matter. In 1424, the pope commissioned Leonardo
Dati, the Dominican master general and a Florentine himself, to act
against three Fraticelli.61 Nor should it be forgotten that Antoninus’s promotion to the episcopacy in 1446 owed much to the initiative of Eugenius
IV, Nicholas V’s’ predecessor.62
During Nicholas’ pontificate, Fraticelli were detected within the Papal
States at Fabriano in 1449. That case is of particular interest because Cardinal Juan de Torquemada was able to cite it in his defense of the New Christians of Toledo when, in 1450, the Old Christians of that city accused them
of secretly maintaining Jewish belief and practices. The cardinal, a leading
light of the Dominican Order, said that the Fabriano case was proof that
converts were not the only Christians capable of falling away from the true
faith.63 Antoninus too took notice of the Fabriano case in his Chronicle. He
described this case as one of a leprous infection cleansed with fire. However,
Antoninus was uncertain whether the sect had been eliminated entirely.64
The archbishop also noted, in his discussion of the errors of heretics, the
errors of Fraticelli burned in Fabriano and Florence in 1449 and 1450.65
It is in the light of the continuing heretical presence in Tuscany and
the Papal States that one must assess Antoninus’s writings on heresy.
61. John N. Stephens, “Heresy in Medieval and Renaissance Florence,” Past and Present, 54 (Feb., 1972), 25–60, here 43–48.
62. Vespasiano Bisticci, Renaissance Princes, Popes and Prelates: The Vespasiano Memoirs,
Lives of Illustrious Men of the XVth Century, trans. William George and Emily Waters (New
York, 1963), 157. On Antoninus’s promotion, see Morçay, Saint Antonin archevêque de Florence, 101–25; David S. Peterson, “An Episcopal Election in Quattrocento Florence,” in:
Popes, Teachers and Canon Law in the Middle Ages: Festschrift for Brian Tierney, eds. James Ross
Sweeney and Stanley Chodorow (Ithaca, 1988), 300–25.
63. Douie, Fraticelli, 242; Thomas M. Izbicki, “Juan de Torquemada’s Defense of the
Conversos,” Catholic Historical Review, 85, no. 2 (1999), 195–207. For the intellectual fallout
of this case, see John Monfasani, “The Fraticelli and Clerical Wealth in Quattrocento Rome,”
in: Renaissance Society and Culture: Essays in Honor of Eugene Rice, Jr., ed. Monfasani and
Ronald G. Musto (New York, 1991), 177–95.
64. See the excerpt from Title XXII Chapter XII in Chroniques de Saint Antonin, 83.
65. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 4.576: Tomus IV, titulus undecimus, caput VII: “De
erroribus haereticorum.”

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Antoninus may have written a condemnation of the Fraticelli earlier in
his episcopate, possibly in the context of Giovanni de’ Cani’s trial, and
incorporated it wholesale into the Summa. This would account for the
structural anomaly caused by a repeated discussion of pertinacity. However, the entire text on heresy in the Summa may have been more aimed
at answering the Liber veritatis, a known Fraticelli polemic, than to anything attributed to Giovanni de’ Cani.66 It must also be noted that the
archbishop was not focused on only one challenge to Church authority,
i.e. that from heretics. He was writing in the aftermath of the Great
Western Schism and was active himself at the time of the Conciliar
Crisis, rejecting the effort of the Council of Basel (1431–1449) to depose
a legitimately elected pope, Eugenius IV. Antoninus feared not just discussion of doctrine by rash members of the laity; he feared renewed
schism would undermine ecclesiastical efforts to defend the true faith in
perilous times.67
While dealing with the Fraticelli, Antoninus roundly declared that the
Church had made its determination on the poverty of Christ and the apostles. He said:
But today it is determined by the Church that Christ and the apostles
could not have had bare use of fact [usum nudum facti], denuded of every
right, in those things that they had, since it would not have been just,
which it would be impious [nefas] to say of Christ and the apostles.
Therefore, it is obvious that that opinion is heretical.68

Antoninus raised the question whether it had been licit to hold a contrary opinion before John XXII made his determination about poverty. He
argued that it always was a false opinion that Christ and the apostles never
had a right in common to what they used. The decree Exiit qui seminat of
Pope Nicholas III had not supported such an extreme claim about poverty.
66. Stephens, “Heresy in Medieval and Renaissance Florence,” 48; Douie, Fraticelli,
268. However, Kaeppeli records no manuscript copies in Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum
medii aevi. Nor does Stefano Orlandi, Bibliografia antoniana (Vatican City, 1962), 77–79.
Antoninus did cite John XXII’s decree Ad conditorem [Extrav. Ioh. XXII 14.3] as an example
of a determination about the faith that must be embraced; see Summa theologica, 2.1165:
Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput V: “De quadam remissione & materia haeresis.” This
may mean that the second discussion of heresy was part of separate treatment of the Fraticelli.
The transition at ibid, 2.1166, beginning “Et ex his patet, quod opinio Fraticellorum. . . ,”
would then be internal to the likely original tract.
67. Peter Howard, “The Fear of Schism,” in: Rituals, Images and Words, 297–323.
68. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1166: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput V: “De
quadam remissione & materia haeresis.”

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John XXII had been compelled to override Exiit precisely because it was
used to arouse doubt about a matter of faith. Once John XXII had issued
Quia nonnunquam [Extrav. Ioh. XXII 14.2], Exiit had to be overturned,
leaving only one undoubted decree in force, the rejection of which involved
falling into heresy.69
Confronted with the question of papal authority asserted by John
XXII but denied by the Fraticelli, Antoninus distinguished between the
legitimate roles of doctors and the pope. The theologians could debate theological matters; but authoritative, final decisions about matters of faith
belonged to the pope.70 Antoninus cited Acts 15 as proof that Peter led the
apostles in deciding how to treat gentile converts.71 Antoninus also cited
Gratian’s Decretum (11.1.p.30, with its Ordinary Gloss) in support of John
XXII’s authority to declare the truth in the matters Exiit left doubtful. The
pope could authoritatively clarify what a predecessor failed to make adequately clear.72 Antoninus did allow the Franciscans a face-saving compromise, an argument that Exiit was intended to deny that Christ and the
apostles had dominium over immobile goods [immobilia] like real estate.73
In no way, however, would Antoninus countenance the idea that Christians could live off the goods of others, treating those goods as their own
while not claiming dominium. He regarded such usage as neither meritorious nor holy.74 Antoninus concluded that holding certain goods, movable
ones [mobilia], in common and managed by a community’s superior was

69. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1166–67: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput V:
“De quadam remissione & materia haeresis.”
70. On the theological faculty at Paris, see Gordon Leff, Paris and Oxford Universities
in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York, 1968), 160–77. A classic statement on
papal magisterium was made by Bonaventure; see Brian Tierney, The Origins of Papal Infallibility (Leiden, 1972), 86–92.
71. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1167: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput V: “De
quadam remissione & materia haeresis.” On the exegesis of Acts 15, which is not that simple,
see Thomas M. Izbicki, “The Authority of Peter and Paul: The Use of Biblical Authority
during the Great Schism,” in: A Companion to the Great Western Schism (1378–1417), ed.
Joëlle Rollo-Koster and Izbicki (Leiden, 2009), 375–93.
72. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1167–68: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput V:
“De quadam remissione & materia haeresis.” Note that Antoninus did not resort to the
authorities most frequently cited in the arguments over papal infallibility at the time of John
XXII, like references to the “key of knowledge” (Luke 22:32); see Tierney, The Origins of
Papal Infallibility, 171–204.
73. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1168: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput V: “De
quadam remissione & materia haeresis.”
74. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1168: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput V: “De
quadam remissione & materia haeresis.”

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meritorious. This teaching, he argued, was what best fit the intentions of
both Nicholas III and John XXII.75
Antoninus’s condemnation of the Fraticelli was measured in tone,
treating the meanings of texts alongside the demand that authority be
obeyed once a declaration was issued. This fits the archbishop’s larger effort
to combine defense of orthodoxy with defense of papal primacy. The pope
was to guarantee the common good of all Christians, including by teaching
doctrines that had to be embraced in order for believers to be saved.76 In
the Summa, the rejection of heresy, as exemplified by the Fraticelli, was a
matter of right authority teaching right doctrine while using both the
threat of justice and the promise of mercy to win back errant Christians.
There is a certain irony, however, in the saint’s posthumous reputation.
Whereas Saint Dominic, who may never have presided over a trial of
heretics, eventually was depicted presiding over an auto-da-fe, Antoninus,
who presided in a well-known trial, was treated as an exemplary bishop
without mention of his role in judging a heretic. This tidying of the archbishop’s image, removing any references to heresy, may reflect the early
sixteenth century campaign for Antoninus’s canonization, accomplished in
1523.77 Another factor in the omission of orthodoxy from Antoninus’s cult
may have been the disappearance of the Fraticelli from sight by the end of
the fifteenth century, before the time of the archbishop’s canonization.78
Thus, as a saint in the making, Antoninus entered art without references to heresy trials. He was known as friar, bishop and healer, but not as
judge. This is notable in sixteenth-century art. The campaign for canonization may be reflected, for example, in Death and Apotheosis of St. Antoninus,
dated to c. 1516 from the Circle of Fra Bartolomeo and now in the Museo
Civico, Pistoia.79 Another painting from that circle depicts a miraculous

75. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 2.1168: Tomus II, titulus duodecimus, caput V: “De
quadam remissione & materia haeresis.”
76. Antoninus also regarded both schism and heresy as threats to the body politic; see
Howard, “The Fear of Schism,” 305–12.
77. On the difficulties of this process and its completion, see Ronald C. Finucane, Contested Canonizations: The Last Medieval Saints, 1482–1523 (Washington, DC, 2011), 167–
206; Sally J. Cornelison, Art and the Relic Cult of St. Antoninus in Florence (Farnham, 2012),
22–28. Compare paintings of Antoninus with Pedro Berruguete, Saint Dominic Presiding over
an Auto-da-fe, Image 1 in Peters, Inquisition.
78. The last cases Decima Douie records are from Umbria in 1466–67; see Fraticelli,
243–45.
79. Cornelison, Art and the Relic Cult of St. Antoninus in Florence, 2021, including
Figure 1.2.

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FIGURE 3. Woodcut of Saint Antoninus of Florence preaching, taken from his
Summa Confessionalis (Lyon: Antoine Vincent, 1536). Bibliofilotranstornado.
Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. Licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. See: https://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sain_Antoninus_Woodcut_confessoris.jpg

healing by the saint.80 Early biographies of the saint also reflect on his
“piety, strength of character, erudition and care for the poor,” as well as his
miracles, but not his actions against heresy. Busts of Antoninus also fit into
this campaign for canonization.81
In Florence, the canonization, once accomplished, led to the translation of Antoninus’s relics to the new Salviati Chapel at San Marco. This
was done under Medici auspices in 1589. The chapel was decorated with
reliefs by Giambologna, which illustrated the saint’s life, beginning with
his entry into the Order of Preachers and including his role as preacher and
giver of alms. An intriguing aspect of this cycle of reliefs is that the archbishop is presented as intervening in Florentine politics, but not as defending orthodoxy. Here the trial of heretics is omitted to present a desired
image of the saintly archbishop.82
80. Cornelison, Art and the Relic Cult of St. Antoninus in Florence, 57, Image 2.3.
81. Cornelison, Art and the Relic Cult of St. Antoninus in Florence, 21–22.
82. Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, “Preaching, Law and Image in Quattrocento Florence,”
in: Verbum e ius: predicazione e sistemi giuridici nell’Occidente medievale, [Reti Medievali

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305

A painting by Lorenzo Lotto, now in Venice, depicts the saint as a
prelate whose clerics receive petitions and give alms while he sits above the
throng, wearing the habit of his order and the pallium of an archbishop.
There is no hint of administration of justice, just merciful provision of relief
through answering petitions and distributing money.83
This reputation for sanctity is confirmed in the excerpts from texts
praising Antoninus for miracles, sanctity and sound doctrine, which were
published in the Verona edition of his Summa. These excerpts include
praise of Antoninus written by Pius II. In a good example of these texts,
Cristoforo Landino praised Antoninus, addressing him as, “O vero pastore
e degno.” The closest any of these writers came to mentioning issues of
orthodoxy was Ugolinus Verinus’ statement that Antoninus “defended the
flock.”84 Antoninus the judge in the de’ Cani case had disappeared from
the record, both painted and written. The saint was presented after his
death almost entirely as the good shepherd of his flock.

E-Book] (Florence, 2018), 347–65. Cornelison, Art and the Relic Cult of St. Antoninus in Florence, 115–48, 210–252. Giambologna also sculpted the tomb image of the saint; see Cornelison, Art and the Relic Cult of St. Antoninus in Florence, 201–10.
83. Julian Gardner, “Sant’Antonino, Lorenzo Lotto and Dominican Historicism,” in:
Ars naturam adiuvans: Festschrift für Matthias Winner zum 11. März 1996, eds. Victoria von
Flemming and Sebastian Schütze (Mainz, 1996), 139–49.
84. Antoninus, Summa theologica, 1.LXXXI–LXXXVI: “Testimonia selecta.”

Rationality of Language as a Boundary of a
Religious Message in the Evangelization of the
New World
MIECZYSŁAW JAGŁOWSKI*
The article poses a question on the real scope of the discursive religious
agreement that was concluded as a result of an interaction between Christian evangelizers and peoples of Latin America. Contrary to a widespread opinion that it was not the use of a language but rather imagination which played a crucial role in evangelizing the nations of Latin
America and which resulted in a cultural restructuration that blended the
native heritage together with the elements introduced by the colonizers,
this paper claims that the agreement, or the synthesis, was reached within
a discursive thought. The conceptual frame for the research is provided by
Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action.
Keywords: evangelization, Latin America, religion as a negotiated
common symbolic sphere; Folk Catholicism, Millenarianism
Introduction
One of the most attractive theses in the theory of communicative
action by Jürgen Habermas is his statement that the linguistic telos of
mutual understanding (communicative reason, communicative rationality) is
immanently embedded in language.1 Habermas assumes that the agreement-oriented use of language makes its primary application. He believes
that language plays the role of a transcendent structure that determines
the boundaries of what can be effectively cognized, communicated, and
understood. This study applies that thesis to a unique situation in communication: the evangelization of peoples in the territories that are now
called Latin America, which was conducted primarily by missionaries of
*Mieczysław Jagłowski is a professor at the Institute of Philosophy at the University
of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn (Poland); e-mail address: mjag@uwm.edu.pl.
This article has been supported by the National Science Centre, Poland (grant number
2017/27/B/HS1/00234).
1. Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of
Law and Democracy, trans. William Rehg (Cambridge, MA, 1996), 4.

306

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307

FIGURE 1. Jürgen Habermas, photograph, May 29, 2014. Photograph is from the
European Commission, and is available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/europapont/14298469242/ from user “Európa Pont.” This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. See: https://commons.wikimedia.
org/wiki/File:Habermas10_(14298469242).jpg.

the Catholic Church from Spain and Portugal. The considerations
included in the article aim at answering the three following questions: (1)
Did the evangelization of Latin American peoples meet the normative
conditions that must be fulfilled for a situation to be viewed as a really
communicative one? If so, (2) what was the extent of the actual agreement
reached by both parties?
First, it is essential to mention a few pieces of Habermas’s theory that
are indispensable to discuss the above questions. The category of consensus
may be seen as the foremost of them. The term functions in Habermas’s
theory as a normative notion and it means a rational or rationally legitimated
agreement, understood as a discursive opinion- and will-formation. Such an
agreement is possible only if a communicative situation is free of disturbances such as treacherous actions or acts of open violence, which could
impose a consensus. An ideal communicative situation, or an ideal speech situation, is based on the rule of a discourse that disallows manipulation, the
exclusion of anyone from a debate, or the coercion of anyone into accepting
any arguments. Thus, for such a situation to occur, its participants should

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assume that they are honest with themselves and with one another, equal,
free, and reasonable; they will aim at formulating their utterances in a way
that makes them understandable and true.
Habermas’s theses on rationality of speech seem to have a universal
character, pertinent to all languages and communicative situations. However, the communicative concept of a lifeworld limits that universality, as it
emphasizes “commitment to the concreteness and utter specificity of the
subject’s place within their community of fellow speakers.”2 Habermas
claims that lifeworld is a linguistically organized stock of knowledge, always
already intuitively present to all of us as a totality that is unproblematized,
non-objectified, and pre-theoretical—as the sphere of that which is daily
taken for granted, the sphere of common sense.
Having provided the above explications, it is possible to render the
proposed questions in a more detailed way: Was the image of the ideal
speech situation assumed at least by one of the parties when the New World
was evangelized? Did the parties reach any agreement? If so, was it
rational ? What was its real extent? How extensive were commitments to
the concreteness and the specificities of the subject’s places?
Providing credible answers to above questions seems especially important due to some persistent stereotypes in perceiving the conquest, colonization, and Christianization of the New World, which are probably
rooted in the so-called black legend of the conquest of America. Today,
they still exercise a strong influence in some fields of social sciences and
humanities or currents within them. When appearing in philosophy, sociology, theology, and other disciplines, they are often refreshed and modernized with new ideological concepts within those sciences and serve as some
a priori claims—resistant to facts and arguments. Such an approach is
often combined with the scholars’ estimable ethical and social sensitivities:
it results from seeing the great damage done by European colonialism to
its victims and wishing to do them historical justice (if only in theory).
Thus, it aims at discrediting and eliminating attitudes which supported
conquest and colonialism and which have not been overcome even up
through the present day. Despite those noble intentions, such attitudes
interfere with thinking in a subtle way, with recognizing differences and
shades in meanings of the facts and phenomena, or with interpreting them
credibly. On the contrary, they often result in categorizing those issues as
2. Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, trans. Thomas McCarthy, 2
vols. (Boston, 1987), II, 124.

MIECZYSŁAW JAGŁOWSKI

309

parts of general and simplifying judgments that only confirm what has
already been assumed to be true. One of these assumptions is the thought
that the intentions and the real aim of the European missionaries was to
control the labor, production, and purpose of goods generated by the
locals. Thus, the locals’ actions were reduced to being only services delivered by slavish agents who followed the benefit-aimed commands of the
colonial empires. That assumption makes all actions and thoughts appearing within the temporal and spatial frames of the conquest and colonization to be perceived as explicitly related to these events—as colonial instruments of the imperial project.
The range of that theoretical, or rather ideological and ethical, a priori
claim (or perhaps only the overwhelming impact of the stereotype) in the
research and interpretation of the phenomena discussed in the study may
be illustrated by two quotations. The first one deals with one of the indigenous American languages being grammarized (creating grammar books and
dictionaries) by linguists-missionaries, while the second one with encouraging the local people to pursue musical activities:
1. [E]ven if [in writings by the linguists-missionaries] there is no negative reference to the speakers of Quechua in this fragment of the
grammar book, we conclude that their negative classification, or at
least a classification granting them a lower position in the hierarchy, was not reflected in the text but appeared in the mind of missionaries while they were preaching the word of God3;
2. [L]earning to play an instrument assumes that the subject is disciplined and respects norms of correct playing and being a part of a
musical band (or singing in a choir) obliges its members to follow
the conductor’s instructions. Thus, viewed like that, music functioned as a means to raise the subjects to submission.4
The reflections presented in this article are also not free from certain
assumptions. The assumptions here are as follows: (1) Passing a religious
message effectively (an effective evangelization), aimed at a profound and
permanent transformation of the mind, excludes imposing a consensus in
the issues of religion and worldview only with violence, as that would make
3. Corina Margarita Buzelin Haro, “Gramática y colonialidad: gramatización de dos
gramáticas del quechua (1560, 1607),” Ágora UNLaR, 2, no. 3 (2017–2018), 81–99, here 95.
4. Deborah Singer, “Entre la devoción y la subversión: la música como dispositivo de
poder en las reducciones de la provincia jesuítica del Paraguay,” Escena: Revista de las artes, 65,
no. 2 (2009), 45–54, here 51.

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the consensus a false one. It is assumed here that the missionaries could not
have understood the evangelization as a purely instrumental and strategic
action (although it undoubtedly contained such elements: for instance, a
campaign of uprooting idolatry that included destroying physical objects of
local cults), because, at least to some extent, they understood and conducted it as a discursive opinion- and will-formation. (2) The Christian
evangelization practice was based on certain adaptations (accommodations) of the Christian message to the values, norms, ideologies, symbols,
social sensitivities, and languages of the evangelized peoples. It is assumed
that Christian missionaries employed those tactics also for the local peoples
of Latin America.
Colonization and Evangelization:
Strategic Action versus Communicative Action
The communicative situation during the evangelization of the New
World was certainly far from perfect. Although no such real situation ever
reaches the ideal outlined by Habermas (which he emphasizes himself),
some considerable limitations and obstacles are clearly visible in this case.
Those most difficult to overcome were related to the historical context of
that communicative situation (military conquest followed by colonial dominance), as well as to a huge distinctness of the languages and cultures of
both parties. That largely limited the symmetry between participants,
which is believed by Habermas to be a key condition of an ideal communicative situation. The one in Latin America is likely to be called by him a
systematically distorted situation.5 However, limitations and distortions
appear in every normal, or real, communicative situation. According to the
fundamental assumption of Habermas’s theory of communicative action,
the telos of an agreement is immanently embedded in language, independently from the circumstances of communicative acts or even against them.
The essence of his concept is formed by the assumption that such limitations can be overcome.
As it has been mentioned before, those were local languages (both
themselves and their large proliferation) that formed one of the barriers, an
enormous one, that disturbed the communication. When the Spanish
entered Mexico (1519), the number of languages spoken there was as high
as 170. As the Portuguese landed in Brazil in 1500, there were twelve hundred languages used there, including seven hundred in Amazonia alone.
5. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, II, 388.

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311

The need to overcome that barrier was visible to the authorities of the conqueror states as well as their Churches, who were obliged to evangelize to
the conquered by the right of patronage. Hence, there appeared a dilemma
that marked the linguistic policy of the whole colonial era: should the local
communities learn the language of the conquerors, or should the conquerors learn the local languages?
Two attitudes evolved to address that dilemma. One, presented by the
civilian authorities, assumed taking instrumental and strategic actions
towards the locals, while the other, accepted by the Catholic Church and its
missionaries, was a result of deciding on a communicative action, as this
author believes. The difference between those approaches indicated a growing distance between the state and religious spheres—a distance which originated in the Middle Ages. It was then that the religion and the empire,
although in agreement on a number of issues, started to differ or even
oppose each other. When it came to the territories of the New World subject to Spain and Portugal, the culmination of this disparity occurred in the
Age of Enlightenment, in the mid-eighteenth century. It was manifested by
such actions as the secularization of dioceses in the Spain-dependent areas
(1753) or the expulsion of the Jesuits from Brazil, pursuant to a decree
issued by the Portuguese state authorities (1759). In 1767, the Jesuits were
also expelled from all the Spanish Crown-dependent territories.
As for the methods of evangelizing the Indians, this disparity (communicative model versus strategic and instrumental model) can be confirmed by
the fact that it was the people of the Church (theoreticians and practitioners, such as Bartolomé de las Casas, Antonio Montesinos, Manuel da
Nóbrega, Vasco de Quiroga, or António Vieira) who protected the locals
from the colonial violence. They also attempted to vindicate the locals’
rights and made efforts to influence the laws regulating social relationships
in the New World. The evangelists frequently and openly disapproved of
the colonizers’ actions. The actions undertaken in the New World by
Catholic religious orders, especially the Franciscans and Jesuits, were in fact
an attempt to create ideal communities, free of the faults and corruption
that burdened the societies of the Old World. Those communities would
make it possible to return to the values of the mythical golden times (such as
innocence, justice, and happiness) and to realize the evangelical ideals.
A crucial part of that project was made by the Jesuit reductions. In 1609
in the province of Paraguay, members of the Society of Jesus started establishing a federation of autonomous settlements to safeguard the Indians’
freedom, dignity, and responsibility. A decisive factor in choosing locations

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for the settlements was a chance to shield the Indians against contact with
the white colonizers, and to protect them from slave labor. Kept in such
conditions, inhabitants of the reductions could maintain their language,
culture (to a certain degree), and the lifestyle that facilitated preserving
their traditional spirituality and rules of social organization. The reductions
operated for over 150 years, until the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from
the Portuguese Empire in 1759.
In contrast to the people who wanted the evangelization to be limited
to pragmatic, political, and economic domination over the colonized peoples, the clergymen were interested in the culture and life of the locals. As
early as in 1533, a handful of Franciscans started some systematic research
into the pre-Hispanic cultures of Mexico, exploring them linguistically,
ethnographically, historically, and anthropologically. The Spanish authorities, however, did not share their interests. In 1577, King Philip II of Spain
and Portugal (1580–98) forbade writing about superstitions and Indian
lifestyles in any language. Descriptions of the New World were then censored before publication, some publications were prohibited, and those in
public circulation were confiscated.
The Linguistic Policy of Colonial States as Their Strategic Action
Opposing visions of linguistic policy accompanied the two concepts of
relations with the conquered peoples of Latin America and attitudes
towards them. The instrumental and strategic option was supported by the
authorities of states conquering and colonizing the New World. What is
usually quoted to illustrate that issue are the words of Elio Antonio de
Nebrija from the first grammar handbook of the Castilian language, entitled Gramática Castellana, which he published in 1492—a few months
before Columbus went on his first voyage. In the first chapter of its preface,
the author postulated uniting the Spanish empire by means of language,
embracing an axiom that “language has always been a companion of the
empire. And it has followed the empire so that they both have appeared,
grown, and blossomed together.”6
The idea of imposing the Castilian language on the peoples of the
New World to uniformize the Spanish rule in all the conquered areas
appeared in political agendas by the Spanish Crown quite often. However,
it disappeared from them for longer periods equally often. The Crown’s

6. Antonio de Nebrija, Gramática de la lengua castellana (Barcelona, 2019), 11.

MIECZYSŁAW JAGŁOWSKI

313

FIGURE 2. Antonio de Nebrija, first page of the Gramática castellana, printed text,
1492. Image is in the public domain.

linguistic policy was inconsistent and incoherent.7 For instance, the
renowned Leyes de Burgos of 1512 recommended teaching Castilian to
caciques’ children; however, that recommendation was ignored by the colonizers. Since the second half of the sixteenth century, the Crown promulgated some decrees that imposed preaching the Christian doctrine in
Spanish; however, the evangelizers of the New World did not follow these,
either. Decrees of similar content were issued again and again, especially
during the reign of Philip II (1556–98). In 1570, perhaps tired of the inef7. Crucial moments of the process have been presented by Richard Konetzke in his
article, “Die Bedeutung der Sprachenfrage in der spanischen Kolonisation Amerikas,”
Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas, 1, no. 1 (1964), 72–116; see also: Rebecca Acevedo,
“La política lingüística del siglo XVI en la Nueva España,” Mester, 21, no. 2 (1992), 23–36;
Martin Austin Nesvig, “The Epistemological Politics of Vernacular Scripture in SixteenthCentury Mexico,” The Americas, 70, no. 2 (2013), 165–201.

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fectiveness of his orders, the king recognized Nahuatl as an official language of the indigenous people of New Spain (Mexico).
As soon as eight years later, the Crown’s policy changed dramatically:
it became brutal and violent. That was probably because the Spaniards had
realized that the speaking of indigenous languages by the locals led to their
continued practice of their old beliefs and customs. Nevertheless, the
strictness of the Crown’s linguistic policy was mitigated by its own concept
of social order introduced in the subjugated areas of the New World. Since
the sixteenth century, that order was based on congregations—types of
municipal districts relatively separated from the ones inhabited by the colonizers. The congregations had a republic-like status and enjoyed quite a
considerable amount of autonomy: they were governed by officials selected
by their citizens and could own lands, forests, and waters. If they had been
stripped of their separateness, the colonial society would have lost its highest rule of order, and every attempt to blur the clearly outlined ethnic or
cultural distinction between Indians and Spaniards would have resulted in
a social revolution. Therefore, Indians had to remain Indians.8 That rigid
social division helped the citizens of the congregations to maintain their
customs, identities, and languages. That phenomenon continued in spite of
Charles III issuing a decree (first in 1770 and then repeated in 1774, 1776,
and 1778) that ordered the sole use of Castilian in all Spanish colonies.
Similar inconsistencies can be observed in Portugal’s linguistic policy in
its conquered areas of the New World (Brazil). At first, the Portuguese
authorities accepted the locally dominant languages of Amazonia as official
ones and instructed missionaries to educate Indians and Portuguese children in those languages.9 However, when gold was discovered in the region
of Minas Gerais at the end of the seventeenth century, about five hundred
thousand citizens of Portugal arrived there within fifty years, which resulted
in a considerable increase in the number of Portuguese-speaking people.
That marked the beginning of a long process which resulted in Portuguese
becoming the dominant language of Brazil. At times, Portugal attempted to
accelerate that process. A particular role in the process was played by the
document entitled Diretório que se deve observar nas povoações de índios do
8. Georges Baudot, “Felipe II frente a las culturas y a los discursos prehispánicos de
América: De la transculturación a la erradicación,” Caravelle, 78 (2002), 37–56.
9. Dennys Silva-Reis and Marcos Bagno, “A tradução como política linguística na colonização da Amazônia brasileira,” Revista Letras Raras, 7, no. 2 (2018), 8–28; Maria Carlota
Rosa, “Descrições missionárias de língua geral nos séculos XVI–XVII: que descreveram?”
PAPIA: Revista Brasileira de Estudos do Contato Linguístico, 2, no. 1 (2010), 85–98.

MIECZYSŁAW JAGŁOWSKI

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Pará e Maranhão enquanto Sua Majestade não mandar o contrário, better
known as Diretório dos índios (1757), in which Marquês de Pombal (1699–
1782), King Joseph I’s Prime Minister, decreed an obligation to teach only
in Portuguese. That project, in line with the ideas of the Enlightenment,
aimed at strengthening the state, incorporating Indians into the colonial
society, and weakening the impact and power of the Church (especially that
of the Society of Jesus) in the colonized area.10 The document, however,
came to be almost completely ineffective: it was still Nheengatu (the Amazonian common language) that remained the main language in Brazil. Its
rapid loss of importance took place no earlier than in the nineteenth century, and this loss was related to the insurgent movement called Cabanagem
(1835–40). Repressions against its members resulted in forty percent of
people in the state of Pará (thirty to forty thousand people) being exterminated, the majority of whom were Indians and Mestizos speaking the Amazonian General Language. A further decrease in the number of its speakers
followed the development of transportation (e.g.: transatlantic steamers),
which facilitated the surge of Europeans to Brazil.
The languages of the countries conquering and colonizing the New
World continued their inevitable spread. They became dominant over the
local languages in the nineteenth century, when the Spanish and Portuguese colonies proclaimed their independence and faced the need to use
singular, common, and unifying national languages in their territories.
Nevertheless, local languages have not completely disappeared.
Evangelization as a Communicative Action
The linguistic policy of the Catholic Church in the New World was
more coherent and determined than the one held by the state authorities of
Spain and Portugal, and it was based on different rules. The missionaries
manifested their dislike towards spreading the official languages of both
monarchies among the Indians. Seeing the success of their evangelizing
efforts in the local languages, they realized that those efforts were more effective than teaching the locals in Latin, Spanish, or Portuguese.11 They also
saw no foundations to think that local people would quickly learn the lan10. Gladis Massini-Cagliari, “Language Policy in Brazil: Monolingualism and Linguistic Prejudice,” Language Policy, 3, no. 1 (2004), 3–23; Elisa Frühauf Garcia, “O projeto
pombalino de imposição da língua portuguesa aos índios e a sua aplicação na América meridional,” Tempo, 12, no. 23 (2007), 23–38.
11. Vicente L. Rafael, “Betraying Empire: Translation and the Ideology of Conquest,”
Translation Studies, 8, no. 1 (2015), 82–93.

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guages of the evangelizers to such a degree that they could understand Christian teachings. It was simply much more practical for missionaries to learn
the languages of the evangelized peoples. The decision to do missionary work
in languages of indigenous people should also be viewed as a clear sign of the
evangelizers’ will to enter the path of “communicative action.” As Habermas
would put it, that would be subjecting the missionaries to the power of influence exercised by the rationality of local languages and their users.
Thus, the evangelization in the New World was conducted in so-called
general languages (lenguas generales). Among these were, for instance,
Nahuatl, which was widespread especially in western Mexico before the
Spanish conquest. Nahuatl was imposed on the linguistically diversified
peoples of Central America in the early fifteenth century, when the Aztecs
dominated the majority of them; it was the official language of the Aztec
empire and, in time, it became a prestigious language of power and
culture.12 When the Spaniards came to the country of the Incas (Peru), on
the other hand, the position of the local lingua franca, the language of its
administration and communication between its multilingual peoples, was
held by Quechua. Its status was not changed by the conquest, and the
period between the end of the sixteenth century and mid-eighteenth century was even labeled the golden age of the literary Quechua language and
the literature written in this language. It was also the first language of the
New World taught at the university: the chair of the Quechua language
was established at the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos in Lima in 1579.
It was not until the anti-Spanish and anti-colonial Rebellion of Túpac
Amaru II in 1780 that the Spanish Crown prohibited any artistic activity
in Quechua and forbade the teaching of any language other than Spanish
in school. Around 1500, when the Portuguese entered the areas of today’s
Brazil, there were twelve hundred languages there that were entirely or
partly mutually unintelligible. The communication was facilitated by two
common languages of the Tupian family: the Amazonian General Language (língua geral amazônica) and the São Paulo General Language
(língua geral paulista).13

12. Beatriz Garza Cuarón, “Políticas lingüísticas hacia la Nueva España en el siglo
XVIII,” Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 39, no. 2 (1991), 689–706; Rosa H. Yáñez Rosales, “De ‘Dios’, ‘pecados’, ‘demonios’ y otros vocablos en dos confesionarios en lengua náhuatl
del siglo XVIII,” Indiana, 35, no. 2 (2018), 119–49.
13. The General Language of the South of Bahia (língua geral do sul da Bahia), the existence of which is hypothesized, is sometimes enumerated as the third general language of
Brazil. When slaves started to be transported from Africa to Brazil, Yoruba became another
language that reached the status of general language. See: Wagner Argolo, “As línguas gerais

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The Catholic missionaries, primarily the Franciscans and the Jesuits,
initiated grammarization of the local languages, the vast majority of which
were only spoken. By the end of the sixteenth century, almost all the Indian
languages had their phonetic transcription in the Latin script and their
grammars and vocabularies had been compiled in grammar handbooks and
dictionaries. Also, some texts used in evangelization (catechisms, collections
of sermons, prayers, hymns, penitentials, etc.) were translated into them.
Some scholars refuse to recognize this process as an effort to overcome
linguistic barriers, to strive for establishing a symmetrical communicative
situation, and view it as a colonial practice only. They argue that grammarizing the local languages was a change to ways of human communication
and a practice that was aimed at “one-sided control over communicative
relationships,”14 as it imposed the colonizers’ logic on the conquered peoples. There are scholars who claim, for instance, that dictionaries reflect the
colonial ideology as those books were prepared from the colonizers’ perspective and for their use.15 They hold a view that the dictionary represents
authority functioning as a social institution that produces and disseminates
choices made in the process of translation, which consolidates the vision of
reality of the dominant party.16
Although the controversy concerning the naturalness and artificiality of
common languages has now been decided positively for the former option,
some still hold the view that the languages were largely or even entirely constructed and spread artificially or, at least, simplified and then imposed on
the local people to propagate certain messages among them.17 Such allegedly
constructed languages are interpreted by those authors as a tool in expropriating the local populations of their language and appropriating it by the colonizers. Within the discursive order of the colonies, those languages caused
na história social-linguística do Brasil,” PAPIA: Revista Brasileira de Estudos do Contato Linguístico, 26, no. 1 (2016), 7–52; Wagner Carvalho de Argolo Nobre, “Língua geral do sul da
Bahia: a necessidade de modalização em afirmações histórico-linguísticas,” Linguagem: Estudos e Pesquisas, 17, no. 1 (2013), 303–23.
14. Buzelin Haro, “Gramática y colonialidad,” 83. See also: Walter D. Mignolo,
“Nebrija in the New World: The Question of the Letter, the Colonization of American Languages, and the Discontinuity of the Classical Tradition,” L’Homme, 32, no. 122–24 (1992),
185–207; Cristine Gorski Severo, “The Colonial Invention of Languages in America,” Alfa,
60, no. 1 (2016), 11–27.
15. Buzelin Haro, “Gramática y colonialidad,” 83.
16. Consuelo Alfaro Lagorio, “Política lingüística colonial hispánica, catequesis
y castellanización,” Anuario Brasileño de Estudios Hispánicos, 11 (2001), 39–52, here 42–43.
17. Argolo, “As línguas gerais,” 31–32, 37.

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deterritorialization and resignification of the indigenous ones, which is a
phenomenon called glotophagia or glotocide (glotocídio) by those researchers.18
They also attribute the linguists who described and grammarized languages
of the New World with intentions that deny the understanding of the other
and searching for any agreement with them. The intentions are considered
to have been focused solely on depriving the other of their land, imposing an
alien culture on them, exploiting them economically, and monopolizing their
symbols and images. All of these actions belonged to “a wide program of
domination and territorial appropriation”19 aimed at inducing obedience for
economic benefits. The grammar that served the colonial authority and was
correspondent to the economy and interests of the Church is said to have
been one of the most treacherous colonial mechanisms and the most effective
tools “to impose structures, ideas, and discourses, taking the voice of the
indigenous away from them.”20 The missionary discourse is thought to have
been a privileged place of attributing meanings, “to have established a new
space of domination and asymmetry,” and to have led to “resignification of
local social and historical reality.”21 Moreover, the linguist-missionaries are
sometimes presented as contemptuous towards the local languages, a contempt which was supposedly caused by the fact that those languages were
spoken only, had pronunciations difficult for Europeans, or lacked certain
phonemes present in civilized languages. Thus, the missionaries are thought
to have viewed the languages of Indians as barbarian and transferred that
assessment onto their speakers.
Those accusations, however, are not true. Numerous facts and testimonies oppose the claims that the Catholic missionaries had a tremendous
impact on the language, which is alleged to have been constructed by the
process of grammarization and translation and to have been imposed later
on the indigenous people of America, taking hold of their perception of
reality. The claim is denied by, for instance, Maria Carlota Rosa, who refers
to grammarization of the Tupí language by José de Anchieta (1534–1597)
and aptly remarks that he managed to show the richness of detail 22 charac18. Buzelin Haro, “Gramática y colonialidad,” 88; Walter D. Mignolo, “On the Colonization of Amerindian Languages and Memories: Renaissance Theories of Writing and the
Discontinuity of the Classical Tradition,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 34, no.
2 (1992), 301–30; Luiz C. Borges, “As línguas gerais e a Companhia de Jesus—política e
milenarismo,” Cad. Est. Ling., Campinas, 46, no. 2 (2004), 171–94.
19. Maurício Silva, “Luta de línguas: panorama histórico-cultural da Língua Portuguesa no Brasil do século XVI,” Acta Scientiarum. Language and Culture, 34, no. 2 (2012),
277–85, here 279.
20. Buzelin Haro, “Gramática y colonialidad,” 88.
21. Borges, “As línguas gerais e a Companhia de Jesus,” 185.

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teristic of that language in his works. Cândida Drumond Mendes Barros
believes that such a way of interpreting and assessing the standardization
of languages results from the scholars’ ideological preferences and not from
their research—as is their thesis that the languages were disciplined by
their simplification, which is believed to change the way that the Amazonian Indians used them.23 Many of linguist-missionaries expressed their
admiration for the elegance and richness of local languages and shared the
view that all languages are treasuries of unique values and have their own
dignity. Miguel Ángel Esparza Torres, an acclaimed expert in missionary
linguistics, observed that “the assessment of the languages that missionaries met is entirely positive. In fact, it is possible to speak of their authentic
fascination with the language of Indians.”24 Such attitudes and opinions
were expressed also by prominent linguist-missionaries such as Andrés de
Olmos,25 Alonso de Molina,26 or Antonio del Rincon.27 Negative opinions
on local languages were expressed by the priests very rarely.28 Usually, such
attitudes were shown by the civil servants or civil authorities.29

22. Maria Carlota Rosa, “Acerca das duas primeiras descrições missionárias de língua
geral,” Amerindia: Revue d’Ethnolinguistique Amérindienne, 19, no. 20 (1995), 273–84.
23. Maria Cândida Drumond Mendes Barros, “A relação entre manuscritos e impressos em tupi como forma de estudo da política linguística jesuítica no século XVIII na Amazônia,” Letras, 61 (2003), 125–52.
24. Miguel Angel Esparza Torres, “Lingüistas en la frontera: sobre las motivaciones,
argumentos e ideario de los misioneros lingüistas,” Romanistik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 9,
no. 1 (2003), 67–92, here 84.
25. Andrés de Olmos, Arte para aprender la lengua Mexicana compuesto por fr. Andrés de
Olmos, acabose en primero dia de Henero del año mil quiniestos y quarenta y siete años (Guadalajara, 1972), 9–10.
26. Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana compuesto por el muy
Reuerendo Padre Fray Alonso de Molina, dela Orden bienauenturado nuestro Padre sant Francisco
(México, 1571).
27. Antonio del Rincon, Arte Mexicana compuesta por el padre Antonio Del Rincon de la
compañia de Jesus Dirigido al illustrissimo y reverendissimo s. Don Diego Romano obispo de Tlaxcallan, y del consejo de su magestad, xc. En México en casa de Pedro, Balli. 1595 (Mexico, 1885), 9.
28. An example would be the letter to King Charles I of Fr. Domingo de Betanzos,
OP, and Fr. Diego de la Cruz, OP, of May 5, 1544, in which they state that the autochthonous peoples “do not have the capacity to trustworthily and correctly understand the matters
of faith and its truths, and their language is not so rich that they can be explained without
great impropriety, which can easily lead to serious errors” (“Parecer de los frailes de la Órden
de Santo Domingo de la Nueva España, sobre repartimientos,” in: Colección de Documentos
Inéditos relativos al Descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas
de América y Oceanía, sacados de los Archivos del Reino, y muy especialmente del de Indias, 42 vols.
(Madrid, 1867), VII, 541–2.
29. One of the scarce examples of such negative remarks is presented by the opinion
by Francisco Rodríguez Leyte (ca. 1589–1650), the conquistador who in a report to the

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FIGURE 3. Jose de Anchieta, author unknown, engraving. In: Alcance: Retratos e
bustos dos varões e donas que illustra’rão. (Lisbon: Impressão Regia, 1807). n. 1.[1]
Public domain.

Translation and Linguistic Boundaries of Communication
Numerous authors maintain that it was translation which was the
main factor of the colonial discourse and played the key role in the conquest and institutionalization of colonialism. Though it may be taken for
granted that translation is one of the most significant factors of agreement
going beyond the limitations of the speakers’ and translators’ lifeworlds,
some scholars claim that it can be used to fulfill the first stage of ideological
control, which lies at the foundation of the conquest. They view it as an
imperialistic institutional practice, as if translating local texts was aimed
predominantly at identifying elements that could aid the colonizers in
wielding their power. According to that perspective, translation and gramFranciscan provincial wrote in relation to the Cumanagoto language of Eastern Venezuela:
“five letters are missing in their alphabet: B, D, F, L and R. In my opinion B signifies the
lack of truth and reserve; D the lack of God (…); F the lack of faith (…); L because they live
within rites and ceremonies of the natural law; and R signifies the lack of a King who universally governs them” (quoted in: Georges L. Bastin, “Adaptation, the paramount communication strategy,” Linguaculture, no. 1 (2014), 74–87, at 79).

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marization of a language would provide a tool to neutralize the indigenous
wisdom and impose European mental structures on the locals.30
Translation, nevertheless, always brings more or less problematic
effects, irrespectively of its intention. According to Willard van Orman
Quine’s well-known thesis on the indeterminacy of translation, when languages differ radically, the translator can never be certain of the right reference of the translated word or sentence, especially if there are no empirically observable references.31 Moreover, translation is not only a shift from
one language to another, but also from one culture to another; words have
their connotations and values typical of given peoples or cultures, and even
if they reference objects which have physical denotations, it is the peoples
and their cultures which determine sets of perceptions corresponding to
them.32 Thus, language mediation cannot be understood “without exploring contexts in which it is performed, and without reflection on the forms
in which individuals, groups and societies communicate, their space, rituals, and symbols, as well as ways and channels of idea and image transmission.”33 Translators and missionaries had to face a greater challenge than
languages themselves: they had to deal with the problem of incomparable
cultures or, to employ Habermas’ terminology, the problem of incomparable lifeworlds. Such a reality may be confirmed by an observation made by
one outstanding missionary-linguist, Toribio Benavente Motolinia (1482–
30. Nair María Anaya Ferreira, “La traducción y el otro: El acto (invisible) de traducir
y los procesos de colonización,” Anuario de Letras Modernas, 15 (2009), 261–73; see also: Consuelo Alfaro Lagorio, “Léxico, dicionários e tradução no período colonial hispânico,” Alea:
Estudos Neolatinos, 11, no. 2 (2009), 309–20; Paja Faudree, “Made in Translation: Revisiting
the Chontal Maya Account of the Conquest,” Ethnohistory, 62, no. 3 (2015), 597–621; Anna
Maria d’Amore, Murillo Gallegos, and Krisztina Zimányi, “Have Faith in Your Vocabulary:
The Role of the Interpreter in the Conquest of Power, Language and Ideology in the New
Spain,” Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series: Themes in Translation Studies, 15 (2016), 36–50.
31. Willard Van Orman Quine, “On the Reasons for Indeterminacy of Translation,”
Journal of Philosophy, 67, no. 6 (1970), 178–83; idem, “Indeterminacy of Translation Again,”
Journal of Philosophy, 84, no. 1 (1987), 5–10.
32. Iwona Kasperska, “Traducción del Nuevo Mundo: ¿diálogo intercultural o confrontación de culturas? Aproximación a la visión del Otro en las crónicas del descubrimiento
y la conquista,” Studia Romanica Posnaniensia, 39, no. 2 (2012), 23–39; see also: Toribio de
Benavente de Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España (London, 1848; Barcelona,
2019), 37; Verónica Murillo Gallegos, “Ixiptla o imagen: un problema lingüístico y cultural
en la evangelización novohispana,” Escritos BUAP, 2, no. 2 (2017), 25–42; José Ribamar Bessa
Freire, “Tradução e interculturalidade: o passarinho, a gaiola e o cesto,” Alea: Estudos Neolatinos, 11, no. 2 (2009), 321–38.
33. Gertrudis Payàs Puigarnau and José Manuel Zavala Cepeda, “Introducción,” in: La
mediación lingüístico-cultural en tiempos de Guerra: Cruce de miradas desde España y América, eds.
Gertrudis Payàs and José Manuel Zavala Cepeda (Temuco, 2012), 12.

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1569): when the Indians were shown an image of the Virgin Mary, they
started calling every image by the word Mary, or were convinced that it is
the name of the Christian God.34 Naturally, it was much harder to show
them the image of God, which is understood by Christian theology as a
pure spirit. Considering the local understanding of theophany, which
could be realized in every object, human, act, or phenomenon, it was hard
to expect that, for instance, the Indians would not equate a picture of God
with God himself. Terrible difficulties in finding a right translation of the
Christian understanding of the relationship between the members of the
Holy Trinity were caused by the rules of the local structure of relatives,
which was viewed differently than in European culture. For instance, in the
Tupí language, the same word might refer to a father and his brother, and
the word that referred to a son, referred also to the brother’s son.35 Similarly, it was difficult to find an adequate equivalent of a Christian soul in
the repertoire of the culture and religion that had animist character, where
it is possible to speak of a soul of the wind.36 Here also appeared the issue
of the punishment of hell. For instance, in the Nahuatl language the name
of hell is mictlán and it means pre-Hispanic world of the dead—a place
where people go after death, cold and dark, located in the North. Warning
locals that they would go to mictlán after death caused them no consternation at all, as they already believed this to be their final destination.37
Translators tried to solve those problems using two different translation
strategies. Some, such as Alonso de Molina, placed the Spanish word Dios
next to the word for God in Nahuatl. They also attempted to make the
Indians relate their deities with devils and demons. Others, however, such
as Pedro de Gante, Bernardino de Sahagún, and Andrés de Olmo, used the
same formulas that the Indians used to refer to their deities.
Although a word uttered by a missionary in a local language was placed
within the Christian context, its primary (that is, local, Indian) reference did
not disappear in the Indian mind. In many cases, such translations replaced
only words, not concepts. Therefore, what frequently occurred was an inter34. Toribio de Benavente de Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 37.
35. Freire, “Tradução e interculturalidade: o passarinho, a gaiola e o cesto,” 321–38,
esp. 326–27.
36. Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz and Elke Ruhnau, “‘Salvando las almas de los
indios’: Los conceptos de ‘alma/ánima’ en las lenguas coloniales náhuatl y quechua,” in: La
transmisión de conceptos cristianos a las lenguas amerindias: Estudios sobre textos y contextos de la
época colonial, ed. Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz (Sankt Augustin, 2016), 194.
37. Verónica Murillo Gallegos, “Entre la incomprensión y la persuasión: Algunas cuestiones semánticas en los discursos novohispanos de evangelización,” in: Crónica, retórica y discurso en el Nuevo Mundo, eds. Manuel Pérez and Alberto Ortiz (Zacatecas, 2014), 184.

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FIGURE 4. Antonio Vieira, SJ, eighteenth century, oil on canvas, 1680 × 1280 mm.
Casa Cadaval, Muge, Portugal. Image is in the public domain.

cultural miscommunication. It resulted both from the fact that the Indians did
not understand alien rhetoric, unknown concepts, and symbols, as well as
that some western emotions were implicitly present in the Christian beliefs,
myths, and rituals.38 The locals mixed the elements and religious practices
of Catholicism with those that were considered pagan by missionaries, resignifying them in their own terms and for their own purposes.39 The Indians attributed those concepts with meanings that originated in their own
cosmology and systems of values, although, at the same time, the Indians
did not negate their Christian sense. It seems that eventually the mission38. Concepción Bravo Guerreira, “El pan de cada día y la vida eterna: Sentimiento y
expresión de la religiosidad popular en los virreinatos de las Indias españolas,” Revista Complutense de Historia de América, 35 (2009), 163–85.
39. Francismar Alex Lopes de Carvalho, “Estrategias de conversión y modos indígenas
de apropiación del cristianismo en las misiones jesuíticas de Maynas, 1638–1767,” Anuario de
Estudios Americanos, 73, no. 1 (2016), 99–132; David Tavárez, “Naming the Trinity: From
Ideologies of Translation to Dialectics of Reception in Colonial Nahua Texts, 1547–1771,”
Colonial Latin American Review, 9, no. 1 (2000), 21–47; Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz and
Ruhnau, “‘Salvando las almas de los indios,’” 194; Gallegos, “Entre la incomprensión y la persuasión,” 184.

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aries lost their faith in voicing their message adequately, or even suffered a
relative defeat,40 as it is claimed by some. Despite their efforts, the peoples
of Latin America did not entirely abandon their traditional religions. The
dominant view held by scholars is that the religion of the neophytes became
a mixture or synthesis of their own old beliefs and Christianity. The phenomenon can be seen through numerous terms which are employed for its
definition: mestizoism, syncretism, acculturation, transculturation, a melting pot, multiculturalism, religious and cultural hybridism, creolization,
accommodation, etc.41 For instance, according to Manuel Gutiérrez
Estévez, even now the Christian tradition is not fused (confundida) with the
indigenous one, but rather they are still differentiated (diferenciadas) and
maintain distinct functions in signifying the world.42 He thinks that when
it comes to the religiousness of the indigenous peoples of Latin America,
what one deals with is not a mixture or syncretism but rather Christian addons (añadidos) absorbed by the mythical and ritual conglomerate of Latin
America. A similar evaluation of the relationship between contents from
Christian and pre-Columbian sources within the newly shaped religiousness is endorsed by Deborah Singer. She claims that the Indians developed
the ability of existing in two parallel semiotic systems, which made them
win the missionaries’ trust without abandoning their ancestors’ beliefs and
rituals. She also emphasizes the existence of overlapping heterogenic practices which made it possible to infiltrate some local elements not approved
by the colonial discourse. Although the Indians learned to use competently
the codes of western culture, they were far from absorbing them fully.
Instead, they developed some counter-discourses that kept their ancestors’
heritage alive.43 Such an understanding of those relationships seems to be
accepted even by one of the most prominent representatives of postcolonial
thought, Walter D. Mignolo. He states that “even today, hundreds of Latin
American communities still live in accordance with a worldview inherited
from their pre-Columbian ancestors.”44
40. Borges, “As línguas gerais e a Companhia de Jesus,” 186.
41. See: Manuel Gutiérrez Estévez, “Otra vez sobre sincretismo,” ÉNDOXA: Series
Filosóficas, 33 (2014), 119–41; Nicolau Parés, “O processo de crioulização no recôncavo
baiano (1750–1800),” Afro-Ásia, 33 (2005), 87–132; Richard Price, “O Milagre da Crioulização: Retrospectiva,” Estudos Afro-Asiáticos, 3 (2003), 383–419; Sérgio F. Ferretti, “Sincretismo e hibridismo na cultura popular,” Revista Pós-Ciências Sociais, 11, no. 21 (2014), 15–
33; José Gatti, “Dialogism and Syncretism: (Re)Definitions,” Bakhtiniana: Revista de Estudos
do Discurso, 11, no. 3 (2016), 67–72.
42. Gutiérrez Estévez, “Otra vez sobre sincretismo,” 128.
43. Singer, “Entre la devoción y la subversión,” 52.
44. Mignolo, “On the Colonization,” 314; Klaus Zimmermann, “Aspectos teóricos
y metodológicos de la investigación sobre el contacto de lenguas en Hispanoamérica,” in:

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Faced with the limited effectiveness of evangelization based on linguistic means or—to use Habermas’ theory of communicative action—
with the distinct rationalities of the European and American languages,
the Catholic missionaries turned their eyes to non-linguistic means of
communication. They attempted to shape the locals’ religious imaginarium,
hoping that artistic means would allow them to solidify the content that
was difficult to express in local languages. Shattered statues and forbidden
rituals were to be replaced by Christian pictures, frescoes, and theatrical
performances; the space that had been filled with idols was to be replaced
by Catholic saints and their images. To reach that goal, the missionaries
focused on theater, as it combined many forms of artistic expression. Some
authors consider the evangelizing theater to have been one of the most significant instruments of religious syncretism in the New World. They also
call it a space of intercultural communication, which engaged both parties
equally, allowing Indians to keep their mythologies.45 According to Serge
Gruzinski, the process of evangelizing the nations of Latin America was in
fact a war of images (la guerra de los imágenes), and it was not language but
imagination that accompanied the cult of pictures and played a crucial role
in “the cultural restructuring that blended native heritage together with the
traits the colonizers had introduced.”46 There are numerous elements of
Christianity that were assimilated by the locals in that way; however, it was
the cult of saints that is thought to be the most successful adaptation—the
one with the greatest impact on the religious life of the locals. Some scholars even believe that it has been the central element of their new religiousness, starting in the late seventeenth century.47
The significance of the imaginary aspect of evangelization on shaping the
religious mentality and imagination of the indigenous people in the New
World cannot be negated. It is difficult to agree, however, with the opinion
placing the cult of saints in the center of the religiousness shaped under its
influence (inasmuch as it reduces the new form of religiousness to the sphere
Lenguas en contacto en Hispanoamérica, ed. Klaus Zimmermann (Frankfurt am Main,
1995), 9–34.
45. Beatriz Aracil Varón, “La función evangelizadora del teatro breve en la Nueva
España del siglo XVI,” América sin nombre, 21 (2016), 39–48; Francisco Javier Grande Quejigo, “El espectáculo evangelizador: el desarrollo del teatro extremeño paralitúrgico,” Cauriensia, 10 (2015), 163–96.
46. Serge Gruzinski, Images at War: Mexico from Columbus to Blade Runner (1492–
2019), trans. Heather MacLean (Durham, 2001), 199.
47. Antonio Rubial, “Icons of Devotion: The Appropriation and Use of Saints in New
Spain,” in: Local Religion in Colonial Mexico, ed. Martin Austin Nesving (Albuquerque, 2006),
45–46.

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of emotions, imagination, and ritualism). Such an opinion misses a crucial
component of the religious worldview not only of the locals, but also of the
European missionaries. That component does have an imaginary character,
but its nature is also intellectual, which is expressed in their religious beliefs.
What created that common imaginary and intellectual component of
the beliefs and convictions held by both parties in the communicative situation was millenarianism and the messianism related to it. Thus, this
paper claims that, within the intellectual component of religiousness, there
was a rational, rationally legitimated, and real consensus (to use Habermas’
terminology), which was achieved without any instrumental or strategic
actions, or at least with their minimal impact.
Millenarianism as an Area of Consensus
Almost from the moment the new lands were discovered, their discoverers, chroniclers, historians, and theologians started expressing the view
that the discovery had both a providential and eschatological character. The
situation favored the emergence of some millenarian48 visions and expecta-

48. A precise definition of the phenomena that are included here into millenarianism
and messianism is disputed by the researchers dealing with the history of evangelization of
Latin America. Such understanding of the phenomena was influenced by two researchers into
the activity of Franciscan missionaries: John Leddy Phelan, the author of The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World: A Study of the Writings of Gerónimo de Mendieta (1525–
1604) (Berkeley, 1956), and Georges Baudot, the author of Utopie et histoire au Mexique: les
premiers chroniqueurs de la civilisation mexicaine (1520–1569) (Toulouse, 1976). Their interpretation of the phenomena was criticized by Elsa Cecilia Frost (see e.g.: “El milenarismo franciscano en México y el profeta Daniel,” Historia Mexicana, 2, no. 1 [1976], 3–28; “A New
Millenarian: Georges Baudot,” The Americas, 36, no. 4 [1980], 515–26) and Lino Gómez
Canedo (“Milenarismo, escatología y utopía en la evangelización de América,” Evangelización
y teología en América (siglo XVI), ed. Joseph-Ignasi Sarayana et al., 2 vols. [Pamplona, 1990],
II, 1399–1409). Although Frost notices eschatological motifs in the texts by Franciscan missionaries, she challenges their interpretation in the millenarian perspective, showing that
Phelan and Baudot have made numerous mistakes while interpreting the texts, and that the
conclusions of their research are based on the vague use and the confusion of terms such as
millenarian, apocalyptic, and eschatological. According to Frost, in texts by Franciscan missionaries there was no millennialism but a renewal of eschatological hope. Similar accusations
addressed to both authors were made by Gómez Canedo. Notwithstanding, some authors of
later publications (e.g.: Simone Fracas, “Almost Millenarian: A Critical Rereading of Gerónimo de Mendieta’s Eschatological Thought and Its Historiography,” International Journal of
Latin American Religions, 1, no. 2 [2017], 376–400; Mónica Ruiz Bañuls, “El franciscanismo
en el contexto evangelizador novohispano: raíces del mensaje misional,” Sémata: Ciencias Sociais e Humanidades, 26, [2014], 491–507), while considering the critiques, notice eschatological, apocalyptical, or even millenarian contents particularly in Franciscan missionaries, but

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tions, which indicated that there was a possibility of materializing a basic
condition of the Savior’s second coming in the new lands and among their
inhabitants: making the world entirely Christian. The discoverers of the
New World and the historians describing their discoveries were fascinated
by the happy life of the peoples there; they perceived the locals as carriers of
virtues and values which had been lost or corrupted in Europe. For instance,
Pedro Mártir de Anglería (1459–1526), who is believed to have been the
first historian of The New World, expressed in his De orbe novo
décadas (1511) a conviction that the forms of social life in the New World
might transform European manners typical of the “age of iron.”49 The motif
of Indian superiority over Europeans was also present in writings by other
intellectuals of that era, such as Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566) or
Vasco de Quiroga (1470–1565), who was the Bishop of Michoacán in New
Spain from 1536 to 1565. Quiroga claimed that Indians were Christian in
a spontaneous way, as they practiced the virtues of humility, patience, obedience, and they did not show any interest in earthly goods. He stated: “they
only lack some instruction in the faith and Christian doctrine in order to
become perfect and true Christians”50—the way Jesus’s apostles were.
The millenarian historiosophy of the sixteenth century was particularly
promoted by the Franciscans, who were the spiritual successors of Joachim
of Fiore’s (1135–1202) historiosophical and theological speculations. José
de Acosta (1539–1600), the author of Historia natural y moral de las Indias
(1590), associated the complete evangelization of the peoples in the New
World with the coming of the End Times.51 Slightly later, similar views
were voiced by Antonio Vieira (1608–97), a renowned Portuguese theologian and defender of Indian rights, who spent many years in Brazil as a missionary. He perceived history as a fulfillment of biblical prophecies (Isaiah
65:25; Daniel 7:13–14), by the establishment of an empire spanning the
whole Earth and all the seas and oceans, with one nation, one lay power,
read them e.g. in the perspective of rhetoric that hides the political sense of their statements.
Since the historiographical discussion between the supporters of the millenarian perspective
and their opponents has not been solved so far, the term millenarianism is used in the article
with more general sense, as it is by a majority of authors speaking of similar issues.
49. Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, De Orbe Novo: The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr
d’Anghera, 2 vols. (New York, 1912), I, 79.
50. Vasco de Quiroga, “Información en derecho del licenciado Quiroga sobre algunas
provisiones del Real Consejo de Indias,” in: Don Vasco de Quiroga: Pensamiento jurídico.
Antología, eds. Rafael Aguayo Spencer and José Luis Soberanes (México, 1986), 196.
51. José Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las Indias, 7 vols. (Madrid, 1792), I, 185–6.
See also: Cristina Pompa, “O lugar da utopia: os jesuítas e a catequese indígena,” Novos Estudos CEBRAP, 64 (2002), 83–95.

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FIGURE 5. Toribio de Motolinia de Benavente, artist and date unknown. Image is
in the public domain.

and one spiritual shepherd, in which a full communion of man and God will
come.52 The millenarian views of Vieira were followed by Pedro de Rates
Hanequim (1680–1744), who propagated them in Brazil among people in
the region of Minas Gerais. Those ideas have survived up through today in
folklore stories from some regions of the country and in pop-culture images,
but they are also visible in deep foundations of some Brazilian (or more generally, Latin American) political and social movements.53
The Christian millenarianism and messianism overlapped with the
Indian millenarian and messianic beliefs that were present in some cosmologist myths of their cultures. The millenarian hopes among the indigenous
52. Antonio Vieira, “Esperanças de Portugal, Quinto Império do Mundo, primeira e
segunda vida de El-Rei D. João o quarto: Escritas por Gonsalianes Bandarra, e comentadas
pelo Padre Antônio Vieira da Companhia de Jesus, e remetidas pelo dito ao Bispo do Japão,
o Padre André Fernandes,” in: De Profecia e Inquisição (Brasília, 1998).
53. Alessandro Manduco Coelho, “O Reino consumado de Cristo na Terra: engenho,
utopia e ação requerida no tempo presente,” Páginas de Filosofia, 2, no. 2 (2010), 13–36;
Carlos Fausto, “Acting Translation: Ritual and Prophetism in Twenty-First-Century Indigenous Amazonia,” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 4, no. 2 (2014), 161–91.

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peoples of the New World were first visible in the Amazon tribe of
Guarani migrating in search of the Earth with No Evil, in the Chichimec
tribes (Mexico) peregrinating to their foundation land, in the Aztecs waiting for the return of Quetzalcoatl (one of their most important gods), in
the Mayas expecting the comeback of Kukulkan (Gucumatz), and in the
Incas expecting Virachoca. Those beliefs were always related to the concept
of a chosen people and hopes to establish just social relationships, common
prosperity, and happiness in the future.54
Faced with the multiplicity of that kind of phenomena, their temporal
and spatial range encompassing five centuries of the conquest and colonization across the whole of Latin America, it becomes impossible to show
them in their entire richness in this study. In order to justify the thesis proposed here and to show some of the ways and mechanisms of spreading the
millenarianism that was a synthesis of beliefs originating from two sources
(the indigenous religions and Christianity), this paper will focus only on a
fragment of the whole picture. Nevertheless, the fragment is significant for
the issues discussed in this study, and is made of numerous millenarian
social and religious movements that appeared in Brazil at the turn of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Brazil is a place where for 150 years the
indigenous people were subjected to especially intense, well-organized, and
efficient Christian indoctrination, which was conducted by numerous missionaries, including the Jesuits in their reductions. What is especially interesting for the considerations here is that millenarian/messianic movements
became more active when the evangelizing pressure exerted by the European missionaries on the local people had subsided. When the Society of
Jesus was expelled from Brazil (1759), the reductions collapsed and their
inhabitants dispersed among other people living in the surrounding areas.
Then a new, multi-ethnic society began to develop, with its unique religiousness, called Folk Catholicism, which was heavily loaded with millenarian and messianic ideas and images. This can be clearly seen in numerous
non-orthodox Christian movements and socio-religious communities at the
turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The formations were radical
in their social views and the promotion and implementation of a new social
order, which was rooted in the Christian norms and values, as well as in
54. See for example: Alicia M. Barabas, Utopías Indias: Movimientos socio-religiosos en
México (Quito, 2000); Timothy W. Knowlton and Gabrielle Vail, “Hybrid Cosmologies in
Mesoamerica: A Reevaluation of the Yax Cheel Cab, a Maya World Tree,” Ethnohistory, 57,
no. 4 (2010), 709–39; José Fernando Díaz Fernández, “Günechen como traducción del
nombre de Dios: Apuntes para la discusión sobre la conquista del otro a través de su imaginario religioso,” in: La mediación lingüístico-cultural en tiempos de guerra, 139–48.

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RATIONALITY OF LANGUAGE

their traditional religious convictions. The largest examples of such communities functioned in Canudos (Bahia), Contestado (Paraná and Santa Catarina), Juazeiro do Norte (Ceará), Caldeirão de Santa Cruz do Deserto
(Ceará), Pau de Colher (Bahia), and Soledade (Rio Grande do Sul). In
those forms of folk religiousness, believers typically gathered around charismatic religious leaders, who were perceived as incarnations of Christian
saints (beatos). Those new representatives of God, monks, blessed ones, saints, or
vagrant messiahs were not always ordained as Catholic priests and did not
always have credentials granted by the official Church institutions. They
stayed among people, sharing their lives and beliefs. Some of them preached
that people lived in times of a cosmic and social crisis, which manifested in
conflicts, destitution, and epidemics and which were proof that the world
was nearing its end. Thus, the leaders established social and religious communities to prepare their members for the second coming of Christ.
The paradigmatic model of the leader in Folk Catholicism, often followed in the Brazilian sertões, is embodied by José Antônio Pereira (1806–
1883), also known as Father Ibiapina (Padre Mestre Ibiapina). He chose the
life of a vagrant missionary and encouraged local communities in the
north-east of the country (in the Brazilian states of Rio Grande do Norte,
Paraíba, Ceará, Pernambuco, and Piauí) to take collective action to defend
themselves against the effect of drought (by constructing dams and aqueducts), to build chapels, to set up cemeteries, health centers, and schools.
However, it was Antonio Vicente Mendes Maciel (1830–87), better
known as Santo Conselheiro, Antônio dos Mares, Irmão Antônio, Santo
Antônio Aparecido, or Bom Jesus, who became the most known beato in that
area from the 1870s onwards. In 1877, he stayed in a little settlement of
Itapicuru (Bahia), which provided protection against injustice and hunger
for people from the vicinity—mostly Indians, mestizos, and black slaves
who escaped their masters. In 1893, the group moved to Canudos, where
they settled in the Belo Monte hacienda. The place was inhabited by thirtyfive thousand people. Juazeiro do Norte (in the state of Ceará) was another
important settlement of that sort. Its social and economic development was
triggered in 1872 with the arrival of one of the beatos—Cícero Romão
Batista (1844–1934). His social and religious activity made his followers
perceive the settlement as the center of the world and the center of salvation—the New Jerusalem.55 In the early 1890s, Juazeiro was visited by José
Lourenço (born in 1872), another renowned local religious leader who also
55. Renata Siuda-Ambroziak, “Religious and Political Leadership in Brazil at the Turn
of the 19th and 20th Centuries—The Case of Father Cícero,” Revista Brasileira de História
das Religiões, 9, no. 27 (2017), 9–20.

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331

created a socio-religious community in Baixa da Anta inhabited by 1,700
members. It functioned there until 1926, when it moved to Caldeirão da
Santa Cruz do Deserto. However, it is the community of Contestado, with
its thirty thousand members, which is presented in the literature as the one
with most visible messianic and millenarian connotations. Its origin is
related to the activities of yet another beato—João Maria (Giovanni Maria
de Agostini, 1800–69). His preaching was said to be close in its form to
biblical allegories, parables, and metaphors.
Religious and political authorities in Brazil perceived all these communities as a threat to the established and desired socio-religious order. Therefore, they were repressed by the police force and became the aim of military
expeditions, which often resulted in thousands of victims. The most commonly known incidents of that type are related to the extermination of the
community of Canudos (Guerra de Canudos, 1896–97). After four campaigns, in which ten thousand soldiers (half of the Brazilian army at that
time) participated, the army ended that “most embarrassing campaign in
the history of Brazil”56 with a massacre of the Canudos inhabitants (with a
death toll of twenty-five thousand) and the total destruction of Belo Monte.
Conclusions
The analysis performed in this study makes it possible to draw several
more general conclusions:
(1) The success of a religious message, understood as the discursive opinion- and will-formation that leads to concluding a real rationally legitimated
consensus, which makes it a consensus in the intellectual sphere, depends primarily on whether the sides of the communicative and religious situation at
least minimally subscribe to similar beliefs in their respective religiousness.
Such beliefs have the highest chances of becoming an intellectual core of the
new, negotiated religiousness. Therefore, the condition which is fundamental in negotiating a religious consensus is created by developing a new
common language for both parties of the communicative situation—a language that includes terms capable of expressing common beliefs, especially
cosmological and eschatological ones (or metaphysical ones, to employ the
philosophical terminology). It can be supposed that only when language is
generated in this way can it be a manifestation of the communicative reason,
and can it put forward a linguistic telos of mutual understanding.
56. Floriza Maria Sena Fernandes, “Memória, fé e movimentos sociais em Canudos,”
Opará: Etnicidades, Movimentos Sociais e Educação, 1, no. 2 (2013), 124–39, here 125.

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(2) When considering the sequence of facts presented herein, it should
be noticed that reaching a discursive, rationally legitimated religious consensus
(even if its rationality is limited) depends on a prior establishment of the
ritual and emotional religious life-forms of the collectivity. Even if in the
communicative situation presented here the life-forms were developed
under coercion and colonial oppression, it needs to be admitted that they
constituted an indispensable mental, emotional, and behavioral background and groundwork for a syncretic credo capable of being expressed in
a syncretic language.
(3) In order to express discursively the new credo, a person needs to be
fluent in a new language, as well as living, thinking, and acting in the lifeworld of a given social-religious community (preferably, such a person
should be perceived by its members as an embodiment of their cult figures).
Such a person must be able to express the credo in the new language and
accept the role of a religious leader in the community.
(4) A number of scholars analyzing the conquest and evangelization of
the New World have advanced the thesis which states universally that the
indigenous people and their culture were subjugated to the Western patterns and that the Christian vision of the world was unilaterally imposed
on them (in Habermas’ language it could be said that the consensus was
induced, imposed, or false). However, in the light of the above findings,
the thesis cannot be approved here. We have shown that the communicative situation during the evangelization of the Latin American peoples
cannot be categorized as instrumental or strategic without any objections.
By no means was it ideal, yet the activities within it allow for an interpretation that would characterize the situation as an attempt to reach a
rational and real consensus. Those activities include isolating the indigenous
people from contacts with the European colonizers (Jesuit reductions), with
the aim of protecting them from violence, and preaching the Christian
doctrine in the local languages, as well as grammarizing those languages
(with respect towards their richness and complexity). However, it is difficult to estimate unequivocally the range of that consensus and its effect on
the Indian worldview.
(5) In the times of conquest and colonization, language was still very
much rooted in the external rationality of the world (in the rationality
being a manifestation of the divine nature of reality or its deliberate shaping by the Creator, understood also as the source of meanings and norms
for the human world) which was mightier than the internal rationality of
language itself (“reason which discovers itself in the rationally structured

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333

world”57 ). In that era (radically different from the present era of postmetaphysical thinking), obligations of languages towards the concreteness and
specificity of the subject’s place within their community of fellow speakers—
towards their lifeworlds—were still too strong for a real agreement. Moreover, it must be emphasized that the presented communicative situation
was characterized by unique properties: religious and metaphysical worldviews are very resistant to rational critique and change.58 A consensus in
that sphere is difficult to reach even today, in the post-metaphysical and
post-religious era. Nevertheless, despite limitations caused by an inevitable
engagement of both parties of the communicative situation in their lifeworlds, a certain consensus between both sides was concluded. It happened
not only in the sphere of images and imaginaries, where common sensitivity could be revealed and make it possible to go beyond linguistic, social,
and cultural disparities, but also in the sphere of the discursive opinion- and
will-formation. A condition that had to be fulfilled for this consensus to be
established was twofold. It needed to include religious and metaphysical
(cosmological) contents, which constituted deep foundations of both parties’ mentalities in that communicative situation, and it also needed the
shaping of a common language to verbalize those contents. This language
continued to develop for centuries in a process of symbolic negotiation. In
it, certain elements were preserved and transformed, because they could
attribute sense to the world, while others were rejected, because they did
not make sense in the reality of the New World.59 Thus, a new representation of the sacrum arose which belonged neither to the Christian theology,
nor to the beliefs of local peoples, but to a third symbolic sphere which had
been negotiated60 and which became the new religiousness common for
many ethnic groups of Latin America.

57. Jürgen Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking, trans. William Mark Hohengarten
(Cambridge, MA, 1992), 34. Regarding Western culture, see e.g. Jacques Le Goff, Medieval
Civilization, 400–1500, trans. Julia Barrow (Oxford, 1990), 329–33; Aron Iakovlevich Gurevich, Categories of Medieval Culture, trans. George L. Campbell (London, 1985), in particular
Chapter III: “Macrocosm and microcosm,” 41–91; in relation to antiquity and especially to
the Stoic tradition, partially absorbed by Christian culture, see e.g., Alfred Dunshirn, “Logos,
I. Antiquity,” in: Online Encyclopedia Philosophy of Nature/Online Lexikon Naturphilosophie, ed.
Thomas Kirchhoff, https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/oepn/article/view/
83012/77555.
58. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 98.
59. Cristina Pompa, “Leituras do ‘fanatismo religioso’ no sertão brasileiro,” Novos Estudos CEBRAP, 69 (2004), 71–88.
60. Alfredo Bosi, Dialética da colonização (São Paulo, 1992), 65.

The Provincial Council in Zamość of the
Ruthenian Church in the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
STANISŁAW NABYWANIEC*
The purpose of this article is to elucidate that the Zamość Provincial
Council of 1720 was not an end-result of Rome’s manipulations or
Jesuit machinations to strip the Uniate Church of its oriental character,
in terms of doctrine, liturgy, law, and customs, and to replace it with
Latin equivalents. Furthermore, this paper aims to illustrate that the
adoption of various Latin liturgical and administrative practices was
not imposed upon, but voluntarily adopted, by the Uniate Church,
without sacrificing her rich and valuable Oriental heritage, in order to
remove abuses, improve pastoral care, and unify the liturgy in the
Catholic spirit.
Keywords: Zamość Provincial Council, Girolamo Grimaldi, Leon
Kiška, Uniate Church, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Kiev
metropolia
Introduction
The increasing frequency and importance of provincial councils as well
as diocesan synods that took place in the post-Tridentine period represented an important stage in the reception of the structural reform of the
Church into metropolises1 and dioceses. In conformity with the Tridentine
Council decrees and the legislative acts issued by the Roman Curia, these
ecclesial assemblies, guided by a spirit of reform and renewal, began to
codify local church legislation.2 The Zamość Provincial Council (1720),
* Prof. S. Nabywaniec is professor in the Institute of History in the College of Humanities at the University of Rzeszów (Poland). email: stanislaw.nabywaniec@interia.pl
1. A metropolia is an ecclesiastical entity consisting of two or more dioceses. The head
of the metropolia is the metropolitan, while the bishops of the dioceses under the jurisdiction
of the metropolitan are his suffragan bishops, not to be confused with auxiliary bishops, who
are under the jurisdiction of the diocesan bishops.
2. Wojciech Góralski, “Synody w historii Kościoła w Polsce: Szkic do dziejów ustawodawstwa synodalnego” [Synods in the history of the Church in Poland: A sketch of the
history of synodal legislation], Studia Płockie, 27 (1999), 147–56, here 154.

334

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335

also known as the Tridentinum Ecclesiae unitorum, was part of this renewal
movement.
A Brief Historical Context
After the fall of Constantinople in 1453,3 the Russian Orthodox
Church claimed exclusive custody of Orthodoxy, while spreading propaganda against ecclesial communion with “heretical” Rome, refusing inter
alia to accept the Florentine Union.4 This gave rise to the notion of considering Moscow as the so-called Third Rome,5 coupled with the saying:
“two Romes have fallen, the third is still standing, and there will be no
fourth.”6 The cornerstone of the “Third Rome” was the appointment of
Jonah, Bishop of Ryazan, as the first Metropolitan of Moscow7 at the
Synod of Moscow on December 15, 1448, by deposing Isidore, who was
in favor of the Florentine Union.8
3. Moscow considered the fall of Byzantium to have been God’s punishment inflicted
on the Greeks for their departure from the true faith.
4. Oskar Halecki, Od unii florenckiej do unii brzeskiej [From Florence to Brest], 2 vols.
(Lublin, 1997), I, 86–90; Kazimierz Chodynicki, Kościół prawosławny a Rzeczpospolita Polska:
Zarys historyczny 1370–1632 [The Orthodox Church and the Republic of Poland: Historical
Epitome 1370–1632] (Warszawa, 1934), 51.
5. Such a conviction was encapsulated in the idea of Philotheus, a monk from Pskov,
who in 1523 or 1524 introduced it to the Grand Duke of Moscow, Vasili III. See: Vasily
Malinin, Starets Yeleazarova monastyrya Filofey i yego poslaniya [Elder of the Eleazar
Monastery Philotheus and his messages] (Kyiv, 1901), 158–238.
6. Mikhail Mikhailovich Kozhaev, “Kategoriya vlasti soglasno kontseptsii ‘Moskva
Tretiy Rim,’” [Category of power according to the concept of “Moscow the Third Rome”],
Izvestiya Tul’skogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta: Gumanitarnyye Nauki, 12 vols. (2008–19,
here 2009), II, 13–23, here 17.
7. Atanásiy Hryhóriy Velykyy, Z Litopysu Khrystyyanskoyi Ukrayiny: Tserkovno-istorychni radiolektsiy z Vatykanu: XIV–XV st. [From the Chronicle of Christian Ukraine:
Church-historical radio lectures from the Vatican: XIV–XV centuries.] 9 vols. (Rome, 1968–
77, here 1969), III, 108.
8. See: Mykola Chubatyy, Istoriya khrystyyanstva na Rusy-Ukraini: (1353–1458) [History of Christianity in Russia-Ukraine: (1353–1458)], 2 vols. (Rome, 1965–76, here 1976),
II, pt. 1, 225. Isidore was the Metropolitan of Kiev and of All Rus. He attended the Council
of Florence (1431–49) and was an ardent supporter of it. Isidore was imprisoned and Jonah
was chosen in his place with the title of Metropolitan of Moscow, not of Kiev, and of all Rus.
Isidore fled and reached Rome. Consequently, Pope Pius II divided the Kievan metropolia in
two: the Muscovite metropolia within the Moscow principality and the Kievan metropolia
within the Commonwealth (Chubatyy, Istoriya, 235). The newly restructured Kievan
metropolia formally accepted the Florentine Union in 1439 and thus showed obedience to the
Pope, even though the metropolia remained de facto Orthodox until the Union of Brest in
1596 (Bogusław Waczyński, “Sobór Florencki: Wykłady Sekcji Historii Kościoła Wydziału
Teologicznego w roku akademickim 1958/59” [Council of Florence: Lectures in the Church

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THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL IN ZAMOŚĆ

However, the Union of Brest, signed in 1596, significantly weakened
the position of the Orthodox Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (hereafter referred to as “the Commonwealth”), because it no longer
had the patronage of the state. With the establishment of the Moscow
Patriarchate in 1589, Russia began its exploitation of religion to achieve its
imperial purposes in the realm of the Commonwealth. The Union, thus,
provided Moscow a convenient pretext to assume the role of the Defender
of Orthodoxy, the right of which Russian tsars, including Peter I, readily
usurped and thereafter exploited sectarian issues for their own political
goals.9 In tandem with the political maneuvers, Patriarch Nikon (1652–66)
supported the opposition to the Union, providing Moscow with political
leverage over the eastern provinces.10
Russia’s anti-union attitude11 suited the Orthodox residing in the
Commonwealth in their dissident activities against the Union. Upon failure to prevent the Union, they promptly identified themselves as Russian
subjects for protection.12 The Cossacks too, in their uprisings in Ukraine,
Section of the Theological Faculty in the academic year 1958/59], Roczniki Teologii Ekumenicznej, 3 (2011), 177–205, here 177–97; Ivan Feofilovich Meyyendorf, “Florentiyskiy
Sobor” [Synod of Florence], Vizantiyskiy vremennik, 52 (1991), 86–89).
9. Leszek Ćwikła, “Ingerencja cara rosyjskiego Piotra I (1682–1725) w sprawy wyznaniowe Rzeczypospolitej” [Interference of the Russian Tsar Peter I (1682–1725) in religious
affairs of the Republic], Studia z Prawa Wyznaniowego, 6 (2003), 71–78, here 72.
10. However, Patriarch Nikon also introduced bold ecclesiastical reforms that caused
conflicts between the people and the Russian imperial authorities, giving rise to the so-called
Old Believers sect from amongst supporters of the anti-reformist raskols. Patriarch Nikon’s
growing influence became a threat to Tsar Alexei, who gave the impression that he supported
Nikon’s reforms but secretly took steps to limit his power and eventually to remove him from
power and imprison him. Ćwikła, “Ingerencja,” 73, 75.
11. Moscow deputies were instructed to propagate complaints from the Orthodox
regarding the oppression and persecution of the Greek faith and the conversion of their
churches, demanding that they be returned to their rightful owners and that freedom be
granted to Orthodox bishops to go to Constantinople for chirotonia. Tsar Alexei also
demanded that the Orthodox be granted the same political privileges as the Catholics, insisting on the immediate abolition of the Union, without any reference to the diplomas and privileges previously granted to the Uniates by the kings (Nikolai Nikolaevich Bantysh-Kamensky, Istoricheskoye izvestiye o voznikshey v Polshe unii [Historical news about the union that
arose in Poland] (Vilnius, 1864), 56, 60, 107, quoted in: Ćwikła, “Ingerencja,” 73–74.
12. For example, the Orthodox episcopate, illegally established in 1620 in the Commonwealth by Theophanes III, Patriarch of Jerusalem, without the consent of the Polish King
Sigismund III, resorted to the protection of the Moscow tsar, Michael Romanov, the first of
the new dynasty. See: Jan Dzięgielewski, O tolerancję dla zdominowanych [On tolerance for the
dominated] (Warszawa, 1986), 18; Marian Radwan, Carat wobec Kościoła greckokatolickiego w
zaborze rosyjskim 1796–1839 [The tsarist regime’s stance towards the Greek Catholic Church
in the Russian partition of 1796–1839] (Rome–Lublin, 2001), 8.

STANISŁAW NABYWANIEC

337

which had the character of peasant revolts, also adopted the slogan of
defending Orthodoxy, recognizing the Moscow tsar as their protector.13
Nevertheless, when Peter Moghila, a loyal son of the Commonwealth,
became the Metropolitan of Kiev in 1633, most of the Orthodox metropolitans of Kiev stood by him up until the signing of the Peace of
Grzymułtowski, or the Treaty of Perpetual Peace, in 1685.14
Tsar Peter I (1682–1725) continued Russia’s confessional policy
towards the Orthodox Church within the borders of the Commonwealth.15
In June 1685, aided by Turkey, but to the dismay of others, he obtained the
consent of the Patriarch of Constantinople to transfer its canonical jurisdiction over the Orthodox Church in the Commonwealth to Moscow. He also
removed the former Metropolitan of Kiev and put in his place the dimwitted ruler of Lutsk, Prince Gedeon Svietopelk Chetvertynsky.16
This move, on the one hand, offered Moscow total control in matters
concerning the Dysunites, while on the other hand, weakened the native
Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as even the Cossacks, hitherto sympathetic
to Moscow, began to lean towards the Brest Union. Consequently, the
jurisdictional dependence of the Orthodox Church in the Commonwealth
on Moscow, sealed by the Perpetual Peace Treaty of Grzymułtowski in
1686, paradoxically accelerated the joining of the remaining three
eparchies, namely Przemyśl, Lvov, and Lutsk, as well as other Orthodox
centers, to the Union of Brest.17
Against this backdrop, this paper moves on to give a description of the
Provincial Council of Zamość, which took place 124 years after the conclusion of the Union of Brest in 1596.18 This assembly is considered to have
been the most important in the history of the Uniate Church. Not only did
13. Ćwikła, “Ingerencja,” 74–75.
14. See: Ćwikła, “Ingerencja,” 75; Radwan, Carat, 8–9; Janusz Woliński, Polska i
Kościół prawosławny: Zarys historyczny [Poland and the Orthodox Church: Historical
overview], (Lwów, 1936), 103.
15. Andrzej Andrusiewicz, Carowie i cesarze Rosji: szkice biograficzne [Tsars and emperors of Russia: biographical sketches] (Warsaw, 2001), 171.
16. Ćwikła, “Ingerencja,” 76–77.
17. Ibid., 77.
18. It could be argued that such descriptive accounts have already been undertaken by
many in the past, such as by Charles de Clercq, Conciles des orientaux catholiques, Première
Partie: de 1575 à 1849. [Histoire des conciles, XI-1] (Paris, 1949). The uniqueness of this
present study, however, lies in its use of the Provincial Council texts as source, while presenting readers with a body of rich literature on the subject from Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian
historiography, which were and still remain largely unknown in the English-speaking world.

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it have a profound impact on the ecclesial life, but politically it was also a
thorn in the side for Russia and its autocratic ruler, Peter I, as well as the
Moscow Orthodox Church, since it was a manifestation of independence
and opposition to the confessional policies imposed by St. Petersburg. It
was, therefore, necessary for Russia and the Orthodox to discredit it. From
the very beginning, slogans such as Polonization or Latinization of the
Uniate Church were deployed. Consequently, Rome was also accused of
scheming to eliminate Byzantine traditions in the Uniate Church by means
of council provisions, and thus to absorb and destroy both Orthodoxy and
the Union.
The “Unifying”19 Ecclesial Assembly in Zamość
After the accession of the last three Orthodox eparchies to the ecclesiastical communion with Rome, namely Przemyśl (in 1693), Lvov (in
1700)20 and Lutsk (in 1702),21 as well as the Lvov Stauropegian Brotherhood (in 1708), and, recognizing the continuous strengthening and expansion of the Union of Brest within the territories of Ukraine22 (until then
dominated by a strong Orthodox Church presence), the Uniate Church in
the Commonwealth had to be consolidated and unified on many levels,
including administrative, theological, liturgical, canonical, legislative, and
economic. This, however, could not be done without a provincial council
that covered the entire territory and all ecclesiastical structures of the
Kievan metropolia.
The man of Providence for this task was Leon Kiška, a man devoted
to the Uniate Church. For this reason, Nuncio Girolamo Grimaldi
strongly supported his candidacy for Kiev metropolitan. He came from a
noble family, probably of mixed rite, as indicated by his mother’s name
Krystyna, but through his father, he belonged to the Uniate Church. In his
youth, he joined the Basilian monastic Order and was ordained a priest in
the Uniate rite. He then studied in Rome at the Collegium Urbanianum de
Propaganda Fide. Upon completion of his studies, he returned to Poland.
He held various positions in the Basilian Order. He was the superior in
19. “Unifying” only in the sense of uniformity in faith and discipline, since it also
brought about many new divisions and highlighted old divisions.
20. Also called Leopolis (Latin, ecclesiastical usage), Lvov (Russian), Lviv or L’viv
(Ukrainian), Lwów (Polish), Lemberg (German, Hapsburg usage).
21. In fact, Lutsk had earlier joined the Brest Union, but broke away from it after some
time. Thus, this was the second time it joined the Union.
22. Understood as “lands-on-the-edge,” a terminology already in use in the 1590s.

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339

FIGURE 1. Leon Kiszka / Lev Kiszka (1663–1728), metropolitan of Kiev (1714–
28); illegible engraver’s name, Батюшков П. И., Белоруссия и Литва. (СПб,
1890), p. 261. [Pompei I. Batyushkov, Belarus and Lithuania. (St. Petersburg,
1890)] Public Domain.

several monasteries and in 1713 he became the Superior General of the
Order. Soon after, he was appointed Metropolitan of Kiev. His strong
attachment to the Eastern rite is evidenced by history manuals and publications, containing his homilies and biographies of prominent representatives of the Uniate Church. Undoubtedly, as member of the Basilian Order
and then Bishop and subsequently Metropolitan, he was distinguished by
his zeal for the concerns of the Uniate Church. His activities and decisions,
as well as his texts, do not indicate that he acted to the detriment of the
Eastern tradition in the Uniate Church.23
23. Dmytro Blazejowsky, Hierarchy of the Kyivan Church (861–1990) (Rome, 1990),
252, 297; Irina Nazarko, Київські і галицькі митрополити: біографічні нариси (1590–
1960) [Kyivski i halytski mytropolyty: biohrafichni narysy (1590–1960), Metropolitans of
Kyiv and Galicia: biographical essays (1590–1960)] (Rome, 1960), 79–87; Isidor Patrylo,
Archiepiscopi-metropolitani Kievo-Halicienses attentis praescriptis M. P. “Cleri sanctitatis”
(Rome, 1962); Julian Pelesz, Geschichte der Union der ruthenischen Kirche mit Rom von den
ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart, 2 vols. (Wien, 1878–81, here 1881) II: Von der Wiederstellung der Union mit Rom bis auf die Gegenwart (1598–1879), 299–300, 472; Athanasius
Welyky, Epistolae metropolitarum Kioviensium catholicorum Leonis Kiska, Athanasii Szeptyckyj,
Floriani Hrebnyckyj (Rome, 1959), 5–7.

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THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL IN ZAMOŚĆ

FIGURE 2. Synodus Provincialis Ruthenorum: habita in civitate Zamosciæ anno
MDCCXX. sanctissimo domino nostro Benedicto pp. XIII. Dicata (Rome: Typis Sacræ
Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, 1724). Google Books.

In 1715, the Uniate Metropolitan of Kiev, Leon Kiška (Met. 1714–
1728), proposed and convoked such a provincial council. When he asked
permission from the Apostolic See,24 he indicated its purposes as the following: (1) to condemn the Philippian sect,25 a faction of the Old Believ24. There are discussions concerning whether or not Leon Kiška had the right to convoke the provincial council without Rome’s permission. This, however, is beyond the scope of
this paper. For more details on this topic, see: Dorota Wereda, Biskupi unickiej metropolii
kijowskiej w XVIII wieku [Bishops of the Uniate metropolis of Kiev in the eighteenth century]
(Siedlce, 2013), 19–20; Stanisław Nabywaniec, Unicka archidiecezja kijowska w okresie rządów
arcybiskupa metropolity Felicjana Filipa Wołodkowicza 1762–1778 [Unicka Archdiocese of Kiev
under the reign the Archbishop Metropolitan Feliciana Philip Volodkovich 1762–1778]
(Rzeszów, 1998), 115; Lubomir Bieńkowski, “Organizacja Kościoła wschodniego w Polsce”
[Organization of the Eastern Church in Poland], in: Kościół w Polsce [Church in Poland], 2
vols. (Kraków, 1966–68, here 1968), II, 781–1049, here 868, 877.
25. The Philippian or Khlysty (Хлысты) sect was an underground Spiritual Christian
sect, which departed from the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1600s. It was founded in
1645 by Danilo Filippov, also transcribed Daniil Filippovich. Because of the persecution of
the sect in Russia, the Philippians fled to the Polish-Lithuanian Republic. See: Vasily

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341

ers; (2) to delineate the boundaries of certain dioceses with greater precision; (3) to clarify the principles of precedence among the Ruthenian bishops; (4) to bring forth unity in liturgical practices; and (5) to remove abuses
within the Uniate Church, mainly in dioceses that had only recently
adopted the Union of Brest.26
On May 21, 1720, Metropolitan Leon Kiška sent out letters from
Vlodimir of Vohlynia27 to those eligible, notifying and inviting them to
Lvov to attend the assembly on August 26, 1720 (Gregorian calendar). In
the letter, he made reference to the legal provisions of the Council of
Trent, which explicitly obliged and concurrently empowered him, as metropolitan archbishop, to convoke a provincial council and to call upon
those who, according to the canons, should be summoned for the purpose
of reinstating leniency on imposed punishments and to restore customs in
accordance with established praxis. He also explained that, by the will of
Pope Clement XI,28 Msgr. Girolamo Grimaldi, Archbishop of Edessa and
Apostolic Nuncio to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, should preside over the assembly.29 Moreover, he explicitly reminded the recipients of

Vasilievich Rozanov, Apokalipsicheskaya sekta: (Khlysty i skoptsy) [Apocalyptic sect: (Khlysty
and eunuchs)] (Saint Petersburg, 1914); Konstantin Kutepov, Sekty Khlystov i Skoptsov
[Khlystov and Skoptsov sects] (Kazan, 1882); Johann Haring, Roskol i sekti Russkoy Tserkvii
[Roskol and sects of the Russian Church] (Saint Petersburg, 1903); Karol Dębiński, Raskoł i
sekty w prawosławnej Rosji [Raskol and sects in Orthodox Russia] (Warszawa, 1910), 122–52.
26. Śliwa, “Kościół greckokatolicki w latach 1696–1764” [Greek Catholic Church in
the years 1696–1764], in: Historia Kościoła w Polsce [History of the Church in Poland], eds.
Bolesław Kumor and Zdzisław Obertyński, 2 vols. (Poznań, 1974–78, here 1974), I, pt. 2,
458–478, here 464. The original text is found in: Synodus provincialis Ruthenorum habita in
civitate Zamosciae anno MDCCXX. Sanctissimo Domino nostro Benedicto Pp. XIII dicata, 3rd
ed. (Rome, 1883). The 1883 publication is interesting, because at that time there was a second
wave of latinization of the Eastern Churches after Vatican I. The original was published by
the then Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (today’s Congregation for the
Evangelization of Peoples) in 1724, which can be found in the library of the Pontifical Oriental Institute and elsewhere.
27. In Polish, Włodzimierz Wołyński, i.e. Volodymyr Volynski, a small city located in
Volyn Oblast, in today’s north-western Ukraine.
28. According to the canonical norms, metropolitan Kiška had the right to preside over
the provincial council.
29. Synodus, ¶ “Leo Kiszka Dei, et Sanctae Sedis Apostolicae gratia Archiepiscopus Metropolitanus Kyoviensis”: “Quamvis ex praescripto Sacri Oecumenici Concilii Tridentini, Iure
nobis Archiepiscopali, Metropolitano Primatiali in Russia suffragante, nedum potuerimus,
verum etiam debuerimus Provinciale Concilium ad restaurandam collapsam disciplinam, redintegrandosque ad pristinam orbitam mores, vocatis de iure vocandis, indicere; nihilominus,
quoniam de plenitudine supremae Potestatis, et Clementiae suae Sanctissimus Dominus
Noster Dominus Clemens XI. Papa Romanus, pro maiori tum emolumento, tum gloria

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their obligation to participate at the provincial council and that there
would be canonical sanctions for failure to do so.30
Subsequently, Nuncio Grimaldi requested that the Uniate bishops
submit proposals for issues to be included in the assembly’s program, and
thus commenced its preparatory works. He also consulted other parties,
including the rector of the Pontifical College in Lvov, Stefano Trombetti,
and a former pupil of the Greek College in Rome, Policarpo Filipovič, who
was then the archimandrite of the Pinsk monastery.
Matters for Discussion
Other than the meager material conditions of diocesan clergy, which
was one of the main themes of the discussion, the extent of the metropolitan’s jurisdiction, which previously attracted much discussion and disputes
among bishops, was also expected to be clarified.31 Furthermore, the relationship between the Uniate hierarchy and the Basilian monastic order was
also a problem that required immediate attention, as it was a source of
antagonism, since Basilian monasteries, being autonomous in nature, were
not organized into a single system, but were subordinated to local bishops.32
Internal Disputes of the Basilian Monastic Order
This led to another important issue to be dealt with, which concerned
the internal relationship among monasteries within the Basilian Order
itself. The question was to determine the relationship between the Basilian
monasteries in the three dioceses, i.e. Przemyśl, Lvov, and Lutsk, where
the Union of Brest had only been accepted at the turn of the seventeenth
Gentis nostrae Roxolanae, in Praesidem celebrandi Provincialis Concilii, Illustrissimum, Celsissimum, ac Reverendissimum Dominum D. Hieronymum Grimaldum Archiepiscopum
Edessenum, Nuncium in Regno Poloniae Apostolicum destinavit.”
30. Synodus, ¶ “Leo Kiszka Dei, et Sanctae Sedis Apostolicae gratia Archiepiscopus Metropolitanus Kyoviensis”: “[. . .] et quatenus Perillustris Reverendissima Paternitas Vestra pro termino praefixo de Rebus Unionis consultura, supervenire Leopolim non dedignetur,
refugiendo poenas Canonibus praescriptas, contra non accedentes Synodum Provincialem,
non immemor insuper sui corporalis, ad accedendas Synodos Provinciales, quoties vocatus
fuerit [. . .].”
31. Śliwa, “Kościół,” 464; Przemysław Nowakowski, “Rozwój liturgii w Cerkwi na
Ukrainie i Białorusi po unii brzeskiej 1596 r.” [Development of the liturgy in the Orthodox
Church in Ukraine and Belarus after the Union of Brest in 1596], Krakowskie Zeszyty Ukrainoznawcze, 5–6 (1996–97), 119–28, here 122.
32. There are exceptions to this. For example, the Stauropegian monasteries were subjected directly to the patriarch of Constantinople.

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343

and eighteenth century, and the Basilian Congregation of the Holy Trinity, which had been founded about a hundred years earlier in 1607, in
Lithuania, after the Union had been signed. This congregation had its own
jurisdiction over all Basilian monasteries within the borders of the Grand
Duchy of Lithuania at that time.33 Nevertheless, for those monasteries
located in the territories under the Polish Crown, their adoption of the
Union did not mean recognition of the jurisdiction of the Basilian Congregation of the Holy Trinity.34
At the Zamość Provincial Council, therefore, it was agreed that a separate congregation—independent of the Lithuanian “mother” Congregation—would be created for those Basilian monasteries found in Lvov,
Lutsk, and Przemyśl. It was also agreed that they would have their own
proto-archimandrite (general), proto-hegumen (provincial), “visitators”
and other religious officials.35 Although this process was meant to be carried out within one year of the conclusion of the provincial council in 1720,
this was not done, due to procedural difficulties. It was only in 1727 that
Metropolitan Leon Kiška managed to convoke a reunion in Dubno, where
the structural organization of the Basilians was discussed. Nevertheless, it
was not until almost 20 years after the Zamość Assembly that the issue was
finally resolved, when on September 8 (August 28 according to the Julian
calendar), 1739, the Congregation of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, commonly known as the Crown Congregation, was established.36
Other Issues
Other equally important questions, which needed to be regulated, were
inter-rite issues and matters concerning bishops’ stipends for conferring

33. Śliwa, “Kościół,” 464–65.
34. Beata Lorens, Bazylianie prowincji koronnej w latach 1743–1780 [Basilians of the
Crown Province in 1743–1780] (Rzeszów, 2014), 29.
35. Synodus, Titulus undecimus: “De Monasteriis et Statu Monachorum”: “Cum experientia compertum sit, et Sacrorum Conciliorum Statutis comprobatum, nullum esse ad instaurandam, vel conservandam Regularem observantiam, ac disciplinam, remedium efficacius,
quam Monasteria omnia, quae generalibus Capitibus non subsunt nec Sacrorum Canonum
vestigiis inhaerens, statuit ut Monasteria Uladimiriensis, Luceoriensis, Chelmensis,
Leopoliensis, ac Praemisliensis Dioecesis post annum a publicatione praesentis Decreti, et
acceptas literas convocatorias Illustrissimi, et Reverendissimi Metropolitae, in Congregationem redigantur ac deinde quolibet quadriennio Generalem, Provincialem, ac Regulares
Visitatores eligant, ac de caeteris, quae ad rectam administrationem totius Provinciae, ac disciplinae Monasticae instaurationem necessaria videri poterunt, statuant, ac decernant.”
36. Lorens, Bazylianie, 30–31.

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priestly orders, as well as for providing antimins37 and holy oils,38 as the
practice until that time had been assessed by the then-Sacred Congregation
for the Propagation of the Faith as simony. For this reason, it eagerly supported the idea of convoking a provincial council, in order to eliminate
abuses and simony and to address the needs of the Uniate Church, especially the need for a solid formation of the clergy. It also insisted that the
assembly be presided over by the nuncio and that the statutes be approved
by the Sacred Congregation before their promulgation.
The entrusting of the presidency to the nuncio on March 20, 1716 was
probably one of the main reasons for the delay in convoking the assembly,
which did not occur until 1720, because the presidency of a provincial
council, according to Eastern Church law, was an integral part of the prerogatives of the metropolitan.
The possibility that Metropolitan Leon Kiška might have felt deprived
of his rights cannot be ignored. He probably also feared that the assembly
might take on a different character than originally anticipated. These fears,
indeed, did come true. Both the course of the provincial council and the
content of the statutes were modeled, often quite literally, on the statutes
of the Council of Trent39 and the first Diocesan Synod of Milan under the
leadership of St. Charles Borromeo.40
The Plague—The Venue Determiner
As to the venue, Metropolitan Leon Kiška had initially chosen Lvov,
and the assembly was scheduled to take place on August 26 (Gregorian
calendar). Due to the outbreak of a plague, however, Zamość was chosen
instead, “in order to avoid the dangerous freezing air, not only in the surrounding cities, but also in the city of Lvov itself, [. . .] We are moving
37. Antimins are altar cloths, sometimes containing relics, blessed by a bishop.
38. Synodus, Titulus decimus quartus: “[. . .] praecipit, ut nihil omnino a Clero sive
Saeculari, sive Regulari deinceps exigatur quovis titulo, vel praetextu, propter traditionem
Sacrorum Oleorum, vel Antemensalium, seu quamcumque aliam ob causam, praeter solum
Cathedraticum, seu subsidium charitativum, quod pro necessaria, ac honesta gradus substentatione Sacri Canones Episcopis concedunt.”
39. Surely, Metropolitan Kiška would have learned about the Council of Trent
while studying in Rome at the Urbanianum. However, significant discussions at the
assembly were limited due to the lack of knowledge of Latin by many of the participants,
as well as their inability to engage in theological reflection, due their low level of theological formation.
40. Śliwa, “Kościół,” 465.

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345

our provincial council to the city of Zamoyść.”41 Orthodox historical
texts, however, question the true reason for moving the meeting from
Lvov to Zamość.42
It is known, however, that in the summer of 1719, a year before the
planned assembly, the plague appeared in the suburbs of Lvov and also “at
the outskirt of Cracow, the epidemic appeared in a salt warehouse.”43 In
such a situation, an influx of a large number of people into the city from
infected areas would pose a great danger to the city. No wonder, then, that
with trepidation the residents awaited the arrival of the participants of the
Zamość Provincial Council in Lvov in the summer of 1720, complaining:
“Just as the situation here is somewhat improving, for which glory be to
God, here come the presbyters to spread diseases, infecting others.”44

41. Original: “ponieważ srożące się powietrze, nie tylko w okolicznych mieyscach, ale
też w samym mieście Lwowie, wielkie nam czyni niebezpieczeństwo, dla którego musiemy się
od niego stronić, dla tego [. . .] Synod nasz przenosimy do miasta Zamoyścia.” Synod Prowincialny Ruski w Mieście Zamoyściu Roku 1720 Odprawiony a w 1724 za rozkazem P. K. de
Profan: Łacińskim językiem w Rzymie w druku wydany, potym wkrótce z zalecenia J. W. J. X.
Leona Kiszki metropolity całej Rusi na polski przez J. X. Polikarpa Filipowicza. . . [Ruthenian
Provincial Synod in the City of Zamoyście in 1720 Celebrated and in 1724 by the order of P.
K. de Profan: in Latin in Rome in print, then soon on the recommendation of J. W. J. X.
Leon Kiszka, Metropolitan of all Ruthenia, to Poland by J. X. Polycarp Filipowicz . . .]
(Wilno, 1785), 6, quoted in: Anna Sołtysiak, Przemiany wnętrz cerkwi greckokatolickich po
Synodzie Zamojskim w 1720 roku [Changes in the interior of Greek Catholic churches after
the Zamojski Synod in 1720] (Warszawa, 2006), 36, (manuscript stored in Biblioteka
Główna Uniwersytetu Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego w Warszawie, [the Main Library of
Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw]); Synodus, ¶ “Leo Kiszka Dei, et Sanctae
Sedis Apostolicae gratia Archiepiscopus Metropolitanus Kyoviensis”: “Quoniam saeviens pestis,
nedum in vicinioribus locis, verum etiam in ipsa Civitate Leopoliensi, maximum periculum
nobis ingerat, ne Civitas illa adiri possit; idcirco Synodum Provincialem in antecessum
Leopolim indictam, et intimatam pro die vigesima sexta mensis Augusti, in anno praesenti
transferendam esse Zamoscium, ex mente Excellentissimi, IIlustrissimi, et Reverendissimi
Domini Nuncii Apostolici, duximus, eamdemque praesentium tenore literarum, ad Civitatem
Zamosciensem, termino temporis non immutato, nec variato, actu transferimus, ac ut Illustrissimae, Perillustres, Reverendissimae Dominationes Vestrae cum vocatis de Iure vocandis
e sibi creditis Dioecesibus, pro termino praefixo, [. . .].”
42. Dariusz Ciołka, “Synod zamojski z 1720 r. i jego postanowienia” [The Zamość
Synod of 1720 and its provisions], Almanach Diecezjalny, 2 (2006), 9–39, here 12–13.
43. Letter from Joanna Potocka to Elżbieta Sieniawska, Lwów, July 26, 1719, consultable in Biblioteka Czartoryskich, sygn. 2708, 36; this letter is published in Bożena
Popiołek, “Lwów w czasach Augusta II” [Lviv in the time of August II], in: Lwów: Miasto,
Społeczeństwo, Kultura: Studia z dziejów Lwowa [Lviv: City, Society, Culture: Studies from
the history of Lviv], ed. Kazimierz Karolczak (Kraków, 1996–ongoing, here 2002), IV, 93–
105, here 99.
44. Original: “co się chwała Bogu tu trochi uzdrawia, to ci popi zapowietrzą.”

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THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL IN ZAMOŚĆ

FIGURE 3. Title page of Synod Prowincialny Ruski w Mieście Zamoyściu Roku 1720
Odprawiony a w 1724 za rozkazem P. K. de Profan: F. łacińskim językiem w Rzymie
w druku wydany, potym wkrótce z zalecenia J. W. J. X. Leona Kiszki metropolity całej
Rusi na polski przez J. X. Polikarpa Filipowicza. . . , Wilno 1785 [Ruthenian
Provincial Synod celebrated in the City of Zamoyście in 1720 and in 1724 by the
order of P. K. de Profan printed in Latin in Rome, then soon on the
recommendation of J. W. J. X. Leon Kiszka, Metropolitan of all Ruthenia issued
in Polish by J. X. Polycarp Filipowicz . . . taken (from) a diary reprinted in the year
of our Lord 1785. (Vilnius: Basilians 1785).] Wikipedia.

One can, thus, safely conclude without other considerations that the
assembly was transferred to Zamość for fear of the airborne pestilence,45
given that outbreaks continued to appear in various districts of Lvov with
varying degrees of intensity.46 In the end, “human prudence was not in
vain, as protective measures and other precautions prevented the plague
from spreading to the vicinity of Cracow, Sandomierz, and Lvov in the following year, 1720.”47
45. Popiołek, “Lwów,” 99.
46. Popiołek, “Lwów,” 100.
47. Stanisław Lisowski, O morowem powietrzu w Warszawie, (n.p., 1818), 233.

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Clement XI’s Address
Indicating how importatnt the provincial council deliberations would
be, Pope Clement XI wrote to the brethren of the Uniate episcopate on
July 19, 1724, expressing his joy at the decision to convoke the assembly
and, at the same time, urging the bishops to make an effort to remove deficiencies in their respective dioceses.48 He hoped that the provincial council
and its decisions, directives, and decrees would remain in force and acquire
full and complete legal effect and that they would be preserved in their
entirety without change. Furthermore, he stated that as soon as the decisions of the Provincial Council of Zamość came into effect, all constitutions, both the general ones issued by apostolic decrees by previous ecumenical councils and the particular ones issued by previous provincial
councils and diocesan synods, would become null and void and have no
legal force, if they contradicted in any way the decisions of the assembly
convoked in Zamość. On the other hand, all acts that were not in conflict
with them must remain in force and must not be considered as repealed.49
Nuncio Girolamo Grimaldi, in his address to the provincial council
fathers at the beginning of the assembly, stated that there was no other
more appropriate way than a provincial council to achieve the goal of
restoring ecclesiastical discipline and true piety, as well as rooting out
48. Pelesz, Geschichte der Union der ruthenischen Kirche mit Rom von den ältesten Zeiten
bis auf die Gegenwart, II, 422.
49. Benedictus Pp. XIII, “Apostolatus Officium,” in: Synodus. “[. . .] statuta, ordinationes, et decreta, auctoritate Apostolica tenore praesentium confirmamus, et approbamus,
illisque inviolabilis Apostolicae firmitatis robur adiicimus, ita tamen quod per nostram praedictae Synodi confirmationem nihil derogatum esse censeatur Constitutionibus Romanorum
Pontificum Praedecessorum nostrorum, et Decretis Conciliorum Generalium emanatis
super Ritibus Graecorum, quae non obstante huiusmodi confirmatione semper in suo robore
permanere debeant, ac salva semper in praemissis auctoritate Congregationum eorumdem
Cardinalium.
Decernentes easdem praesentes literas, ac Synodum, in eaque edita Statuta, Ordinationes, et Decreta huiusmodi semper firma, valida, et efficacia existere, et fore, suosque plenarios, et integros effectus sortiri, et obtinere, ac ab omnibus, et singulis, ad quos spectat, et
pro tempore quandocumque spectabit in omnibus, et per omnia inviolabiliter, et inconcusse
observari.
Sicque in praemissis per quoscumque Iudices Ordinarios, et Delegatos etiam Causarum
Camerae Apostolicae Auditores iudicari, et definiri debere, ac irritum, et inane si secus super
his a quoquam quavis auctoritate scienter, vel ignoranter contigerit attentari. Non obstantibus
Apostolicis, ac in Universalibus, Provincialibusque, et Synodalibus Conciliis editis generalibus,
vel specialibus Constitutionibus, et Ordinationibus, caeterisque contrariis quibuscumque.
[. . .] Datum Romae apud Sanctam Mariam Maiorem sub Annulo Piscatoris die XIX.
Iulii MDCCXXIV. Pontificatus Nostri Anno Primo.”

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errors50 that had crept in as the result of historical misfortune or human
deception. He then asked the participants to, above all, put an end zealously and swiftly to the abuses that, unfortunately to the great detriment of
souls, had occurred in the selection of candidates for priestly formation and
their ordination to the priesthood. Furthermore, he urged the priests and
the faithful entrusted to them to return to the true faith and worship and
to keep the Catholic rite pure and intact.51
The Proceedings
The participants of the provincial council were Ruthenian bishops, a
proto-archimandrite and eight archimandrites, 129 priests representing the
entire clergy—chiefly deans and Basilian monks—and two representatives
from the Lvov Stauropegian Brotherhood,52 totaling about 150 delegates.53
With their own handwritten signatures, they all professed their faith,
which included a statement about the origin of the Holy Spirit—et in Spiritum Sanctum Dominum, et Vivificantem, qui ex Patre, Filioque procedit. Next
to the article of confession that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father
and the Son, there was an insert, explaining that this phrase was added
legitimately and reasonably to the Symbol of Faith.54 All those present also
affirmed their acceptance of the teachings of all previous ecumenical coun50. It should be pointed out that when Nuncio Grimaldi spoke of errors, he meant
Orthodox heresies, not the Latinizations, which were being introduced.
51. “Oratio reverendissimi domini Hieronymi Grimaldi archiepiscopi Edessensi nuntii
apostolici habita ad patres in synodo congregatos,” in: Synodus. “Nulla est ad hunc eximium,
Sanctumque finem assequendum aptior via, nulla praeclarior, nulla Sacris Canonibus congruentior ea, quam firmo, constantique animo inire statuistis; natura enim ducimur, ac ratione
ipsa, [. . .] ad disciplinam Ecclesiasticam, veramque pietatem restituendam, ac estirpandos
errores, vel temporum calamitate, vel hominum fraude invectos, Concilia sint remedia saluberrima [. . .]. Deinde facere non possum quin a Vobis Reverendissimi Patres, vehementer
petam, ut coniunctissimis animis, aequali zelo, tamquam uno Pastorali, Episcopalique Spiritu
intensi omnes in eam curam incumbatis, ac strenuam, sedulamque ponatis operam, ut graves
abusus, qui in Sacrorum Ministrorum electiones, et Ordinationes, non sine magno Animarum detrimento, quemadmodum probe nostis, irrepserunt, e Vestris Dioecesibus eliminentur quamprimum, ac penitus e medio tollantur, Sacerdotesque, et Populi regimini Vestro
commissi, ad sincerum cultum Orthodoxae Religionis, atque ad illibatam, integramque
Catholici ritus professionem revocentur.”
52. Śliwa, “Kościół,” 465.
53. Andrzej Gil, Chełmska diecezja unicka 1596–1810: Dzieje i organizacja: Studia i
materiały z dziejów chrześcijaństwa wschodniego w Rzeczpospolitej [Chelmska Uniate diocese
1596–1810: History and organization: Studies and materials from the history of Eastern
Christianity in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth] (Lublin, 2005), 104.
54. Synodus, ¶ “Forma Professionis Fidei”: “Item dictionem illam (Filioque) veritatem
declarandi gratia, et imminente necessitate, licite, et rationabiliter Symbolo fuisse appositam.”

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cils, adding that they primarily accepted the Council of Florence, confessing what was set forth therein,55 as well as the Council of Trent.56 The text
of the Creed also included an oath and a vow to the Roman Pontiff, Successor of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Christ on earth.57
However, there are conflicting accounts in Orthodox historiography to
support accusations of Rome’s intervention in imposing latinization on the
reluctant Uniate clergy.58 One account says that there were few representatives of the diocesan (“white”) clergy at the assembly. In fact, they did come
in large numbers, but the provincial council fathers did not collect their signatures because, considered inferior due to their poor education, their consent was not needed to meet the requirements of church law.59 According
to another version, the Zamość Assembly was to adopt formally the confession of faith according to the formula of Pope Urban VIII, and the provincial council fathers were even anxious to have as many signatures as possible,
especially from the lower “white” Uniate clergy. Although many of them
came, they left quickly, as they refused to sign the aforementioned Creed.60
Nevertheless, a review of the Council’s decisions and the 150 signatories supporting its actions show not only a desire of the Uniate clergy to
preserve Greek traditions, but also their willingness to adapt them to
proven Latin reform patterns. In the text of the Provincial Council of
Zamość, the participants repeatedly referred to the traditions of the Eastern Church and emphasized their desire to preserve them.61 Furthermore,
55. Ibid., “[. . .] Quod Spiritus Sanctus ex Patre, et Filio aeternaliter est, et essentiam
suam, suumque esse subsistens habet ex Patre simul, et Filio, et ex utroque aeternaliter, tanquam ab uno principio, et unica spiratione procedit.”
56. Ibid., “[. . .] Pariter, quae de peccato Originali, de Iustificatione, de Sacrorum librorum tam veteris, quam novi Testamenti Indice, et interpretatione, in praedicta Tridentina
Synodo definita sunt, suscipio, et profiteor.”
57. Ibid., “Insuper Romano Pontifici Beati Petri Principis Apostolorum successori, ac
Iesu Christi Vicario veram obedientiam spondeo, ac iuro.”
58. For example, Gavriil Khrustsevich, Istoriya Zamoyskogo sobora (1720 goda) [History
of Synod Zamoyski (1720)] (Vilnius, 1880); Konstantin Znosko, Istoricheskiy ocherk tserkovnoy
unii yeye proiskhozhdeniye i kharakter [Historical sketch of the church union, its origin and
character] (Moscow, 1993); Materialy do kulturnoyi istoriyi Halytskoyi Rusy XVIII i XIX viku
[Materials on the cultural history of Galician Russia in the XVIII and XIX centuries], collected by Mykhailo Zubrytsky, Yuriy Kmit, Ivan Kobyletsky, Ivan Levitsky, and Ivan Franko,
ed. Ivan Franko (Lviv, 1902).
59. Ciołka, “Synod,” 14.
60. Gavriil Khrustsevich, Istoriya Zamoyskogo sobora (1720 goda), 189.
61. Synodus, Titulus tertius: “Coeremoniae [. . .], in Orientali Ecclesia servatae fuerunt,
ac in novo Rituali edendo exprimentur”; “Licebit quidem Parochis quemadmodum in

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the formula of profession of faith which the participants of the assembly
used referred to all the synods of the undivided Church before 1054.62
The provincial council, as mentioned earlier, lasted from August 26 to
September 17 (Gregorian calendar) 1720. Three public sessions were held
in total: on August 26, September 1, and September 17. The first two sessions were formal assemblies, while the third promulgated reform laws.63
It was, however, during the private meetings and discussions of the participants that the main work got done. Sessions were not held in the Church
of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but in the Church of St.
Nicholas, which was built of brick.64 At the final session, which took place
at the Latin collegiate Church on September 8 (Julian calendar), the
decrees accepted by the provincial council were read.
Document—“Safeguarding the Greek Catholic Clergy”
Neither the civil authorities of the Commonwealth65 nor the Polish
bishops of the Latin rite were represented at the assembly. Only at the end
Orientali Ecclesia ad haec usque tempora ipsis licuit Oleum Catechumenorum conficere”;
“Sacramentum Confirmationis [. . .], quod Parochi in Orientali Ecclesia extraordinario Iure, et
delegata ab Episcopo facultate, [. . .] illudque nefas est iterare, propterea quod indelebilem
characterem in anima imprimit”; “Cum materia huius Sacramenti in Ecclesia Orientali sit solus
panis triticeus fermentatus, et vinum de vite districte praecipit Sancta Synodus, ut Sacerdotes
non alium panem, nec vinum adhibeant”; “Populum, ut ter saltem quot annis, prout in Orientali Ecclesia statutum est in Resurrectione scilicet Domini (quo tempore sub poena excommunicationis id facere tenetur): in dormitione Deiparae, et in Christi Nativitate ad Sacram confessionem, Divinique Corporis participationem accedat”; “Eius [Sacrae Infirmorum] materia
est oleum, cuius benedicendi potestatem, multis ab hinc Saeculis in Orientali Ecclesia Sacerdotibus concessam, praesens Synodus nequaquam adimendam esse existimavit. Cum autem
eiusdem Ecclesiae disciplina praescribat, ut quidquid Sacri olei post unctionem Infirmi superfuerit, comburi debeat, neque ad alios usus adhiberi, aut pro altero infirmo asservari [. . .] Porro
quod ad formam attinet, ea servetur ubique, quae hactenus in usu fuit, et est in Ecclesia Orientali”; “Cum vero in collatione Diaconatus, et Praesbyteratus sequens forma in Ecclesia Orientali a primaeva Fidei Catholicae institutione viguerit: Divina gratia, quae semper infirma
curat, et ea, quae desunt, adimplet; promovet N. devotissimum Subdiaconum in Diaconum,
vel N. devotissimum Diaconum in Praesbyterum, ut veniat super eum gratia Sanctissimi Spiritus, depraecemur pro eo: placuit Sanctae Synodo, ut haec inviolabiliter servetur.”
62. See notes 52–56 super.
63. Edward Likowski, Dzieje Kościoła unickiego na Litwie i Rusi w XVIII i XIX wieku
uważane głównie ze względu na przyczyny jego upadku [The history of the Uniate Church in
Lithuania and Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries considered mainly due to the
reasons for its fall], 2 vols. (Warszawa, 1906), II, 40.
64. It, thus, provided shelter from possible attacks by Orthodox Cossacks hostile to the
Brest Union.
65. Śliwa, “Kościół,” 465.

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351

FIGURE 4. Church of St. Nicholas in Zamosc where the Synod was held. Its
architects were John Wolf and Yaroshevich who built the new brick church in the
Baroque style. In the 1690s the octagonal tower was added. Photo made available
under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic
and 1.0 Generic license, by Wikimedia Commons user MaKa~commonswiki.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mikolaja8.JPG

of the debates did the Latin bishops of Lvov, Przemysl, Kamenets, and
Chelm, through their representative, present to Nuncio Grimaldi a document on the coexistence of the two rites, Latin and Byzantine, entitled
“Safeguarding the Greek Catholic Clergy.” The reason for this was that
they did not want to be accused of interfering in the Union’s internal
affairs. Likewise, to avoid irritation and confrontation, this document was
not discussed at the assembly session. Instead, Metropolitan Kiška was
given the task of presenting his comments and observations on the matter
to the nuncio on behalf of the entire Uniate episcopate.
Nuncio Grimaldi, already forewarned by the Sacred Congregation for
the Propagation of the Faith not to discuss the delicate matter concerning
the coexistence of the two rites in public, upon receiving the aforementioned document, together with the comments of Metropolitan Kiška, sent
it directly to Rome.66 In retrospect, it could be argued that perhaps raising
66. Ibid., 465.

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THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL IN ZAMOŚĆ

this issue in the assembly forum could have prevented many subsequent
problems related not only to the Latinization of the Uniates, of which the
Roman Catholic Church in Poland was commonly accused, but also to the
Ruthenianization of Catholics of the Latin rite by the Uniate Church. As
to the latter, there is not much literature, neither in Russian historiography
as far as the Orthodox point of view is concerned, nor in Ukrainian historiography from both the Orthodox and the Uniate points of view.
The Assembly Resolutions
The resolutions of the Provincial Council of Zamość were grouped
into three parts—(1) On the Catholic Faith, (2) On Sacraments, and (3)
On administration and places of worship—and they were formulated in
nineteen titles, which were further divided into paragraphs. They were formally approved by Benedict XIII, Ad futuram rei memoriam, on July 19,
1724, in Apostolatus Officium. Among the resolutions adopted, there were
many liturgical decisions to combine all the Latin liturgical elements, previously introduced by various individuals without canonical approval,
resulting in a hybrid ritual, neither Latin nor Byzantine, which was considered a serious liturgical abuse. Hence, some scholars67 argue that,
despite its reliance on Western ecclesial assemblies, especially the Council
of Trent, the Zamość Assembly was not Latinized, and that by this the
provincial council fathers merely wished to curb or at least limit liturgical
abuse by private individuals.68
The Council of Trent shaped and changed the face of the Church like
no other ecumenical council up until that time. Not only did it give the
entire historical era its form and direction, but it also provided order and
67. See: Marian Stasiak, “Wpływy łacińskie w statutach prowincjalnego synodu zamojskiego (1720)” [Latin influences in the statutes of the provincial synod of Zamość (1720)],
Roczniki Teologiczno-Kanoniczne, 22, no. 5 (1975), 95–106; Stanisław Litak, Od reformacji do
oświecenia. Kościół katolicki w Polsce nowożytnej [From Reformation to Enlightenment. The
Catholic Church in modern Poland] (Lublin, 1994), 170–77; Jan Sergiusz Gajek, Kościoły, a
nie skansen liturgiczny. Z ks: Janem Sergiuszem Gajkiem rozmawia Ireneusz Cieślik [Churches,
not a liturgical open-air museum: Fr. Ireneusz Cieślik talks with Jan Sergiusz Gajek], interview by Ireneusz Cieslik, (nd.), http://mateusz.pl/ksiazki/dszp/dszp-06-Gajek.htm; Wereda,
Biskupi, 9. See also: P. Woyna-Orański, Zwierciadło albo zasłona od przewielebnego ojca
Pachomiusza Woyna Orańskiego z łaski bożej i stolicy apostolskiej episkopa pińskiego przeciw
uszczypliwej perspektywie [The Mirror or the Curtain from the Reverend Father Pachomiusz
Woyna Oranski by the grace of God and the Apostolic See of the Pinsk Episcopate against
the abusive perspective] (Wilno, 1645).
68. José Hazuda, Pratiche liturgiche e problematiche della Chiesa cattolica ucraina attuale in
diaspora (Rome, 1991), 7.

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structure to the Church in terms of doctrines as well as disciplines. Indeed,
one of the Council’s main achievements was to establish a close link
between disciplines and pastoral spirituality. The chaos that prevailed in
the late medieval Church was finally regulated and normalized, especially
in the areas of doctrine and dogma. The Tridentine reform of the Catholic
Church was largely a process of disciplining the clergy and the faithful.
This process of discipline was accompanied by intensive pastoral work,
which in terms of form and intensity were unparalleled in earlier eras.
Moreover, the Tridentine reform rested on several strong pillars: the new
and revived religious orders, including the Jesuits; the papal nuncios, a new
institution created in the seventeenth century;69 and the bishops from
around the world in communion with the Roman Pontiff.70
It is, therefore, not surprising that the Eastern Churches—both
Uniate and Orthodox—being in profound need of reform themselves, had
reached for the tried-and-tested methods and models developed by the
post-Tridentine Latin Church. For its part, the Roman Catholic Church
attempted to transpose71 its models into the Eastern Churches.

69. I.e., in the modern era. It should be noted that the history of papal legates dates as
far back as the fourth century, when the Roman Pontiffs sent out apocrisarii to represent them
either at ecumenical councils or at imperial courts.
70. Klaus Schatz, Sobory powszechne: Punkty zwrotne w historii Kościoła [Ecumenical
Councils: Turning Points in Church History], trans. Jerzy Zakrzewski (Kraków 2001), 207–10.
71. Today, this is seen as “imposed.” The truth, however, is that Latinization was
largely desired by the Uniate hierarchy itself, in order to be elevated to par excellence as the
Latin clergy in Rome, in the Polish-Lithuania Republic and in the Habsburg Empire. For
more details, see: Stanisław Nabywaniec, “Niektóre formy działalności duszpasterskiej
duchowieństwa greckokatolickiego diecezji przemyskiej w okresie międzyrozbiorowym”
[Some forms of pastoral activity of the Greek Catholic clergy of the Przemyśl diocese in the
inter-partition period], Resovia Sacra: Rocznik Filozoficzno-Teologiczny Diecezji Rzeszowskiej,
1 (1994), 101–22; id., “Relacje między obrządkami i łacińskim i greckokatolickim oraz problem rutenizacji i uniatyzacji w kontekście tak zwanej ‘kradzieży dusz’” [Relations between the
rites and Latin and Greek Catholic rites and the problem of ruthenianization and uniatisation
in the context of the so-called “stealing of souls”], Roczniki Teologiczne, 45, no. 4 (1998), 181–
94; id., “Studia z dziejów greckokatolickiej diecezji przemyskiej” [Studies in the history of the
Greek Catholic diocese of Przemyśl], in: Polska—Ukraina. 1000 lat sąsiedztwa [PolandUkraine: 1000 years of neighborhood], ed. Stanisław Stępień, 5 vols. (Przemyśl, 1990–2000,
here 1998), IV, 221–31; id., “Rzymskokatolicki Kościół potrydencki a Kościół unicki w
Polsce: Korzystanie z doświadczeń czy latynizacja?” [The Roman Catholic post-Tridentine
Church and the Uniate Church in Poland: Use of experience or latinization?], in: Rzeczpospolita wielu wyznań: Materiały z międzynarodowej konferencji: Kraków, 18-20 listopada 2002
r. [Commonwealth of many denominations: Materials from the international conference:
Krakow, November 18–20, 2002], eds. Adam Kaźmierczyk, Andrzej Krzysztof Link-Lenczowski, Mariusz Markiewicz, and Krystyn Matwijowski (Kraków, 2004), 191–205;

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Liturgical Reform
When it came to liturgy, there were two opposing groups in the
Uniate Church. The first group consisted of the so-called ritual purists,
who strove to preserve or renew lost Byzantine traditions, while the second
group advocated for Latin traditions. One of the main arguments in favor
of adapting to Latin rites, traditions, and canons, while abandoning the
Byzantine ones, was to avoid religious syncretism, which blurred the differences, primarily dogmatic and canonical, between the Orthodox Church
and the Uniate Church.72
Contemporary Orthodox criticism, directed against the Provincial
Council of Zamość, raises the issue that the resolutions of the assembly did
not bring the Uniate Church closer to the Orthodox, but rather aimed to
strengthen its ties with Rome, for which Rome was accused of shrewdly
scheming secretive ideas and dreams that the Zamość assembly was supposed to materialize,73 such as highlighting failings in the Orthodox
Church that did not actually exist.74
Stanisław Nabywaniec, “Unicki dekanat Cyryn w archidiecezji kijowskiej, w świetle wizytacji
generalnej z 1798 roku” [Unicki deanery of Cyryn in the Kiev archdiocese, in the light of the
general visitation of 1798], Roczniki Teologiczne, 44, no. 4 (1997), 71–101. See also: Sophia
Senyk, “The Ukrainian Church and Latinization,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 56 (1990),
165–87. Senyk argues that the fundamental problem of the eighteenth-century Uniate
Church was one of education and unity, not the absorption by the Latin Church. Eighteenthcentury vacillation resulted from a lack of confidence in their own traditions, that was
reflected in a vacillation between Byzantine and Latin customs. In addition, the Ruthenians
did not develop a theology from the Eastern tradition, but instead relied on Thomism (much
more so after Vatican I). In this period, the scholastic model was based on Trent. There is a
difference between the Union of Brest and the Provincial Council of Zamość—namely, in the
eighteenth-century cultural context after the Union of Brest, Latin practices were the norm;
Zamość, on the other hand, did not Latinize, but made Latin (Tridentine) norms the norm.
In her works, Senyk furthers the ideas of Jan Krajcar. See: Jan Krajcar, “The Ruthenian Patriarchate: Some remarks on the project for its establishment in the Seventeenth century,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 30 (1964), 65–84. For further reading for the later period, consult: Vitaliy Kozak, La Chiesa Rutena nello stato Polacco-Lituano nei tempi delle separitizioni
(1772–1795): Dissertazio ad Doctoratum, (Roma, 2006), as well as the work of Joannes
Bilanych, “Synodus Zamostiana an 1720,” in: Analecta OSBM, ser. II, sectio I, (Rome, 1960),
and Athanasius Gregorius Welykyj, “Epistolae, Leonis Kiška, Athanasii Szeptyckyj, Floriani
Hrebnyckyj: 1714–1762,” in: Analecta OSBM, ser. II, sectio III, (Rome, 1959).
72. Włodzimierz Osadczy, Kościół i Cerkiew na wspólnej drodze. Concordia 1863: Z dziejów
porozumienia między obrządkiem greckokatolickim a łacińskim w Galicji Wschodniej [Church and
Orthodox Church on a common path. Concordia 1863: From the history of the agreement
between the Greek Catholic and Latin rites in Eastern Galicia] (Lublin, 1999), 119.
73. See: Ciołka, “Synod,” 12.
74. Ibid., 25.

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The Provincial Council of Zamość of 1720 made significant canonical
changes in the ecclesial organizational structure and administration, as well
as liturgical celebrations, including the Divine Liturgy. The approximation
of the Uniate rite to its Latin counterpart was accepted by the assembly,
along with a number of changes that became binding throughout the
Uniate Church. The administration of sacraments, the celebration of the
Divine Liturgy and paraliturgical services were either based on or adapted
to the Latin models.
Another area of objection raised by Moscow Orthodoxy was the issues
of dogma and the correctness of the translations of the new liturgical books
recommended by the Zamość Provincial Council in an effort to unify liturgical texts according to Latin models.75 A typical example of Latinization
was the introduction of pious practices outside the Divine Liturgy, i.e.
Eucharistic adoration and Eucharistic processions, which were unknown
in the Byzantine tradition.76
Speaking of the Eucharist, it is worth noting that some of the norms
concerning Eucharistic worship, recalled or introduced at the Zamość
Provincial Council, were also recommended or obligatory in the Orthodox Church. This significantly weakened their accusation against the
provincial council fathers of far-reaching Latinization. Examples of these
obligations were, inter alia, the obligation to replenish the Eucharistic
Hosts kept for the sick with newly consecrated ones every fifteen days.
The Trebnik (sacramentary) of Metropolitan Peter Moghila from 1646
also contained a similar order, instructing frequent consecration of
unleavened bread for the sick and careful storage of the Most Blessed
Sacrament.77
The provincial council also allowed for certain Eastern Eucharistic traditions that are contrary to the practice of the Latin Church. Thus,
although it recommended abandoning the practice of giving Holy Communion to children before the use of reason, it adopted the clause: “provided that it does not cause scandal”—that is to say, if it does not cause
scandal, it is permissible to give Holy Communion to these children.
75. Znosko, Istoricheskiy ocherk tserkovnoy unii yeye proiskhozhdeniye i kharakter, 185.
76. Materialy do kulturnoyi istoriyi Halytskoyi Rusy XVIII i XIX viku [Materials on the
cultural history of Galician Russia in the XVIII and XIX centuries], ed. Franko, 65; Stasiak,
Wpływy, 98–99.
77. Tadeusz Śliwa, Okruchy z historii Kościoła obrządku greckiego [The crumbs from the
history of the Greek rite Church], (Przemyśl, 2017), 368.

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Furthermore, owing to a different understanding of the concept of
time, the provincial council did not impose the obligation to participate
fully in the entire Divine Liturgy, from beginning to end, on Sundays and
feast days, which was a departure from Roman Catholic practice.78
Nonetheless, it should be noted that, during the reign of Metropolitan
Peter Moghila, the Orthodox Church did in fact recommend the full participation of the entire Divine Liturgy.79
All in all, serious liturgical abuses in the Uniate Church, such as the
storage throughout the year of the sanctified bread, consecrated on Holy
Thursday and sprinkled with consecrated wine, played a significant role in
making the Latinization of the Byzantine rite necessary.80
After the provincial council, Latin forms of devotional practices and
Marian piety began to spread in conjunction with the scapular, rosary
prayer, and confraternities. In Uniate Marian sanctuaries, solemn liturgical
coronations of images of the Mother of God were also introduced (1730 in
Žyrowice; 1765 in Chełm).81 Devotional practices like the chaplet of the
saints and prayers for various needs, as well as piety related to the cross and
passion of Christ, became ever more popular.82
Sacred Art “Reform”
In sacred art, Latin painting techniques were also introduced into the
Uniate Church, along with organ music during the liturgical services.83 Nev78. See: Michał Janocha, “Niektóre aspekty ikonografii unickiej na terenie Rzeczypospolitej” [Some aspects of Uniate iconography in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth],
in: Śladami unii brzeskiej [In the footsteps of the Brest union], eds. Ryszard Dobrowolski and
Mariusz Zemło (Lublin, 2010), 151–68.
79. Śliwa, Okruchy, 374.
80. Ibid., 484.
81. Irena Matus, “Obraz Cerkwi unickiej w obwodzie białostockim na początku XIX
wieku” [Image of the Uniate Church in the Białystok region at the beginning of the nineteenth century], Studia Wschodniosłowiańskie, 15 (2015), 596.
82. Tadeusz Dąbrowski, “Różnice między unią a schizmą pod względem dogmatycznym i liturgicznym” [Differences between the union and schism in dogmatic and liturgical
terms], in: Wiadomości Katolickie (Lwów, 1883), 8–13.
83. Olga Popowicz, “Przemyski ośrodek muzyki cerkiewnej, zarys problematyki [The
Church music center in Przemyśl, an outline of the issues],” in: Polska-Ukraina 1000 lat
sąsiedztwa, ed. Stanisław Stępień, (Przemyśl, 2000), 357–58; Anna Potoczna, Znaczenie
ośrodka muzycznego w Przemyślu w rozwoju ukraińskiej muzyki w Galicji w XIX w. na
przykładzie twórczości M. Werbyckiego i I. Ławrowskiego [The importance of the music center
in Przemyśl in the development of Ukrainian music in Galicia in the nineteenth century on
the example of the works of M. Werbycki and I. Ławrowski] (Rzeszów, 2009), 36.

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ertheless, it should be noted that instrumental music only appeared in the
Uniate Church at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth century.84 Paintings and sculptures were modeled on the works of Western masters, which
gave rise to the distinctive features of the Uniate iconography, differentiating
it from the Orthodox one.85 The linear-abstract style was abandoned in favor
of chiaroscuro techniques, which brought them closer to Western paintings.86
In addition, content related to Catholic doctrines, such as Christ’s
giving the keys to St. Peter, an expression of Catholic teaching on papal primacy, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was
also introduced into the Uniate iconography. Furthermore, modifications
were made to Byzantine-Ruthenian iconography. An example would be the
Protection (Pokrov) of Mother of God, painted in a way that would express
the Latin idea of the Mother of God known as Mater Misericordiae.87
Also, thanks to wealthy foundations and patronage, sacred buildings
took on Western architectural features with interior furnishings,88 especially conciliar and monastery churches, such as the Church of St. George
in Lvov,89 Chełm, Vitebsk, and Volodymyr Volynskyi,90 the Basilian
Church in Počaiv,91 as well as churches in small villages, especially those in
the Lemko region.92
84. Aneta Kułak, “Ołtarz czy ikonostas?” [Altar or iconostasis?] in: Śladami unii
brzeskiej [In the footsteps of the Brest union], 584.
85. That said, it should be noted that, during the period from Peter the Great to
Catherine the Great, the Russian Orthodox iconography was slowly moving away from
Byzantine iconography.
86. Joanna Tomalska, “Unickie ikony na Podlasiu w XVII–XVIII wieku” [Uniate icons
in Podlasie in the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries], in: Śladami unii brzeskiej [In the footsteps of the Brest union], 560–61.
87. Janocha, “Niektóre aspekty,” 498, 526–43.
88. Grigory Yakovlevich Kiprianovich, Vysokopreosyyashchennyy Iosif Semashko mitropolit
litovskiy i vilenskiy: Ocherk yego zhizni i deyatelnosti po vozsoyedineniyu zapadnorusskikh uniatov
s pravoslavnoyu tserkoviyu v 1839 g. [Revered Joseph Semashko, Metropolitan of Lithuania
and Vilna: Essay on his life and work on the reunification of the Western Russian Uniates
with the Orthodox Church in 1839] (Vilnius, 1894), 170.
89. Bohdan Janusz, Przewodnik po Lwowie [The guide to Lviv] (Lwów, 1922), 50.
90. Volodimir Stepanovich Alexandrovich and Petro Anatolyovich Richkov, Sobor svyatoho Yura u L’vovi [Cathedral of St. George in Lviv] (Technique, 2008), 71.
91. Peter Anatolyevich Rychkov and Victor Danilovich Luts, Pochayivska SvyatoUspenska lavra [Pochaiv Holy-Dormition lavra] (Kyiv, 2000), 45.
92. Zbigniew Bielamowicz, “Implikacje w polskiej sztuce cerkiewnej wynikające ze
współistnienia Cerkwi i Kościoła łacińskiego w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej” [Implications in
Polish Orthodox art resulting from the coexistence of the Orthodox Church and the Latin
Church in the former Polish Republic], Premislia Christiana, 3 (1989–1990), 305–07, here 306.

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THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL IN ZAMOŚĆ

Power and Structural Reform
Apart from the above, some Latin influences can also be seen in the
ecclesial structure of the Uniate Church. An example would be the position
of the curia official,93 who was also invested with judicial and executive
power, which clearly corresponds to the role of the vicar general in the ecclesial structure of a diocese in the Latin Church.94 This leads the reader to the
issue concerning the power and jurisdiction of the Uniate metropolitan.
Pope Clement VIII (1592–1605), with the papal bull Decet Romanum
Pontificem, decreed on February 23, 1596, assured the first Uniate metropolitan of Kiev, Michael Rohoza (1588–99), that the autonomy of the Kiev
metropolia as well as the position of its metropolitan would remain status quo,
on the sole condition that all future rights and privileges would henceforth be
subject to the authorization of the Apostolic See.95 The same was confirmed
by the authority of royal power.96 Still, back in Rome, there were growing tendencies aimed at downplaying the powers of the Uniate metropolitan of Kiev.
The Apostolic See softened its position somewhat when Leon Kiška
held the office of Metropolitan of Kiev from 1714 to 1728. Nonetheless,
the Apostolic Nunciature in Warsaw was instructed to keep a close watch
on the Uniate metropolitans, making sure that they did not exercise their
jurisdiction too liberally, especially in the judicial field,97 as had been the
case in the past, which was the basis for seeking such control.98 Court cases
involving, for example, suffragan bishops had to be referred directly to the
apostolic nuncio in Warsaw, even though the metropolitan court was competent in these matters.99 The right to preside at provincial councils was
93. Synodus, Titulus VII.
94. Mariusz Bakalarz, “Wpływ ustroju prawnego Kościoła łacińskiego na kształtowanie
się aktualnego porządku prawnego katolickich Kościołów wschodnich na przykładzie urzędów
protosyncela i syncela” [Influence of the legal system of the Latin Church on the shaping of
the current legal order of Eastern Catholic Churches on the example of protosyncel and syncela
offices], Kościół i Prawo [Church and Law], 7, no. 2 (2018), 45–62, here 52–53.
95. Michaele Harasiewicz, Annales Ecclesiae Ruthenae gratiam et communionem cum s
Sede Romana habentis, ritumque Graeco-Slavicum observantis, cum singulari respectu ad dioecesas
Ruthenas Leopoliensem, Premisliensem et Chelmensem (Leopoli, 1862), 220–21.
96. Mirosław Szegda, Działalność prawno-organizacyjna metropolity Józefa IV Welamina
Rutskiego (1613–1637) [Legal and organizational activity of Metropolitan Józef IV Welamin
Rutski (1613–1637)] (Warszawa, 1967), 199.
97. Śliwa, “Kościół,” 285, 287; Bieńkowski, “Organizacja,” 869.
98. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss this topic. For more details, see:
Marian Bendza, “Przyrzeczenie dane unitom,” [The promise given to the units] Elpis 5, no.
7–8 (2003), 275–83.
99. Bieńkowski, “Organizacja,” 870.

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359

FIGURE 5. Flaryjan Hrabnicki. Illegible engraver’s name, Батюшков П. И.,
Белоруссия и Литва. [Pompei I. Batyushkov, Belarus and Lithuania] (Saint
Petersburg, 1890), p. 277. Public domain.

also reserved for the nuncio in Warsaw.100 For this reason, the Zamość
Provincial Council was presided over by Nuncio Grimaldi. The subsequent
assembly, planned for 1765 in Brest but which ultimately did not take
place, was also supposed to be presided over by his successor, Nuncio
Antonio Eugenio Visconti.101
Of course, Kiev metropolitans did not easily agree to the Apostolic
See’s restriction of their powers. For example, despite reservations
expressed by the apostolic nuncio in Warsaw, Metropolitan Leon Kiška (b.
1663, Met. 1714–1728) appointed Bishop Athanasius Šeptycki (b. 1686,
Met. 1729–1746) as coadjutor with the right of succession. The same
applies to the nomination of Bishop Felicjan Philip Volodkovič102 by Metropolitan Florian Hrebnicki (b. 1683, Met. 1748–1762).103
100. Śliwa, “Kościół,” 471.
101. Epistolae Feliciani Philippi Wolodkovycz metropolitae Kioviensis Catholici (1762–
1778), part I, ed. Athanasius Gregorius Welykyj (Rome, 1967), 108.
102. See: Nabywaniec, Unicka, 123–89.
103. Śliwa, “Kościół,” 472.

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THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL IN ZAMOŚĆ

Their resistance, however, did not stop the ongoing exercise of narrowing their powers. The matter was subsequently submitted to the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith for deliberation. The Congregation
ruled that metropolitans did not have such extensive powers that they could
freely transfer suffragan bishops from one diocese to another. The opposition
of the metropolitans to this decision meant that it did not come into force
until 1748. From then on, matters concerning the transfer of suffragan bishops from one diocese to another as well as the appointment and consecration
of coadjutors were exclusively reserved to the Apostolic See, meaning that the
prior approval of the latter was a conditio sine qua non in these matters.
Not all metropolitans, however, observed this. Metropolitan Hrebnicki, for example, was embroiled in a dispute with the Apostolic See for
having transferred Bishop Volodkovič from Chełm to Volodymyr Volynsky by his own decision.104 Bishop Volodkovič, in a letter to Nuncio Nicolao Serra in 1757, while discussing the prerogatives of the Uniate metropolitans of Kiev, stated that, in accordance to old traditions, dating back to
the time of the Church Fathers, and considering the resolutions of a series
of synods/provincial councils of the Eastern Church, the aforementioned
papal bull of Clement VIII Decet Romanum Pontificem of February 23,
1596, and the provisions adopted in the Zamość Provincial Council, metropolitans had always had and still retained the right to approve, consecrate, and transfer suffragan bishops within the metropolia, for which they
were competent. He, therefore, urged the nuncio to recognize these
rights.105 It should be noted, however, that at the Zamość assembly in 1720
these prerogatives were questioned, but the exact extent of the metropolitan’s powers was ultimately not defined.106
Legislative Reform
In terms of legal frameworks, resolutions passed in the Zamość
Assembly had a significant impact on later codifications of the local laws of
the Eastern Catholic Churches. The diocese of Mukachevo, for example,
which had been in ecclesiastical union with Rome since 1646, based its
codification on the resolutions of Zamość Provincial Council.
Furthermore, ecclesial authorities, responsible for the codifications of
the legislation of the Eastern Catholic Churches in the twentieth century,
104. Nabywaniec, Unicka, 132–35; Bieńkowski, “Organizacja,” 869–70.
105. Epistolae, 10–12.
106. See Synodus, Titulus V.

STANISŁAW NABYWANIEC

361

also made extensive references to the provisions adopted in this provincial
council. In the normative acts promulgated by Pope Pius XII, for example,
the Provincial Council of Zamość was mentioned as the source of 125
canons, especially those concerning marital law and the hierarchical system
of the Church. In the 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches,
there are 147 canons referring to the same assembly. They concern the
liturgy, i.e. the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, the administration of
other sacraments, and the ministry of bishops.107
Conclusion
To conclude, the Zamość Provincial Council was the most important
ecclesial assembly in the history of the Uniate Church in the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth. Its course was modeled on the Council of
Trent and the Milan Synod of Charles Borromeo and its resolutions
approved in 1724 by Pope Benedict XIII.108 These resolutions, although
not all of them executed, greatly influenced the ecclesial life of the Uniate
Church as a whole. In recognizing the significance of the Provincial Council of Zamość, its resolutions were formally adopted by the diocese of
Przemyśl during its diocesan synod in 1740.109 Another consequence of the
provincial council’s resolutions, as mentioned in this paper, was the socalled occidentalization/latinization of the Eastern liturgy. It was, as this
paper attempts to show, the result of complex inculturation processes of
the Uniate Church in the Commonwealth. Thus, one should be wary of
historiographical views blaming the Provincial Council of Zamość for the
Latinization of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church. Statements such as
that the decisions of the Zamość Assembly are solely to be blamed for the
Latinization process are not only unacceptable, but also untenable. Instead,

107. Leszek Adamowicz, “Znaczenie Synodu Zamojskiego dla prawa kanonicznego
katolickich Kościołów Wschodnich [Importance of the Zamość Synod for the canon law of
Eastern Catholic Churches],” in: Dziedzictwo Synodu Zamojskiego 1720–2020: Wyzwania i
perspektywy [Heritage of the Synod of Zamość 1720–2020: Challenges and perspectives], ed.
Przemysław Nowakowski, (Kraków, 2021), 303–08.
108. Śliwa, “Kościół,” 464–67; see also: Wojciech Góralski, Reforma trydencka w
diecezji i prowincji kościelnej mediolańskiej w świetle pierwszych synodów kard. Karola Boromeusza
[Tridentine reform in the diocese and ecclesiastical province of Milan in the light of the first
synods of Card. Charles Borromeo] (Lublin, 1988).
109. Stanisław Nabywaniec, “Od Synodu Zamojskiego 1720 do Synodu Przemyskiego
1740 roku. Recepcja Synodu Zamojskiego w eparchii przemyskiej [From the Synod of
Zamość 1720 to the Synod of Przemyśl in 1740. Reception of the Synod of Zamość in the
Przemyśl eparchy], in: Dziedzictwo Synodu Zamojskiego 1720–2020: Wyzwania i perspektywy,
237–57.

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THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL IN ZAMOŚĆ

the decisions concerning the liturgy made at the assembly represented a
balanced compromise between the acceptance of certain Latin influences
and the preservation of Eastern traditions by the Uniate Church.110

110. Przemysław Nowakowski, “Synod Zamojski i problem latynizacji liturgii bizantyjsko-słowiańskiej w Kościele greckokatolickim [Synod Zamość and the problem of the Latinization of the Byzantine-Slavic liturgy in the Greek Catholic Church],” in: Dziedzictwo
Synodu Zamojskiego 1720–2020: Wyzwania i perspektywy, 181–91; Vasil Rudeyko, “Liturhiyna
tradytsiya Ukrayinskoyi Hreko-Katolytskoyi Tserkvy z ohlyadu na postanovu Zamoyskoho
synodu 1720: Sproba kontestualizatsiyi” [Liturgical tradition of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic
Church in view of the decision of the Synod of Zamość in 1720: An attempt to contextualize], in: Dziedzictwo Synodu Zamojskiego 1720–2020: Wyzwania i perspektywy, 167–79.

Jewish Themes in the Sermons Delivered
by Catholic Priests
in Communist Poland (1944–1989)
BOŻENA SZAYNOK*
Using the example of sermons, this article deals with the little-known
problem of the presence of the Jewish subject matter in the teachings of
the Catholic Church in communist Poland (1945–1989). Although
these issues occupied a marginal place in the sermons, they can help one
understand the different contexts in which references to Jews appeared
in the pulpit message. Their source, to the greatest extent, was religious
matters. This article discusses the varied account of Jews, in which the
priests often situated this community as strangers rather than neighbors, and expressed anti-Jewish prejudices. After the Second Vatican
Council, it became noticeable that the content hostile to Jews was
being removed from the Church’s message, and this also applied to the
sermons.
Keywords: Catholic Church in post-war Poland, the Church and
the Jews, sermons in the post-war Catholic Church, CatholicJewish relationships in communist Poland.

J

oanna Margulies was a Polish Jew. During the war, the Jesuit Father
Bogusław Waczyński helped her hide in one of the monasteries, where
she decided to be baptized. For Joanna, religious conversion did not mean
assimilation: “I will not stop being a Jew,” she told the clergyman.1 A few
days after her baptism, Joanna, already a Jewish Catholic, wrote a poem
entitled “And forgive us our sins,” wherein she described the world around
her, in which “There is no city that is not struck by war, [t]here is no home
from which crying is not heard. . . .”

*Bożena Szaynok is professor of Wroclaw University (Department of History), email
address: bozena.szaynok@uwr.edu.pl; orcid.org/0000-0001-9243-484X. Research on the
position of the Catholic Church on Jewish issues after World War II (1944–89) was carried
out as a project financed by the National Science Center (DEC-2013/09/B/HS3/00619).
1. Bogusław Waczyński, The Account of Fr. B. Waczyński, Warsaw, September 23, 1947,
stored in Warsaw, Archdiocesan Archives of Warsaw [hereinafter AAW], Secretariat of the
Primate of Poland [hereinafter SPP] collection II, unit 8.1, p. 320.

363

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JEWISH THEMES

Although in the poem Joanna condemned those “who unleashed this
war on the earth,” she asked: “How sinful are we, asking for mercy. Do we
have the right to judge and curse others? Let Your peace come upon them,
O Lord. We forgive the culprits from our hearts.”2
Joanna gave this book of poems written during the war to Father
Waczyński. But the story of this poem does not end in 1943. More than
twenty years later, in the fall of 1965, it came to light again under rather
unexpected circumstances. Before these circumstances are explained,
however, another event must be outlined. In November 1965, at the end
of the Second Vatican Council, Polish bishops sent letters to episcopates
all over the world on the occasion of the Millennium of Poland’s Baptism. Each letter mentioned the relationships between Poland and the
country of the addressees. The Address of Polish Bishops to Their German
Brothers in the Pastoral Office of Christ, written by Cardinal Bolesław
Kominek, contained lamentation about the Second World War, which
was described as “a terribly dark night, which we had not experienced for
generations. . . . Over six million Polish citizens, mostly of Jewish origin,
lost their lives in this period of occupation.” The wounds of war were still
not healed, yet the Address ended with the words: “We forgive and ask for
forgiveness.”3
The communist authorities reacted nervously to this church initiative.
For example, the press waged a smear campaign against the bishops, and
rallies condemning the episcopate were organized. The authorities interrogated over forty-five hundred parish priests about the Address, and instituted administrative repressions.4 However, it wasn’t only the authorities
who disapproved of the words regarding forgiveness. In the first months,
before the bishops explained their position in a separate message to the
faithful, many people were adopting the communist slogan of “We do not
forgive.” Over half of the interrogated clergymen had an “unfavorable”
2. Joanna Margulies, I odpuść nam nasze winy [And forgive us our trespasses], Stara
Wieś, 28 November 1943, in: The Account of Fr. B. Waczyński, AAW, SPP, col. II, unit 8.1,
p. 348.
3. The Address of the Polish bishops to their German brothers in the Pastoral office in Christ, in:
Wojciech Kucharski, Listy milenijne [Millenium Letters] (Wrocław, 2020), 360, 364.
4. Łukasz Kaminski, “Władze PRL i społeczeństwo polskie wobec Orędzia biskupów
polskich” [The Authorities of the People’s Republic of Poland and Polish Society towards the
Address of the Polish bishops], in: Wokół Orędzia: Kardynał Bolesław Kominek prekursor pojednania polsko-niemieckiego [On the Address: Cardinal Bolesław Kominek, a precursor of
Polish-German reconciliation], eds. Wojciech Kucharski and Grzegorz Strauchold
(Wrocław, 2019), 133–40.

BOŻENA SZAYNOK

365

Photograph of Memorial to Cardinal Bolesław Kominek, Wrocław, Poland,
erected December 3, 2005, photo taken by Julo in 2005. Cardinal Kominek
wrote The Address of Polish Bishops to Their German Brothers in the Pastoral Office
of Christ. This image has been released into the public domain by its author,
Julo.

opinion about the bishops’ declaration, and a hostile attitude towards this
letter prevailed also among regular Poles.5 It was in those circumstances
that the poem by a young Jewish convert, written during the German occupation, resurfaced. As Father B. Waczyński recalls,
When in our Catholic Poland . . . a hatred campaign against the letter
. . . with words of forgiveness began, I read this poem by Joasia [Joanna]
. . . at the Holy Mass, to embarrass the Poles, who boasted about a thousand-year Christian legacy, and let themselves be seduced by the fanatical, atheistic propaganda, to embarrass them with a truly Christian spirit
of forgiveness whose author at the time that the poem was written was
still a young neophyte—a Jewish girl.6
5. Ibid., 138.
6. AAW, SPP, coll. II, unit 8.1, p. 324.

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JEWISH THEMES

The history of Joanna’s poem shows the unusual ways in which Jewish subject matter could find its way into the sermons of the clergy. It is worth
looking at this problem in more detail.
In the Catholic Church, sermons are preached by the clergy to the
faithful, and their content usually concerns religious topics. Sermons can
be part of the Holy Mass, but their role does not end there. For example,
Lenten sermons about the Passion of Christ occupy an important place in
the Bitter Sorrows Lenten service that is popular in Poland. Sermons communicate to the congregation what is usually identified with the teachings
of the Church. They can influence and, to some extent, shape the way of
thinking and attitudes of the audience. However, it is worth noting that
the recipients of sermons greatly vary in terms of their education, religious
knowledge, and social standing. As members of a group, they are connected to the Church only by faith. Hence the way knowledge transferred
by priests is received by the audience differs among the members. It should
be remembered, furthermore, that the faithful can also be critical of the
words spoken from the pulpit.7
Due to their function and importance in the activities of the Church,
sermons have often been the subject of historians’ research.8 Some publications also mention Jewish themes,9 and this issue also appears in publications on the teaching of the Church about the Jewish community10 or
on Catholicism in Poland in the twentieth century.11 In the papers
released to date, sermons from after the Second World War and the
7. For example, a survey called “My attitude to the contemporary pulpit teachings” from
1949 revealed that the attitude is “generally negative.” Fr. Bolesław Kominek, “Z problematyki homiletycznej” [Homiletic problems], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 59, no. 2 (1957),
192–98, here 192.
8. E.g. James Ramon Felak,  
  
 (Pittsburgh, 2020), discusses the sermons preached by the Pope during his pilgrimages to the motherland.
9. For example, Daniel Soukup, “Oh, Bestia Synagoga! The representation of Jews in
Czech Sermons at the turns of the 17th and 18th centuries,” Wroclaw
26,
no. 1 (2018), 19–32.
10. E.g. John Connelly, From Enemy to Brother:
the Jews, 1933–1965 (Cambridge, 2012).
11. In the book by Brian Porter-Szucs, Faith and Fatherland, there is a separate chapter
called “Jews” that discusses the Church’s message (e.g. press, sermons) in relation to this community in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Brian Porter- Szucs, Faith and Fatherland:
Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland (Oxford, 2013), 272–328; Bożena Szaynok, “The Attitude
of the Catholic Church in Poland to Jewish Issues after the Holocaust from 1944 to 1989,”
in: Jewish presence in absence: Aftermath of the Holocaust in Poland, 1945–2010, eds. Feliks Tych
and Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska (Jerusalem, 2013), 635–69.

BOŻENA SZAYNOK

367

Genocide were only part of the reflection on the history of the Church in
the twentieth century.
The “Jewish themes” referred to in the title, found in teachings “from
the pulpit,” requires a further explanation. It concerns two spaces—one
inside the church, and the other outside of it. The first case concerns Jews
in a religious context (history of the covenant with God, the story of Jesus,
etc.), as described in the Bible. The second case concerns various issues
concerning the Jewish community, such as, for example, its history in
Poland, the Holocaust, Israel, anti-Semitism, relations between Jews and
Poles, and relations between Jews and Catholics. Therefore, it is worth
asking which of these various issues were introduced into the content of
the sermons. What kind of thinking was behind this choice and what
shaped it? What were the roles of the Jewish themes in the sermons?
Which events from the Bible were chosen to tell about the Jews and which
were turned into a universal story where the nationality of its protagonists
was not mentioned? To what extent was the Jewish aspect of the world in
which Jesus—a Jew—lived introduced into the sermons? Who were the
Jews that priests talked about from the pulpit? What was the place in the
Church’s message of those living in biblical times, and what was the position of contemporaries? To what extent was it a story about “others” and
“strangers,” and to what extent about “us,” assuming that Christians were
the successors of Jews who had believed in Christ? Was there a homogeneous, diverse, or mythologized image of the Jewish community in the
teachings of the Church? It is also worth emphasizing that for the religious
people in Poland, the word “Jew,” appearing in the space of the Church,
probably evoked associations with the people who lived next door,
“together but separately.” However, the Holocaust and subsequent postwar waves of emigration left only a handful of the three-million-strong
Jewish population who lived in Poland before 1939. This means that for
the post-war generations, the word “Jew,” with time, became an abstract
and unfamiliar concept.
The focus of this text is the presence of Jewish themes in the sermons
of Catholic priests between 1944 and 1989. Thus, the chronological framework starts with the end of the hostilities in Poland12 and ends with the
12. After July 1944, the Red Army entered the territories of the present, post-war
Poland. Almost half of the pre-war Polish territory, annexed by the USSR, was outside of the
new borders. Polish citizens of various nationalities who inhabited these areas were resettled
to Poland within the new borders, and to the lands that were part of Germany until May 1945
and after the war were incorporated into Poland.

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JEWISH THEMES

collapse of the communist regime, symbolically marked by the events of
June 1989.13 The years 1944–89 were a time of undemocratic rule, in which
the Catholic Church experienced various forms of repression and restriction.14 The internal caesura of this chronology is marked by the Second
Vatican Council’s Nostra Aetate: Declaration on the Relation of the Church
with Non-Christian Religions, adopted in October 1965, which put forward
a new attitude of the Church towards Judaism and Jews.
In the first part of this article, the subjects of analysis are the sermons
given in the post-war, pre-Vatican II period (from 1945 until 1962) and
during the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). It should be remembered that this message of the Church, apart from contemporary experiences, was also influenced by previously developed ways of thinking about
Jews. In pre-war Poland, the European country with the greatest number
of Jewish inhabitants at the time, the position of the Church towards the
Jewish community was described by Damian Pałka, the author of a monograph on this subject, as “reluctant,” pointing to the reasons for it in both
Christian theology, which “from the first centuries tried to ‘dethrone’
Judaism and replace the ‘chosen people’ with the ‘new people,’” as well as
in the “social, political and economic situation of the Polish state in 1918–
39 [and] national and cultural aspirations of Jews and Poles, which often
could not find a common solution within the Second Republic of
Poland.”15 A document from the Vatican Commission on Religious Relations with Judaism, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, stated that
“The history of relations between Jews and Christians is a tormented one.
[. . .] In effect, the balance of these relations over two thousand years has

13. In June 1989, elections to the Polish Parliament (which were limited by the Communist Party) and free elections to the Senate were held in Poland, and ended in a spectacular
defeat of the Communist Party. Two months later, for the first time after the war, a noncommunist politician, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, became the head of the government.
14. A constant element of the communist policy towards the Church was a combination
of restrictions and repressions, most severely experienced in the late 1940s and the first half of
the 1950s (e.g., the arrest of the Primate, the expulsion of nuns, bishops’ show trials, prison
sentences and devastating investigations, surveillance, intimidation, censorship, and the seizure
of church institutions and magazines). Briefly, in the mid-1950s, the anti-church policy of the
communist regime was eased. Soon, however, the government’s strategy was again to restrict
the activities of the Church with varying degrees of intensity. For example, in the 1980s,
during martial law, one victim of the communist authorities, Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, the
chaplain of Solidarity, was murdered by officers of the Ministry of the Interior.
15. Damian Pałka, Kościół katolicki wobec Żydów w Polsce międzywojennej [The Catholic
Church’s Attitude towards Jews in Interwar Poland] (Kraków, 2006), 363. See also: Ronald
Modras, The Catholic Church and Antisemitism: Poland 1918–1939 (Chur, 1994).

BOŻENA SZAYNOK

369

been quite negative.”16 It was with such a decline that the post-war reality
in Poland began.
In the second part of the article, the Jewish theme in sermons will be
discussed in the context of the post-Vatican II reality (1965-1989), which
differed from the previous era in the new attitude developed by the Second
Vatican Council. It can be best described by the word “dialogue,” and, in
the case of Jewish themes, by the declaration of Nostra Aetate. By looking
at the Jewish topics that persisted in sermons until the Vatican Council
commenced and which were particularly prominent for the Church until
that time, and by examining how from the 1960s onwards they ceased to
appear in the sermons, one can see the influence of the Council on this
form of Church teaching. From this perspective, one can also note the
presence of topics that “survived” despite the changes introduced by the
Council, as well as those that constitute new issues in the Church’s attitude
about Jews.
The subject of this paper’s analysis is both sermons that were delivered
in the church and those published, e.g. in magazines on homiletics
addressed to priests. The authors and preachers of the sermons were clergymen17 in various levels of the church hierarchy.18
There are several points of interest in printed and preached sermons.
Historians have more limited access to the latter since most of them have
not been preserved. Both forms were subject to the control of government
offices, but attention was paid only to the content that was of interest to
the communists. Among them, there were some Jewish themes (e.g. the
attitude of the Church towards this community, anti-Semitism, Israel,
etc.). Printed sermons were subject to censorship, while the homilies delivered in the pulpit were controlled by the officials of the government appa16. Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, We Remember: A Reflection on
the Shoah (Rome, 1998), §3: “Relations between Christians and Jews,” http://www.christian
unity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/commissione-per-i-rapporti-religiosi-con-l-ebraismo/
commissione-per-i-rapporti-religiosi-con-l-ebraismo-crre/documenti-della-commissione/
en1.html
17. The length limitation of this article does not allow for the presenting of the biographical facts of the authors of the referenced sermons, and unfortunately there currently are
not biographies available for all of the priests. An interesting research trail is the analysis of
biographies in connection with the teachings in the sermons.
18. Among the examples described in the text, one can also note the sermons of some
of the primates (in the history of Poland, this was the title of the metropolitan of Gniezno,
which emphasized his priority in the Polish Bishops’ Conference) as well as of Pope John Paul
II during his pilgrimages to Poland.

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ratus.19 It must be remembered that the content of sermons preserved in the
sources of the government is often not original, but written as understood
by the controlling official. Another form of control was the self-censorship
of clergymen, who were aware of the described activities of the authorities.20
Printed sermons that hypothetically could have been delivered, as well
as those that the participants of the Mass certainly heard, show the
Church’s attitude to Jews; they also inform the reader what the faithful
were told about Jews. However, one should remember that this was only
one of the ways in which the Jewish subject matter was present in the
Church’s teaching. During the Holy Mass, Jews also appear in the pages
of the Holy Bible, in the memoirs of Catholic saints,21 in songs,22 and in
the rite of baptism.23 Inside the church, Jewish themes were also present in
the services,24 prayers,25 church decor,26 and likewise outside of the church
building itself, e.g. in the church press27 or in rituals.28
19. The scale of surveillance is illustrated by the data; for example, in July 1954, sermons in 491 churches in the Bydgoszcz voivodeship were inspected in connection with the
tenth anniversary of People’s Poland; see: Głoszenie kazań przez kler 18 VII 1954 na temat „o
miłości Ojczyzny”—Bydgoszcz [Preaching by the Clergy on July 18, 1954 on “the love of the
Fatherland”—Bydgoszcz], Bydgoszcz, July 1954, stored in Warsaw, the Archives of New
Records [hereinafter AAN], Office for Religious Affairs [hereinafter: UdsW], coll. 44, unit
216, p. 2.
20. At this point, it is worth mentioning that the statements of hierarchs, made for
example during meetings with Jews or in personal documents, often referenced the support of
Jews for communism in Poland. Such beliefs were marginal in sermons, despite appearing
“hostile” to the authorities.
21. For example, prayer books mentioned the stoning of St. Stephen by the Jews; see
Kazimierz Thullie, Życie chrześcijanina w obrzędach kościoła: Modlitewnik liturgiczny [Christian
Life in Church Rites: Liturgical Prayer Book] (Lwów-Warsaw, 1925), 114.
22. Jewish characters appeared in songs, most often during Lent. The words of the
songs accused them of contributing to the death of Jesus (e.g. capture, putting on trial), but
also of cruelty, fierceness, and obstinacy. For example, see: Jan Siedlecki, Śpiewnik kościelny z
melodiami na 2 głosy [Church Songbook with Melodies for Two voices], eds. Wendelin
Świerczek and Bolesława Wallek-Walewski (Kraków, 1931), 72, 73, 86.
23. For example, the rite of baptism of an adult Jew had included provisions biased
against Judaism until the Second Vatican Council introduced changes to it. During the ceremony, the priest uttered the following words: “Turn away from Jewish infidelity, cast
away/spit out Hebrew superstition.” Rituale Romanum, editio typica (Rome, 1952), 38–39.
24. For example, in the Bitter Sorrows Lenten service, which is popular in Poland, there
are many negative comments about Jews; see: Siedlecki, Śpiewnik kościelny z melodiami
[Church Songbook with Melodies], 395–401.
25. E.g. in Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XI, “Akt poświęcenia rodzaju ludzkiego
Najświętszemu Sercu Pana Jezusa, Modlitewnik alumna” [The Act of Consecrating Mankind
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus], in: Alumna Prayer Book (Warsaw, 1958,) 89. The verses of the
prayer regarding Jewish people were changed in June 1959.

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371

Apart from magazines, which contain suggestions for sermons (e.g.
Biblioteka kaznodziejska,29 Współczesna Ambona 30), the sources used here are
documents from church archives, as well as from those communist institutions whose purpose was to survey and restrict the activities of the Church,31
an element of whose work included monitoring sermons. This paper also
uses the published Listy Pasterskie i listy Episkopatu Polski [Pastoral Letters
and Letters of the Polish Episcopate] that were read out in churches.
The analysis of sermons in the post-war, pre-Vatican II period shows
that Jewish topics were most often discussed in a religious context. Understandably, the sermons alluded to the Scriptures, in which one can find various records about Jews. In Scripture, apart from Jesus, his mother, and his
closest disciples—Jews who, because of Jesus’s miracles (e.g. the resurrection of Lazarus), believed in his teaching, helped him during his passion
(Simon of Cyrene), and sympathized with his suffering (the women of
Jerusalem)—one reads about Jews persecuting Jesus and his followers,
demanding their deaths. It is worth noting that, despite the presence of
both positive and negative attitudes of Jews, as outlined above, the hostility
of the Jews towards Jesus was often the one presented in the sermons. The
facts from Scripture were used to suit the individual homilist’s goals, and
preachers tended to attach their own emotions and ideas to them. During
26. For example, within the borders of post-war Poland there were several churches
which held exhibits referring to ritual murder, and the superstition about the profanation of
the host by Jews. Some of them were removed after the war, while some can still be found in
churches today.
27. For example Bożena Szaynok, “Zatrzymane w archiwach: Wojewódzki Urząd Kontroli Prasy Publikacji i Widowisk w Poznaniu wobec tematyki żydowskiej na łamach czasopism katolickich (1945–1950)” [Retained in the archives: Provincial Office for the Control of
the Publications and Show Press in Poznań on Jewish Themes in Catholic Magazines (1945–
1950)], Zagłada Żydów: Studia i materiały, 14 (2018), 354–86.
28. For example, Jews were portrayed in various ways in Christmas nativity plays or
Passion mysteries during Lent.
29. In 1956, the first issue of Biblioteka Kaznodziejska [Preacher’s Library] was published, which was a continuation of Nowa Biblioteka Kaznodziejska [New Preacher’s Library]
which had been printed until the war. The magazine was intended to help priests prepare their
own homilies.
30. Współczesna Ambona [The Contemporary Pulpit] was a continuation of a pre-war
periodical. In communist Poland it was published as a bimonthly/quarterly “devoted to Polish
preaching”; it was published between 1946 and 1959, with a five-year break (from 1952 to
1957), and then reactivated in 1986.
31. The communist institutions which controlled and restricted the church’s activity are
the Ministry of Public Security (after 1954, the Ministry of the Interior), the Office for Religious Affairs [hereinafter: UdsW], and the Central Office for the Control of Press, Publications and Performances (censorship) [hereinafter: GUKPPiW].

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JEWISH THEMES

the sermons, the congregation could hear not only the rendering of passages
from the Gospel of St. John about Jews demanding the death of Jesus, but
also, for example, the amplification of this information in the preacher’s
words: “And it was the Jews”—as one priest repeated three times in one of
his homilies—“that brought Christ to the crucifixion!”32 Some clergymen
went into more detail when they presented Jewish authorities in their sermons. In the description of the Supreme Council, gathered in the palace of
Caiaphas, there is “hatred [which] can be read in their every move, in every
gleam of their eyes. But pride also emanates from those eyes, . . . speaks
from their pursed lips, from their ineptly hidden, mocking smile.” In this
picture, the preacher contrasted the figure of “helpless . . . Jesus” with the
Council and asked rhetorically: “Which side are we going to be on?”33
Referring to Jews in plural form and as a nation, as well as ignoring
their more positive attributes, helped cement a one-dimensional view of
Jews. For example, in one of the sermons, its author stated that it caused
Christ “more dolor” that the death sentence was passed by his “beloved
nation.”34 Another sermon mentioned, for instance, the “monstrous crime
of Jews and Pilate.”35
Another thread relating to Jews that could be perceived in the sermons
was the punishment that the Jewish people were to pay for rejecting Jesus;
for example, in the sermon of Primate August Hlond during the summer
of 1945, the faithful heard that: “We must choose: to follow Christ . . . or
build without Christ and risk the tragic fate that befell Jerusalem for not
knowing the time of her visitation.”36 Another preacher used very similar
32. Raport specjalny ze święta Chrystusa Króla obchodzonego w dniu 28 X 1945 r. oraz
kazań wygłoszonych w kościołach częstochowskich [Special Report on the Holiday of Christ the
King Celebrated on October 28, 1945 and Sermons Delivered in Częstochowa Churches],
Częstochowa, (no signature, n.d.), stored in Katowice, the archives of the Institute of National
Remembrance [hereinafter AIPN], Katowice branch, coll. 027, unit 155, vol. 1 II-319, p. 21,
The author would like to thank Marcin Zaremba for making these materials available.
33. Fr. Polikarp Sawicki, “Kazania pasyjne: Pycha” [Easter sermons: Pride],
Współczesna ambona, 1, no. 1 (1946), 133–65, here 137–38.
34 Fr. Stanisław Łach, “Cierpienie Chrystusa od swojego narodu” [Christ’s Suffering
from his People], Współczesna ambona, 3, no. 2 (1948), 223–32, here 223.
35. Fr. Józef Winkowski, “Uroczystość św. Szczepana” [The Feast of St. Stephen],
Współczesna ambona, 1, no. 1 (1946), 638–43, here 639.
36. August Hlond, O jutro Polski: Główne myśli z kazania wygłoszonego po powrocie z
wygnania w poznańskiej farze 22 lipca 1945 r. [On the Future of Poland: Main Thoughts from
the Sermon Delivered after the Return from Exile in the Parish Church in Poznań on July
22, 1945], Poznań, July 22, 1945, stored in Poznań, Archdiocese Archives in Poznań [hereinafter AAP], Acta Hlondiana [hereinafter AH], coll. II, unit 01, Speeches, p. 194.

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373

words, when arguing that “the Jewish people, . . . having renounced their
Savior, bear the consequences that the Savior foretold them.”37
The congregation could also hear about the Jews who “were punished
by God” for the death of Jesus. In this sermon, the preacher also mentioned
the dispersion of Jewish people around the world and said: “And each of
them is hated by all of us.”38 On Christmas Day, the participants of the
Mass could also learn that “the Jewish people carried . . . a great responsibility” because they had turned away Mary and Joseph from the inn.39
Another pattern of thinking present in the sermons that could create the
image of Jews was emphasizing the distance and differences between
Judaism and Christianity, and overlooking the common heritage of both
religions. For instance, the faithful received information about “detailed regulations governing the matters of God’s worship . . . every Jew understood
that God must be worshiped. . . . For the people of the Old Testament . . .
God was an immeasurable Lord . . . a Just Judge. Dread and fear overcame
people at the mere mention of God, so no one dared even pronounce God’s
name.” These considerations ended with the words: “How differently God
presented himself to mankind in the New Testament.”40 This opposition was
treated differently, e.g. in the biography of St. Paul, where his Jewish origin
and attachment to “religious and national traditions” were noted: this was
how the preacher explained the fact that the apostle of nations “was at first a
fierce enemy of Christians.”41 In the memoirs of St. Stephen, the preacher
reminded the audience that “out of hatred for God, his fellow Jews” caused
his death, and yet he forgave his persecutors.42 The observation in the sermon
37. Wojciech Guzewicz, “List biskupa S. Łukomskiego do wojewody białostockiego z
13 X 1945 r” [Letter from Bishop S. Łukomski to the Białystok Voivode of October 13,
1945], Studia Ełckie, 11 (2009), 209–13, here 211.
38. Raport specjalny ze święta Chrystusa Króla obchodzonego w dniu 28 X 1945 r. [Special
Report on the Feast of Christ the King Celebrated on October 28, 1945], stored in Katowice,
AIPN, Katowice branch, coll. 027, unit 155, vol. 1 II-319, p. 21.
39. M. Piasecki, Raport specjalny kierownika V referatu MUBP M. Piaseckiego do
kierownika MUBP w Częstochowie [Special Report of the Head of the 5th MUBP Section, M.
Piasecki, to the Head of the MUBP in Częstochowa], Częstochowa, December 26, 1945,
stored in Katowice, AIPN, Katowice branch, coll. 027, unit 155, vol. 1 II-319, p. 50.
40. Fr. Franciszek Kryszak, “Najświętszy Sakrament owocem miłości Pana Jezusa” [The
Blessed Sacrament, the Fruit of the Love of Jesus], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 59, no. 2 (1957),
171–76, here 171.
41. Fr. Leonard Perkowski, “Jezus Chrystus postacią historyczną” [Jesus Christ as a
Historical Figure], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 58, no. 1 (1957), 126–31, here 126, 129.
42. Fr. Stanisłąw Domino TS, “Nauczyciel wierności i ofiary [kazanie dla dzieci],”
[Teacher of Fidelity and Sacrifice, (sermon for children)], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 63, no. 5
(1959), 398–401, here 399.

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JEWISH THEMES

on marriage that relationships “between the baptized and the unbaptized
(pagans, Jews) are forbidden”43 had yet another dimension.
In his book, Brian Porter-Szucs points out an important distinction:
“A certain polemic with Judaism is probably inherent in Christianity, but
there is a difference between a polemic and prejudice.”44 Both concepts are
present in the analyzed sermons. For example, in the sermons alluding to
the parable about the Good Samaritan, the listeners were told that “the
Jewish people assumed that only a Jew was their neighbor, . . . whoever was
not a Jew, was worthy only of contempt.” The preacher described this attitude as the “pure essence of the dire theory of modern racism.”45
The sermons only occasionally mentioned that Jesus was himself
Jewish. Likewise, with regards to other Biblical figures, the issue of
national belonging would often be placed in a specific context. For example, the preacher asked in a sermon: “Have all the Israelites proved
ungrateful . . . to their Lord[?]” and replied: “Not all of them, of course!
Time and time again the Jewish people produced great men of God and
pious women . . . who . . . saved the honor of their brothers by standing
firm with God.” The preacher then named the parents of John the Baptist,
the disciples of Christ, “and above all, the Blessed Virgin Mary with her
holy spouse, Joseph.”46 It should be borne in mind, however, that most of
the texts devoted to, for example, Mary, do not bring up her descent.
Some sermons contained references to events in the Jewish history
described in the Old Testament. They were usually used by preachers for
universal reflections on man. A recurring theme was the story of the Maccabees, e.g., in one of the sermons, the bravery of the Maccabees, “one of
the most shocking biblical events,” provided an opportunity for reflecting
on human character.47 The story of the destruction of Jerusalem surfaced
many times in the sermons and performed various functions. Apart from
factual descriptions of the destruction of the temple and the expulsion of
43. “A series of sermons on marriage” (no author), Wiadomości Diecezjalne: Organ
Urzędowy Częstochowskiej Kurii Diecezjalnej, 1 (August, 1945), 5.
44. Porter-Szucs, Faith and Fatherland, 273.
45. Miłość bliźniego [Love of Neighbor], Książ Wielki, September 2, 1945, stored in
Warsaw, AIPN, Warsaw branch, coll. 0330, unit 233, vol. 39: Kaczmarek Czesław and others,
part 1, p. 401.
46. Fr. Paweł Kosiak, “Rzut oka na pierwszy rok Wielkiej Nowenny” [A Glance at the
First Year of the Great Novena], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 60, no. 4 (1958), 346–48, here 346.
47. Fr. Edmund Rosieński, “Od temperamentu do charakteru” [From Temperament to
Character], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 60, no. 3 (1958), 262–64, here 262.

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375

the Jews,48 these events were also a pretext to recall, for example, the importance of the temple. In one of the sermons, Primate Hlond talked about the
tragic fate of the temple ruined by the Romans: “It remained a longing
memory of the Jewish nation scattered around the world, whose members,
driven by nostalgia for the lost homeland, stand under the remnants of the
temple walls, in tears at their cruel misery, ‘the Wailing Wall’ being the
most shocking symbol of national tragedy and pain”49 and the attitude of
the chosen people. The author of one of the homilies described this moment
in Israel’s history as follows: “Christ looks with the eyes of the omniscient
God, he sees the terrible end . . . Jerusalem, which until then was the cradle
of the Jewish people, but will soon become the tomb of immortal souls. . . .
Christ looks and weeps. . . . But ill-fated Jerusalem does not see his tears
. . . because she is blind, and her future misfortune is hidden from her eyes
. . . it was the chosen and beloved city. There was a temple there, the pride
of Israel, . . . blessings and favors flowed over the Jews.”50
“Sensitivity” to the mistakes and weaknesses of the chosen people is
also noticeable in the comments on other events from Israel’s past. In sermons on the choice of the Jews by God, the congregation could learn, for
example, that God first called the Jewish nation, because “such was his
Will,”51 but also, as another statement shows, that “Only God’s entry into
the history of the nation of Israel is explained by the extraordinary fact that
this small, not very gifted people had pure faith in one God: priceless
monotheism.”52
The sermons also included references to the religiousness of Jews.
Their descriptions in pre-Vatican II sermons included terms such as the
“unfortunate synagogue,” going “through the ages” with “ears covered at
the voice of Jesus,” which led “its people—despite earthly successes, influ48. Fr. Polikarp Sawicki, “Niedziela IX po Świątkach” [Ninth Sunday after Pentecost],
Współczesna ambona, 1, no. 1 (1946), 345–50, here 347.
49. August Hlond, “Homilia prymasa A. Hlonda z okazji otwarcia Bazyliki Prymasowskiej w Gnieźnie, 25 XI 1945 r” [Homily of Primate A. Hlond on the Occasion of the
Opening of the Primate’s Basilica in Gniezno, November 25, 1945], printed in Głos Katolicki,
no. 34, December 16, 1945, p. 3.
50. Untitled sermon, stored in Warsaw, AIPN, Warsaw branch, coll. 0330, unit 233,
vol. 39: Kaczmarek Czesław and others, part 1, p. 399.
51. Fr. Zygmunt Baranowski, “Robotnicy w winnicy” [Workers in the Vineyard], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 58, no. 1 (1957), 31–32, here 31.
52. Fr. Michał Peter, “Stary Testament momentem oczekiwania Mesjasza” [The Old
Testament as a Moment of Waiting for the Messiah], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 59, no. 5
(1957), 358–62, here 358.

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JEWISH THEMES

ence and gold, to the road of abyss and perdition,”53 and admiration for
religious Jews. One of the sermons paints a picture from Israel: “In a luxurious hotel” where tourists from “different countries” were staying, Jews
sat down to dinner, “dressed in elegant, modern clothes. . . . [W]hen the
meal was served, all the Jews got up, put on their yarmulkes, one of them
read loudly and clearly a passage from the Old Testament . . . intoned a
psalm in a beautiful voice . . . [and] others picked up the melody and sang
it together.” The preacher wrote about the “great impression” that this
made on the guests present at the hotel, and about the “deep respect” for
those “who remember the worship due to God.” It is noteworthy that this
section of the sermon, written in 1959, started with an expression of
curiosity about “the life of today’s Jews in their state of Israel.”54
It must be remembered that the post-war, pre-Vatican II message of the
Church about Jews was overshadowed by the Holocaust. An analysis of the
sermons shows that Jewish martyrdom was commemorated, but in different
ways. In October 1945, recalling the war, the Primate of Poland, August
Hlond, said to the gathered congregation: “For the followers of Christ, but
also for Jews, this was a time of terror, incredible cruelty, slavery, camps, and
gas chambers.”55 One of the sermons mentioned the Auschwitz-Birkenau
camp and its victims: Poles, Russians, French, and Jews.56 The sermons
referring to the sites of mass murder of Jews, such as Birkenau or Bełżec,
mentioned, for example, “millions of people of all languages” or the number
of victims, without specifying their nationality.57 In such descriptions, Jewish
martyrdom, placed next to the suffering of other nations or “blurred” in the
narrative about war victims, lost its unique character.
The Holocaust was also a pretext for stories, e.g., about true Christian
love. In one of the homilies, a tale of “Hitler’s madness” was told. At a station, in a small town in occupied Poland, a passenger train and a train with
53. Fr. Józef Winkowski, “Uroczystość św. Szczepana” [The Feast of St. Stephen],
Współczesna ambona, 1, no. 1 (1946), 638–44, here 642.
54. Fr. Stanisław Szczepanek, “Liturgia katolicka a ciało ludzkie” [Catholic Liturgy and
the Human Body], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 62, no. 6 (1959), 479–83, here 483.
55. Tygodnik Warszawski, no. 4, December 2, 1945, p. 1.
56. Fr. Tadeusz Ryłko, “Maledicta,” Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 63, no. 2 (1959), 147–
50, 148.
57. Stefan Wyszyński, “List pasterski” [Pastoral letter], December 1946, stored in
Warsaw, AIPN, Warsaw branch, coll. 1283, unit 109/D, part. 1, Operational records for the
period 1946–1950: Operational materials on Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, p. 68; Tulip (code
name), “The Report,” March 13, 1948, stored in Warsaw, AIPN, Warsaw branch, coll. 1283
unit 109/D, part. 1, Operational records for the period 1946–1950: Operational materials on Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, p. 157.

BOŻENA SZAYNOK

377

barbed-wired carriages were standing next to each other, carrying “miserable Jewish prisoners” on a hot July day. The priest quoted the dramatic
requests of one of the Jewish women: “People, do you see what is happening to us! Give us some water, have mercy on us!” Out of the “passengers
trying to push their way into the passenger train,” one “older woman . . .
without hesitation” handed over her loaves of bread “to the Jewish car.” The
preacher heightened the drama of this decision by saying that it was a meal
for her children, obtained at the risk of her life. He commented on her
behavior by saying: “This is understanding your neighbor’s will! Here is
active, truly Christian love.”58 In another sermon, a preacher referenced the
movie The First after God, which tells the story of the captain of a merchant
ship whom “persecuted Jews, refugees from Nazi Germany,” begged for
help. Initially, the captain did not want to support them, but seeing “emaciated, hounded people . . . [and] children at risk of death,” he changed his
mind. The rest of the sermon concerned the unsuccessful attempts by the
captain and his charges to seek help in different ports and about the transformation of “the first after God.” Having met with refusal to be granted
asylum, he decided to sink the ship because international law required
unconditional admission of shipwreck survivors. The sermon concluded
with a remark about “the joy of the survivors and the joy of the one who,
while fulfilling the commandment of human love, at the same time performed an act of God’s love.”59
An interesting example of a sermon that mentioned the Holocaust
talked about the salvation of the victims of the last war. The preacher had
some difficulty involving Jews in this process. The faithful heard the following words: “Perhaps we will not abuse our Cath[olic] faith by saying
that from this earthly purgatory of war fronts, camps . . . [and] from crematoria many ascensions of souls were taking place. . . . [T]hese were
accelerated processes of salvation. Only at the Last Judgment will we find
out how many souls, having left the trampled body poisoned by gas. . . ,
rose on the wings of grace straight to heaven. The souls of not only little
children, Catholics, Christians, even Jewish children, but also the souls of
adults. . . , of those who perhaps incurred many debts to God, were soaring
towards salvation.”60
58. Fr. Michał Milewski, “Zmiłujcie się” [Have mercy], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 61,
no. 4 (1958), 236–40, here 238.
59. Fr. Lesław Jeżowski, “Miłość jest jedna” [Love is one], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 64,
no. 5 (1960), 435–38, here 436.
60. “Wniebowstąpienie” [Ascension], (n.d.), stored in Warsaw, AIPN, Warsaw
branch, coll. 0330, unit 233, vol. 39: Kaczmarek Czesław and others, part 2, pp. 476–77.

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Another thread that appeared on the subject of the Holocaust was, for
example, the story of the miraculous salvation of a Jewish writer by the
Immaculate Virgin of Lourdes. “The song of gratitude of a saved Jew in
honor of Mary,” wrote the author of the sermon, “is best proof of Mary’s
protection over the world.”61
Jewish themes were sometimes used in sermons that addressed the
contemporary audience. For instance, the story of how biblical Jews did not
recognize the Messiah in Jesus ended with the conclusion: “But let us not
be surprised by the peoples of that time.”62 The closing remark in another
homily was that “the history of the fall of Israel is the history of our falls.”63
In one of the sermons, the priest mentioned the Sabbath, the day on which
Jews, “like us on Sundays, did not work, but went to the synagogue, to their
church to pray . . . to give praise to God.”64
Jewish themes were also incorporated into homilies on the occasion of
various exceptional and dramatic events. One of them was the pogrom of
Jews in Kielce in July 1946, the victims of which were over forty Jews. The
Church responded to this tragedy in different ways.65 The current article,
limited by the titular subject, will only discuss the message about the
pogrom that appeared within the Church and was directly addressed to the
faithful. At the national level, no pastoral letter on anti-Semitism was
issued, despite the fact that such a demand was addressed to the Church.
However, in Kielce, the local curia issued two letters. On the first Sunday
after the tragic events, the churchgoers gathered at the Mass heard that
“every Catholic cannot help but express his true and sincere regret over
these tragic and pitiable events”66 which was followed by an appeal to
remain calm, poised and prudent. A week later, on Sunday, July 14, 1946,
61. Fr. Jan Jestadt, “Odnawiamy ślubowania jasnogórskie” [We are Renewing the Jasna
Góra Vows], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 62, no. 4 (1959), 296–98, here 298.
62. Fr. Dr. Józef Łapot, “Uroczystość 3 króli” [The Feast of the Three Magi],
Współczesna ambona, 1, no. 1 (1946), 17–21, here 18.
63. Fr. Dr. Stanisław Łach, “Cierpienie Chrystusa od swojego narodu” [Christ’s Suffering from His People], Współczesna ambona, 3, no. 2 (1948), 223–32, here 225.
64. Fr. Teodor Nogala, “Jak święcić dzień święty” [How to Keep the Sabbath Day
Holy], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 58, no. 5 (1957), 502–04, here 502.
65. The “ambiguous position” of the Church in the face of the Kielce tragedy “included
sympathy for the victims and condemnation of the crime, on the one hand, and a political
interpretation and belief in ritual murder, on the other.” Bożena Szaynok, “The Attitude of
the Catholic Church in Poland,” 635–69.
66. Zenon Wrona, “Kościół wobec pogromu Żydów w Kielcach” [The Church and the
Pogrom of Jews in Kielce], in: Pamiętnik Świętokrzyski. Studia z dziejów kultury chrześcijańskiej
(Kielce, 1991), 292.

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Memorial plaque at the house on Planty 7 in Kielce, Poland, dedicated by Lech
Wałęsa, 1990. Photograph taken by Halibutt and Ely1 (The new version), April
15, 2006. Article 33 point 1 of the July 4, 1994 copyright act allows the
propagation of works that are permanently exhibited on publicly accessible roads,
streets, squares or gardens provided that the propagation is not for the same use.

at the Holy Mass, the congregation heard the next proclamation, which
admonished them that:
The fundamental principle of Catholicism, apart from the love of God, is
love of neighbor regardless of their origin, nationality, and religion. One of
the highest earthly values of one’s neighbor is their life and health, and the
respect for their life and health is the chief imperative of the law of love for
one’s neighbor. The events that took place in Kielce . . . against these holy
laws . . . extinguished the lives of many people, and caused even more serious wounds. . . . The fact of deliberate murder is a crime that calls for God’s
vengeance and as such is worthy of utter and absolute condemnation.

The authors appealed for peace and also wrote that: “Let no Catholic be
allowed to be manipulated by anyone who wants to incite them to do similar acts.”67
67. Ibid., 294.

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In Częstochowa, in an important sanctuary at Jasna Góra, the local
bishop Teodor Kubina, after the pogrom in Kielce, urged the audience in
the following words: “Let people not listen to hostile propaganda and
rumors about the murder of Polish children by Jews, because it has not
been proven.” He called for restraint, but according to the records, the following words were also spoken: “We have the example that the Jews murdered Jesus and Jesus forgave them.” The bishop “asked people to be kind
to the Jews and pray to God for peace.”68 Another report about this sermon
also mentions the bishop’s condemnation of “the guilty of the crimes in
Kielce.”69
The pogrom of Jews in Kielce and anti-Semitism in post-war
Poland raise the question of whether the presence of such an attitude
among the clergy and the faithful was noticed “from the pulpit.” An
analysis of the sermons shows that hostility towards Jews did not appear
in them as a separate problem. The sermons mainly included general
principles, such as that “everyone has the same right to live, irrespective
of religion or nationality”70 or “condemnation of racial hatred.”71 But, as
other examples show, the faithful gathered in the church could also hear
such words:
The Jews standing under the cross on Good Friday were no different than
today’s Hitler soldiers, who sowed terror and death all around; those who
stood under the cross tormented Jesus, tortured him, however, no less
68. Report of the head of the Sub-division on S. Krawczyk to the head of the V Department
of WUBP in Kielce, Częstochowa, August 6, 1946, stored in Katowice, Katowice branch, coll.
027, unit 155, vol. 1 II-319, p. 86. The reception of the bishop’s sermon is evidenced by the
record that the participants of the service (about 8,000 people) “admitted it was right that the
Bishop was appealing to the inhabitants.”
69.
            ! "  #   $ % ment, in Kielce, Częstochowa, July 9, 1946, stored in Częstochowa, State Archives in
Częstochowa, City Board, Municipal National Council, coll. 207, p. 2. Most likely, there
were more sermons on this subject, because in one of the documents one reads that the local
ordinary, at the suggestion of the city president, “ordered the entire clergy in Częstochowa to
summon from the pulpits . . . to deny the existence of any versions of ritual murders and to
counteract any possibility of causing anti-Jewish excesses.”
70. Mariusz Krzysztofiński, Fr. Józef Marecki, and Fr. Bogdan Stanaszek, eds., Kościół
w okowach: Aparat represji wobec Kościoła w latach 1944–1956: Terytorium obecnej diecezji sandomierskiej [Church in Shackles: The Apparatus of Repression against the Church in 1944–
1956: The Territory of the Present Sandomierz Diocese] (Kraków, 2012), 46.
71. Untitled information, published July 14, 1945, stored in Warsaw, Archiwum Ministerstwa Spraw Zagranicznych (hereafter referred to as AMSZ) [The Archive of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs], Biuletyny Żydowskiej Agencji Prasowej (hereinafter BŻAP), coll. 6, unit
104, vol. 1677, p. 168.

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than the Nazis did in Auschwitz, Majdanek, or in Dachau. They did it
with the same calm as today’s criminals, bandits, and degenerates. . . .72

In May 1947, the Jewish Central Special Commission at the CKŻP
reported the results of “monitoring” the content of the sermons: “our
people attended church sermons, . . . we intervened twice in cases when
priests delivered an anti-Semitic sermon from the pulpit.”73
The aforementioned statements of the Częstochowa ordinary after the
pogrom of Jews in Kielce in July 1946 reveal other problems. His unequivocal, clear indications did not stop the anti-Jewish demonstrations in
Częstochowa. In July, five attempts were made to provoke such events.74 It
was not the only example of discrepancies between the message from the
pulpit and the attitudes of the faithful. For example, in Łódź, in June 1945,
the security authorities demanded that the Jesuits deny that one of the
churches was to be converted “into a synagogue for Jews, whose temple in
Łódź was destroyed by the Germans.” The rumor arose out of a dispute
between Protestants and Catholics over one of the churches. As ordered by
the security authorities, the Jesuits explained the conflict from the pulpit.
But, as one of the priests wrote in his memoirs, “this had exactly the opposite effect.” “People said: the fathers are denying it, because they were told
to do so, and we know what the truth is. Jews are favored at every step.”75
The example cited above illustrates not only the problem of reception of the
Church’s teachings by the faithful, but also the successive differentiation of
Jewish themes in the sermons.
When concluding the analysis of post-war, pre-Vatican II sermons, it
is worth mentioning that, apart from the topics discussed, other threads
appeared in the sermons, though to a lesser extent, e.g., the diverse attitudes of Jews towards Poles.76
72. Untitled sermon, Książ Wielki, September 30, 1945, stored in Warsaw, AIPN,
Warsaw branch, coll. 0330, unit 233, vol. 39: Kaczmarek Czesław and others, part 1, p. 401.
73. Report of Jewish Central Special Commission, May 1947, stored in Warsaw, the
Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw [hereinafter AŻIH], Central Committee of Jews in Poland [hereinafter CKŻP], Special Commission, coll. 303, unit XVIII, vol. 8,
p. 12.
74. Sprawozdania sytuacyjne za 1946, Częstochowa, August 5, 1946, stored in
Częstochowa, State Archives in Częstochowa, City Board, Municipal National Council, coll.
243, p. 295.
75. Fr. Tomasz Rostworowski, Szerzyć królestwo: Wspomnienia i dzienniki 1939–1972,
[Spread the Kingdom: Memoirs and Diaries 1939–1972] (Warsaw, 2004), 155.
76. Fr. Piotr Oborski, “Pogadanki religijne dla młodziezy dorastającej,” [Religious
Talks for Adolescents], Współczesna ambona [The Contemporary Pulpit], 1, no. 1 (1946),

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JEWISH THEMES

Painting of the Great Synagogue of Łódź, painter unknown. The synagogue
was destroyed by the Germans in 1939. Painting is in the public domain.

In October 1958, Pope Pius XII died. John XXIII’s accession to the
pontificate meant far-reaching changes in the Church. In January 1959,
the faithful learned about the plans to convene the Council. In the context
of the changes taking place, one should mention the modification of the
Good Friday prayer for Jews, which was also noted in the sermons. For
example, in 1960, one clergyman, in a sermon on the need to “awaken our
hearts,” recalled “a famous event from last year.” It was the removal of the
term “faithless” from the Good Friday prayer for Jews by Pope John XXIII.
“It seems like a little thing,” the clergyman noted, and yet Jewish newspapers described these events as “historic” or “most significant.” He stated:
“In this case, not the dignity of the pope or his authority spoke to the
Jewish hearts, but an open, tender heart.”77
The decision to change the prayer for Jews illustrates the new attitude
of the Pope towards Jewish subject matter. Another example of this was
418–35, here 432; Fr. Jan Biłko, “Kazania przedmisyjne” [Pre-mission Sermons], Współczesna
ambona [The Contemporary Pulpit], 1, no. 1 (1946), 435–50, here 446.
77. Fr. Kazimierz Pielatowski, “Spotkanie z Chrystusem” [Meeting with Christ], Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, 64, no. 3 (1960), 206–09, here 208.

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Pope John XXIII, photograph, taken sometime between October 28, 1958 and
June 3, 1963. Photographer unknown, working for De Agostini. Photograph
is in the public domain.

the decision that the Second Vatican Council should develop a position on
this issue.78 After a long discussion, in October 1965, the Second Vatican
Council passed the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, called Nostra Aetate, after its first words. The document contained information on the relations of the Church with Jewish people (“the
spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is [ . . . ] so great”). It
also recommended “mutual understanding and respect” and “recalls that
the Apostles, the Church’s main-stay and pillars, as well as most of the
early disciples who proclaimed Christ’s Gospel to the world, sprang from
the Jewish people.” It states that “what happened in His passion cannot be
charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the
Jews of today.” The declaration “decries hatred, persecutions, displays of
anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.”79
78. See, for example, John M. Oesterreicher, “Declaration on the Relationship of the
Church and Non-Christian Religions,” in: Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, 3rd.
ed., ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (New York, 1969), 1–137; John Connelly, From Enemy to
Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews, 1933–1965 (Cambridge, MA, 2012).
79. Paul VI, Nostra Aetate, October 28, 1965, §4, https://www.vatican.va/archive/
hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html.

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JEWISH THEMES

Undoubtedly, the declaration represented a new attitude towards Jews. The
text of the declaration and commentaries on the document were presented
by church journals in all Polish dioceses.80 It is clear that Nostra Aetate
started to influence the Jewish subject matter discussed in the first part of
this article. In the light of the new provisions, some issues that appeared in
pre-Vatican II sermons lost their raison d’être.
An analysis of the sermons delivered in Polish churches since the mid1960s allows one to see the implementation of Vatican II arrangements in
this form of church teaching. For instance, the reflection on Jewish guilt
for the death of Jesus or expressions unfavorable to Judaism disappear.
There are issues that were previously absent, such as the Jewish descent of
Jesus,81 or the emphasis on the common experiences of both religions.”82
The stories of Jews are framed more frequently in a positive light. An interesting example is Primate Stefan Wyszyński’s recollection, in one of his
sermons, of a pre-war Jewish industrialist, who asked the priest to instruct
“those Catholics not to come to work on Sunday, because they must rest.”
The primate also described how when he visited this “factory owner,” in
order to ask for a day off for his workers because of a holiday that was not
included in the then-state calendar, “he replied—I will not disturb them,
let them pray; I will earn and they will earn. He was Jewish.” To conclude
his point, he made a reference to the communist reality: “Oh, how different
things look today.”83 In this description, not only does the Jewish industri80. For instance, Fr. Stanisław Nagy, S.C.J., “Wprowadzenie do Deklaracji o stosunku
Kościoła do religii niechrześcijańskich,” [Introduction to the Declaration on the Church’s
Relation to Non-Christian Religions], in: Sobór Watykański II: Konstytucje, dekrety, deklaracje
[Second Vatican Council: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations], eds. Julian Groblicki and
Eugeniusz Florkowski (Poznań, 1967), 327–33.
81. E.g. in one of Primate Wyszyński’s sermons, the congregation heard that “Christ,
although God came to be a man in a specific family. . . . God tied his son to a specific nation
and that was the nation of Israel.” Stefan Wyszynski, untitled sermon, Warsaw (in the church
of Saint Cross), January 11, 1976, stored in Warsaw, AAN, UdsW, coll. 125, unit 281, Cardinal Wyszyński: Transcript of speeches 1969–1975, p. 53.
82. For example, one of the clergymen pointed to the analogy between Moses and the
Primate of Poland, who, similarly to the Jewish leader, saves “the Polish nation from slavery,
atheism and the fall of morality.” Zofia Fenrych, “Kuźnia opozycji ? Duszpasterstwo akademickie w Szczecinie w latach 1979–1989/1990” [Forge of the Opposition? Academic
Chaplaincy in Szczecin in the Years 1979-1989/1990], in: Dzieje Kościoła katolickiego na
Pomorzu Zachodnim [The History of the Catholic Church in Western Pomerania], eds.
Michał Siedziako, Zbigniew Stauch, and Grzegorz Wejman, 4 vols. (Szczecin 2019), IV:
1979–1989/1990, 319.
83. Stefan Wyszyński, “Man and Economy,” sermon delivered in Saint Cross Church
in Warsaw on January 20, 1974, stored in Warsaw, AAN, UdsW, coll. 125, unit 281, Cardinal Wyszyński: Transcript of speeches 1969–1975, p. 79.

BOŻENA SZAYNOK

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alist “stand” on the side of Catholics, but his actions were also opposed to
the practices of the post-war authorities.
In post-Vatican II sermons, there are more frequent mentions of the
Holocaust. The Jewish theme in post-Vatican II sermons was largely connected to this issue. It appears, for example, in the address of the Polish
bishops to the German ones mentioned at the beginning of the text.”84 The
Holocaust was referenced in the homily of John Paul II during the Holy
Mass at the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, during his first
pilgrimage to Poland in June 1979. The Pope recalled “a nation whose sons
and daughters were destined for total extermination. . . . [A] nation that
. . . experienced murder in great measure.” He said that when walking near
the plaque memorializing these victims, “no one should be indifferent.”85
In Warsaw, during a Mass attended by millions of people, the pope, as one
of the things that he “embraced with his mind and heart,” mentioned “the
history of the peoples who lived with us and among us, such as those hundreds of thousands who died within the walls of the ghettos.”86
Still, part of the narrative of the martyrdom of war was not recognizing
the uniqueness of the German crime against Jews. For example, in May
1969, “The letter of the Polish bishops on the 30th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II,” which was to be read in churches on the last day
of August, mentions the “victims of the invaders’ deranged passion to exterminate Polish citizens, regardless of their national or religious affiliation.”87
A constant and noticeable element of the narrative about the Holocaust was the help that Poles—priests—provided to Jews88 during the war.
In one of the parishes, as officials of the Ministry of the Interior noted, the
local bishop “spoke about the problem of necessary love” five times during
84. “The Address of the Polish Bishops to Their German Brothers in the Pastoral
Office of Christ” (November 18, 1965), in: Listy pasterskie Episkopatu Polski 1945-1974 [Pastoral Letters of the Polish Episcopate 1945–1974] (Paris, 1975), 833.
85. Pope John Paul II, Pielgrzymki do Ojczyzny. 1979, 1983, 1987, 1991, 1995, 1997.
Przemówienie i homilie [Pilgrimages to Motherland. 1979, 1983, 1987, 1991, 1995, 1997:
Speech and Homilies] (Krakow, 1997), 156.
86. Ibid., 25.
87. “Słowo biskupów polskich na 30-lecie wybuchu drugiej wojny światowej, 3 V 1969
r.” [A letter from Polish bishops on the 30th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II,
May 3, 1969], in: Listy pasterskie Episkopatu Polski 1945–1974 [Pastoral Letters of the Polish
Episcopate 1945–1974], 565–66.
88. Stefan Wyszynski, untitled sermon, (n.p., n.d.), stored in Warsaw, AAN, UdsW,
coll. 125 unit 281, Cardinal Wyszyński: Transcript of speeches, p. 61.

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JEWISH THEMES

Jewish ghetto in Nowy Sącz, established during the Nazi occupation of
Poland, circa 1941. Photographer unknown. Photograph is in the public
domain.

his sermon. As an example, he brought up “help and rescue guaranteed by
Poles to Jews during the occupation.”89
The Holocaust was mentioned in a rather unexpected context during
the sermon at the Corpus Christi procession in Nowy Sącz in June 1967.
The clergyman commented on the decision of the authorities to ban the
main procession in town: “there was no room for Christ at the largest
square in the Market Square. The route is marked out by side streets, where
during the war [. . .] the Germans built a ghetto for the Jews. Only within
the boundaries of the Jewish ghetto can we move with Christ.”90

89. Informacja [płka St. Morawskiego, Departament IV MSW] bieżąca dot. odczytania w
kościołach listu Episkopatu Polski na 50 lecie odzyskania wolności, [Information (of colonel
Stanisław Morawski from Department IV Of Ministry of Interior) about the Pastoral Letter
on the 50th anniversary of regaining freedom], Warsaw, November 11, 1968, stored in
Warsaw, AIPN, Warsaw branch, coll. 0713, unit 363, Materiały dotyczące listu EP, p. 141.
90. Informacja dla vice przewodniczącego MRN w Nowym Sączu [Information for vice
chairman of City Council in Nowy Sącz], Nowy Sącz, June 6, 1967, stored in Cracow, AIPN,
Cracow branch, coll. 022, unit 8, Kopie notatek służbowych referatu ds. Służby Bezpieczeństwa
KMiP MO w Nowym Sączu [. . .], p. 268.

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After the Second Vatican Council, Israel was being increasingly mentioned in the sermons, as well as in the pages of the Catholic press, as an
independent political entity,91 and not just an area of sacred places for
Christians. During the Six-Day War, Primate Wyszyński, in one of the
Warsaw churches, addressed a prayer to the “Mother of Our Lord,” which
directly referred to the events in the Middle East: “After all, in your homeland and in the homeland that the Heavenly Father chose for his Son, in
places sanctified by his and your life, the greatest terror and fear reign at
this moment. . . . [S]hield the Holy Land with your motherly protection,
holy Jerusalem . . . [and] the whole country which also has the right to freedom and autonomy.”92
The analysis of post-Vatican II sermons rarely points out expressions
hostile to Jews. It is worth mentioning that one of them referred to the
“anti-Zionist” propaganda of the late 1960s put forth by the communist
authorities. In one of the sermons delivered in 1975, the churchgoers heard
from the preacher that “family planning is a concept of Zionist organizations,” and that despite the counteracting of “Jewish influence” by Moczar
[the minister responsible largely for sparking the anti-Zionist campaign in
1967–68], the existing family model “is not enough to save the nation.”93
It is also worth noting that in the “hour of trial,” during the antiSemitic campaign launched by the communists in the spring of 1968,94 the
Church, despite recognizing the need to speak out publicly on this matter
91. Enuncjacje Episkopatu i wystąpienia biskupów wrzesień—grudzień 1973, kazanie
[kardynała S. Wyszyńskiego] w parafii Michałowice [Episcopal enunciations and bishops’
speeches September–December 1973, sermon (of Cardinal S. Wyszyński) in the parish of
Michałowice], Grójec, November 4, 1973, stored in Warsaw, AAN, UdsW, coll. 125, unit
113, Roman Catholic Department, p. 273. See also “List pasterski Episkopatu Polski na
zakończenie roku jubileuszowego Tysiąclecia chrześcijaństwa w Polsce” [Pastoral letter of the
Polish Episcopate at the end of the jubilee year of the Millennium of Christianity in Poland],
(December, 1966), in: Listy pasterskie Episkopatu Polski 1945–1974 [Pastoral Letters of the
Polish Episcopate 1945–1974], 478.
92. “Conference on Paul VI’s Encyclical De progressione populorum promovenda,” conference III, June 5, 1967, text transcribed from a tape recorder without any correction, stored
in Primate Institute in Warsaw, Unauthorized Texts, 1967, pp. 1, 23, 24.
93. Informacja Komendy MO w Gdańsku dla kierownika Wydziału Administracyjnego KW
PZPR w Gdańsku, [Information from the MO Headquarters in Gdańsk for the Head of the
Administrative Department of the KW PZPR in Gdańsk], November 14, 1975, stored in
State Archives in Gdańsk, coll. 2384, unit 21207, Polityka wyznaniowa, [Religious policy], p.
70. I would like to thank Ania Machcewicz for sharing this information.
94. See, for example, Dariusz Stola, “The Anti-Zionist Campaign In Poland 1967–
1968” (2006), http://web.ceu.hu/jewishstudies/pdf/02_stola.pdf.

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in the form of a pastoral letter, ultimately did not do so.95 It was only in
mid-April 1968 that the primate’s sermon on Holy Thursday made some
allusions to the anti-Semitic campaign. The participants of the Mass heard
the words:
In our homeland . . . we sometimes witness . . . such painful events that
the heart shrinks when we look at it all. . . . As if for a certain category
of people there was no love left and the right to have a heart. . . . Perhaps,
I am guilty, as the Bishop of Warsaw, for I have not sufficiently spoken
about the obligation to love—to love all people regardless of their speech,
language, and race, lest we be shadowed by some renewed racism in the
name of which we defend our culture. We will defend our culture only
through the law of love.96

In the spring of 1968, there was no strong reaction from the Church to the
anti-Zionist and, de facto, anti-Semitic campaign of the communists,
despite the fact that at the same time it unequivocally stood up for students
repressed by the authorities.
After the Second Vatican Council, in addition to the discussed sermons, Jewish themes entered this part of the Mass in a different way. In
the mid-1960s, a retreat sermon in one parish was preached by Father
Grzegorz Pawłowski, who recalled: “The priests announced earlier that the
retreat leader would be a Jew . . . [and] this resulted in a higher turnout
among the faithful.”97 In April 1983, in the St. Stanisław Kostka Church98
during a Mass for the fallen and murdered ghetto residents, a well-known
opposition activist and non-believer,99 Jan Józef Lipski, spoke “from the
altar . . . for ten minutes.”100 The faithful were told about the “symbolic and
95. Bożena Szaynok, “Kościół katolicki w Polsce wobec tematyki żydowskiej w marcu
1968 r: Historia pewnego oświadczenia” [The Catholic Church in Poland and the Jewish
Subject in March 1968: The Story of a Statement], Kwartalnik Historii Żydów, 2 (June, 2019),
171-95.
96. Ewa Czaczkowska, “Zapomniane przesłanie prymasa” [The Forgotten Message of
the Primate], Rzeczpospolita Plus-Minus, 3–4 March 2018, p. 15.
97. Fr. Grzegorz Pawłowski (Jakub Hersz Griner), “Mego życia ciąg dalszy” [The
Continuation of My Life], Tygodnik Powszechny, 21, no. 11, March 12, 1967, pp. 2–3.
98. During martial law in Poland, Masses were celebrated for the homeland in the
church of St. Stanisław Kostka by the chaplain of “Solidarity,” Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko. In
October 1984, the priest was murdered by communist officers of the Ministry of the Interior.
99. J.J. Lipski recalls that when Fr. Popiełuszko asked him to speak during the Mass,
“I said, ‘But Father, I’m not a believer.’” Łukasz Garbal, Jan Józef Lipski: Biografia źródłowa
[Jan Józef Lipski: Source-Based Biography], 2 vols. (Warsaw, 2018), II, 508.
100. Ibid.

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moral significance of the uprising” in defense of dignity “not only of Jews,
but also the whole of humanity and . . . above all, of the Polish nation, who,
if they want to adhere to certain values, must remember this event.” Apart
from the Jewish fighters, he also mentioned the “residents of the ghetto
who did not decide to fight.” Jan J. Lipski said that “[the] death of a
defenseless victim is also a full expression of human dignity[.] . . . The
heroism of the Warsaw Ghetto insurgents, who deserve our utmost respect
and honor, should not overshadow the victims of the millions killed without resistance.”101 Lipski’s statement and the intention of the Mass itself
were a testimony to another, post-Vatican II influence on the Jewish subject in the space of the Church.
*****
In closing, there are a few points worth highlighting. In both periods
presented in this article, before and after the Vatican Council, Jewish subject matter occupied a marginal place in the sermons.102 However, there is
a noticeable difference in the content that filled this incidental presence. In
the first period, religious issues were dominant, e.g. emphasizing the hostility of the Jews towards Jesus and his followers, or the differences and the
superiority of the Church over the synagogue. The “sensitivity” of the
clergy to the “weaknesses” of the chosen people was also visible. This attitude was influenced by the way of thinking about Jews that had been developed over the centuries, in which there was hostility, aversion and distance
towards this community.
In the various sermons given that included Jewish subject matter, it is
important to note that this community is conceptualized as strangers rather
than neighbors. One must remember that Jewish themes were only a small
part of the Church’s teaching, which, at the same time, often reminded the
faithful of love for their neighbor. The Jewish community, however, is
rarely mentioned in these exhortations. The message, pervaded by a noticeable bias against Jews that situated this community outside of one’s own
group, failed to emphasize that the same Jew is also a neighbor who is governed by the law of love. It is worth remembering that hostile content also
101. Martyna Grądzka-Rejak and Jan Olaszek, Holocaust, pamięć, powielacz [Holocaust, Memory, Duplicator], (Warsaw, 2020), 72. See also, Jan Józef Lipski, “Żydzi polscy”
[Polish Jews], Kultura, 6 (1983), 3–8, here 4–5.
102. This is the conclusion of the author’s inquiries into archives and the press, in which
the Jewish subject matter constitutes only a small part. About the results of queries, see, e.g.,
Bożena Szaynok, “Zatrzymane w archiwach” [Retained in Archives]; Bożena Szaynok, &'
Attitude of the Catholic Church in Poland, 635–69.

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JEWISH THEMES

appeared in other areas of the Church, which contributed to the amplification of this message. There is no doubt that the change in this attitude
was initiated by the Second Vatican Council and the Nostra Aetate Declaration,103 adopted in the autumn of 1965. Its content transformed the
thinking about those Jewish issues that dominated the pre-Vatican II reality. Since the 1960s, new topics have appeared, and a more extensive reflection on the Holocaust can be seen. However, as stated before, the new way
of thinking about Jews appeared only rarely in sermons. It did not perpetuate a position that was reluctant towards this community. However, it
also did not work through the presence of such attitudes among the clergy
and the faithful.104
Additionally, it should also be mentioned that some of the narratives,
across the whole of the described period, which did not refer directly to
Jewish themes, could have had an impact on the perception of such
themes. In church, the listeners often could hear, for example, the opinion
that “Poland can only be Catholic.”105 Likewise one must recall that in the
public space, the communist government also had an impact on the
Church’s message about Jews, due to, for example, the censorship of sermons.106 Finally, it is worth remembering that the above-mentioned messages about the Jews, which varied and changed over time, constituted the
“legacy” with which the Church entered the new, democratic era after the
fall of communism.

103. This attitude was continued in further documents of the Church dedicated to
Jewish topics (see: documents on “Religious Relations with Judaism,” http://www.christian
unity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/commissione-per-i-rapporti-religiosi-con-l-ebraismo.
html) and the actions of John Paul II (e.g., his visit to Rome’s Synagogue in April 1986).
104. Such attitudes are visible after the fall of communism in 1989. For example, see
Porter-Szucs, “The Faith and Fatherland,” 322–27.
105. For example, Fr. Szczepan Sobalkowski, “Na święto narodowe trzeciego maja” [On
the National Holiday of May 3rd], Współczesna ambona, 1, no. 1 (1946), 212–15, here 214.
106. In the case of censorship activities, one can observe an interesting ambivalence,
where both content hostile to Jews (e.g., some texts were accused of spreading racial hatred)
and those saying positive things about them (e.g., texts favorable to Israel were removed, and
the justification for one of the interventions was, according to the censor, the “strange” apotheosis of the Jews) were being removed from Catholic magazines. “Report on preventive censorship ‘Głos Katolicki’ [Catholic Voice] no. 38,” September 15, 1946, stored in Poznań,
National Archive, Provincial Office of Press and Publicity Control, coll. 184, Preventive censorship “Głos Katolicki” [Catholic Voice], 1945–1947, p. 46.

Review Essay
Is the Shroud of Turin a Fake?
Ian Wilson’s Critique of Andrea Nicolotti’s Study
The Shroud of Turin, the History and Legends of the World’s Most Famous
Relic. By Andrea Nicolotti. Translated by Jeffrey M. Hunt and R.
Alden Smith. (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press. 2019. Pp. xxi,
524. $64.99. ISBN: 97814813-1147-2.)
Riddle: When is a “shroud” possibly not a shroud? Answer: When it
appears to bear enigmatic “imprints” from the face and body of the crucified Christ as on the piece of cloth popularly known as the “Shroud of
Turin.” For any historian trying to write a balanced history of this evercontroversial object the daunting challenge is selecting the right pathway
amidst the authenticity v. forgery divisions that plague it, divisions that are
made more acute by the crackpottery littering the Internet.
Superficially, Nicolotti’s book presents as an authoritative, wellresearched account of everything that is worth knowing about the Turin
cloth’s history. Certainly this is how its original Italian version has been
adjudged by several scholarly reviewers. The jacket describes him as “Professor of the History of Christianity and the Churches at the University of
Turin,” despite which high standing and convenient location he appears
never to have examined the cloth itself at close quarters, for he mentions
no such experience throughout his 502 pages. Any such deficiency is readily excusable because on the rare occasions that the cloth is publicly displayed spectators are kept at a “safe” distance, and any closer access
demands an even rarer papal authorization. Even so, reasonably high-resolution digital photographs have been available since 2008, yet Nicolotti
turns a surprisingly blind eye to the imagery that has so astonished many,
providing scant description of it, and seeing no problem to it being
accepted as the work of a medieval artist. The book’s twenty-four black and
white illustrations lack any close-up views of its imagery’s characteristics,
and there is no in-depth textual discussion of these until page 279. Even at
this point they are addressed, only in a perfunctory manner, denying their
medical convincingness (in the teeth of some serious professional opinion
to the contrary), and downplaying their famous “negative” properties.
391

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Obviously relevant to any determination of whether the cloth dates
from antiquity or from the Middle Ages are its technical characteristics as
a textile, on which Nicolotti’s treatment (pp. 67–72), is sometimes misleading. A case in point is his seemingly damning pronouncement “no
fabric similar in technique to the Shroud has ever been found in all of
antiquity.” By “technique” he presumably means the cloth’s distinctive
three-to-one herringbone twill weave, examples of which are indeed virtually non-existent in linen, until even after the Middle Ages.1 However,
early herringbone twill examples are found in silk, there being several surviving specimens from the Roman period,2 likewise in wool, some specimens dating as far back as 1000 B.C. Similarly troubling is Nicolotti’s
treatment of the findings of Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, a noted textile specialist of the respected Abegg Institute in Bern, Switzerland. Flury-Lemberg has spent more hours of conservation work on the Turin cloth than
anyone else alive, hands-on expertise from which she has adjudged its
dimensions and the professionalism of its manufacture to accord more with
the wide looms of the industrial-scale textile workshops of Roman Egypt
rather than their humbler medieval equivalents.3 She has also drawn attention to its very unusual lengthwise seam having characteristics that are
matched only in a first-century fabric found at Masada.4 Nicolotti ignores
these observations.
Whilst selectivity on such topics may perhaps be excused by being outside Nicolotti’s field of expertise as a historian, even when on his own ground
his approach tends to be blinkered. Deigning any detailed descriptive introduction to the cloth itself, he devotes the book’s first sixty-five pages mostly
to a predictably futile search of all references to purported shrouds of Christ
pre-fourteenth century.5 His intention seems to be to show that because
none of these can be identified with the cloth preserved in Turin, this latter
can have no history prior to the fourteenth century and it must therefore be
a medieval artist’s “cunning painting,” just as it was famously adjudged by the
1. Hence no medieval specimen could be found for a control sample when the Shroud
was famously carbon dated in 1988.
2. One is from Palmyra, Syria, dateable to before 276 A.D., another is from a child’s
coffin excavated at Holborough, Kent, England. There are further examples at Trier, Conthey, Riveauville, and Cologne.
3. Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, “The Linen Cloth of the Turin Shroud: Some Observations of its Technical Characteristics,” Sindon, New Series (Turin, December 2001), 59–60.
4. Nicolotti, Shroud, 59–61.
5. Over four decades ago I wrote a chapter on these “shrouds” specifically entitled “PreFourteenth Century ‘Shrouds’ that Led Nowhere,” in: Ian Wilson, The Shroud of Turin (New
York, 1978), chapter 11.

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fourteenth century French bishops Henri de Poitiers and Pierre d’Arcis, likewise by the carbon dating carried out in 1988.
Such an approach undoubtedly offers much the safer, more straightforward option for anyone choosing to write a textbook history of the still
enigmatic cloth now in Turin, it being against any scholar’s interests to
challenge a carbon dating result lightly. Focusing mostly on the seven most
recent centuries has the further advantage of shortening the task by thirteen
centuries. Nevertheless, throughout Nicolotti’s sixty-five-page discussion of
the thirteen centuries, he declines to acknowledge that these centuries are
far from silent concerning the historical existence of a piece of cloth that
exhibits image characteristics resembling those of Turin’s ‘Shroud’. As he is
aware (because he wrote a book about it6), the cloth in question was the
“Image of Edessa,” early depictions of which feature a Christ face in a disembodied manner very similar to the equivalent area of the “Shroud.” From
the sixth century onwards reports of this cloth describe a strange, shadowy
“imprint” seemingly created miraculously by Christ’s sweat rather than by
any human artist’s pigments, some of these reports specifically labelling its
fabric as a soudarion or sindon,7 the very same words used by the gospel writers to refer to the cloths associated with Christ’s burial. Not at issue here is
that this Edessa cloth was mostly (though far from always), described as
bearing only Christ’s face and was never understood to have been Christ’s
burial shroud, a point to be addressed later in this review. The altogether
more fundamental point is that from at least as early as the sixth century
onward there are reports of Christ’s “acheiropoietic” likeness on an historically extant piece of cloth, a phenomenon so unusual that in all human history essentially no individual other than Christ has been associated with
such a claim. This is surely of relevance, and that Nicolotti should choose
not to give due attention to it in its rightful chronological place, but instead
relegate it to the book’s end section of “fanciful” theories (the “legends” of
its title), hardly commends his even-handedness.
Again, in Nicolotti’s defence it may be argued that the 1988 carbon
dating test firmly dated the Shroud to the period 1260–1390, seemingly
confirming that it has no pre-fourteenth century history. Indeed, so accurately does this dating encompass the 1306–56 lifetime of Geoffroi de
Charny, the French knight universally associated with the cloth’s first
appearance in Western Europe, that with two research grants to support
6. Andrea Nicolotti, From the Mandylion of Edessa to the Shroud of Turin: The Metamorphosis and Manipulation of a Legend (Leiden, 2014).
7. Mark Guscin, The Tradition of the Image of Edessa (Cambridge, 2016), 140–46.

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him Nicolotti might well have been expected to make Charny his prime
focus for some concentrated new research. Instead of which, not only has
he relied mostly on the century-old findings of Canon Ulysse Chevalier,8
and the more recent mini biography provided by the University of
Rochester’s Richard Kaeuper,9 he is even inaccurate on some of the most
basic details of Charny’s life, such as that he inherited the lordship of
Charny.10 In actuality Charny was a third son and the lordship went to his
eldest brother Dreux, whose daughter Guillemette passed this on to her
husband Philippe de Jonvelle.
In the “fanciful’ theories end-section of his book, Nicolotti dismisses
any suggestion that Geoffroi de Charny might have acquired the Shroud via
a family connection to his Templar namesake, the Order’s Draper, its third
highest dignitary.11 Here he is clearly ignorant of Jochen Schenk’s fine study
Templar Families, published in 2012.12 Completely independently of any
“Shroud” considerations, Schenk shows that the Burgundian Charny family
to which the Shroud-owning Geoffroi belonged was one of several French
noble families who were particularly supportive of the Templar and its companion Cistercian order with both finance and manpower.13 This makes it
actually likely that the high-ranking Templar Geoffroi derived from this
same noble family,14 besides which the Shroud-owning Geoffroi de
Charny’s admiration for Templar (and Cistercian) values is readily demonstrated by his semi-autobiographical Livre poem, an excellent prose translation of which has recently been achieved by Nigel Bryant.15 Repeatedly in
the poem, which was produced for the inception of the chivalric Order of
the Star in 1352, Charny not only displays Cistercian values such as by
expressing particularly strong devotion to the Virgin Mary, he extols the
importance of holding one’s ground on the battlefield, the very point of mil-

8. Ulysse Chevalier, Étude Critique sur l’Origine du S. Suaire de Lirey-Chambéry-Turin
(Paris, 1900); and Autour des origines du Suaire de Lirey, avec documents inédits (Paris, 1903).
9. Richard W. Kaeuper and Elspeth Kennedy, The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de
Charny: Text, Context and translation (Philadelphia, 1996).
10. Nicolotti, Shroud, 72.
11. He also quite wrongly states of me (Shroud, 403), that I no longer incline to this
view.
12. Jochen Schenk, Templar Families, Landowning Families and the Order of the Temple
in France, c.1120–1307 (Cambridge, 2012).
13. Ibid., 188 and genealogical table on p.297.
14. This is supported by the fact that the Order tended to select its highest-ranking officers from the leading branches of noble families.
15. Ian Wilson, The Book of Geoffroi de Charny with the Livre Charny, ed. and trans.
Nigel Bryant (Woodbridge, 2021).

REVIEW ESSAY

395

itary discipline for which the Templar order was most admired, even
though historically this was often at great cost of life.
Although Nicolotti lists the Livre poem amongst Charny’s writings, he
has clearly never read it, thus denying himself many crucial insights into the
life and personality of the man who according to later attestations by his
homonymous son and his granddaughter Marguerite brought the Shroud
into the Charny family’s keeping. For what stands out from Nigel Bryant’s
translation of the poem is Charny’s transparent, self-deprecating honesty
and his profound piety, the latter being such that he is independently documented as having petitioned pope Innocent VI to allow his chaplain to
serve a Mass for him daily at dawn.16 Though this cannot discount that
Charny was perhaps tricked into believing the Shroud genuine by a clever
fraudster, it does make highly unlikely that he would have instigated an
artist specially to fake it, a point to which Nicolotti, with his limited awareness of Charny’s psychological makeup, accords too little consideration.
The poem also includes several vignettes of daunting episodes in
Charny’s life that had Nicolotti been aware of them, they might have saved
him much uncertainty. Thus he dithers over which Smyrna crusade Charny
might have accompanied, whether it was the first, 1344–45 expedition,17
included in which was an Edouard de Beaujeu-led French contingent
which successfully captured Smyrna’s harbor fortress,18 or whether it was
the second venture, Dauphin Humbert II’s “useless crusade” of 1345–47.
Because the Livre poem vividly describes the hyper-active Charny’s transport for his trans-Mediterranean crusading voyage being by a sailing boat
that became excruciatingly becalmed, this alone satisfactorily eliminates
him from having accompanied Humbert’s expedition, which was transported by coast-hugging galleys.19
16. Arch. Vat. Reg. Aven. 87 A, fol. 195 v.
17. Like Charny, Beaujeu too belonged to an illustrious Templar family, that of grand
master Guillaume de Beaujeu, who was killed in the last stand at Acre in 1291.
18. See Kenneth Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–1571, The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Philadelphia, 1976), 191.
19. Charny is independently documented as being at Avignon in early July 1344,
specifically petitioning for a “portable altar privilege” (Arch. Vat. Reg. Aven. 216, fol. 468 v).
He was thus perfectly positioned to catch a boat from nearby Marseille to join Beaujeu’s contingent for its dash to Smyrna on October 28, 1344. Likewise, he is documented at Aiguillon
in south-west France on August 2, 1346, being paid-off for his recent services during an
ongoing siege (Bibliothèque Nationale, P.O. 683, dossier Charny en Bourgogne numéro
15492, pièce 5). Nicolotti is aware of this Aiguillon documentation, but he seems to lack sufficient confidence to treat this as satisfactorily eliminating Charny from having accompanied
Humbert’s 1345–47 crusade, which had only arrived at Smyrna a few weeks before.

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Had Nicolotti taken more interest in Charny’s poem he might also have
come across a talented artist of Charny’s direct acquaintance, any such individual surely being of relevance as the Shroud’s potential forger for anyone
interpreting it in this way. In Spain’s National Library is housed a very deluxe
manuscript that France’s King Jean II seems to have commissioned as a
master reference copy of the poem for the Company of the Star.20 The
manuscript, which also includes Charny’s Demandes,21 once contained
around two dozen panel illuminations that were sadly long ago excised and
lost, probably by some early scrapbook enthusiast. Nevertheless, enough
remains to identify the hand of Jean le Noir, a Paris-based illuminator
responsible for illustrating several manuscripts for France’s royalty, including
a prayer book for King Jean II’s first wife Bonne of Luxembourg.22 Entertainingly, le Noir has introduced virtually every one of Charny’s 134 demandes with a historiated initial enclosing a whimsically-posed figure wearing
Charny livery, sometimes a young man who was perhaps a page, but more
often a bearded, chainmail-clad individual who can hardly be other than
Charny himself. Le Noir’s studio lay only a stroll from the Paris mansion
that King Philippe VI had given Charny in 1349, and because he would have
needed Charny’s guidance on how best to illustrate the panel illuminations,23
also on how much space to leave blank for the expected answers to the
demandes, there can be little doubt that the two men would have known each
other directly, the whimsical figures arguably denoting a friendly affection on
the artist’s part. This said, any idea that Charny might have recruited him to
forge the Shroud’s ‘imprint’ can readily be discounted by comparing Le
Noir’s conception of Christ’s chest wound, which can be seen on one of his
illuminations for Bonne of Luxembourg’s Prayer Book,24 with the equivalent
medically naturalistic wound to be seen on the Shroud. The essential point is
that even though Nicolotti believes the Shroud to have been forged, his inattention to in-depth background research on Charny has caused him to miss
a potential candidate for the presumed forger. 25
20. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid, MS. 9270.
21. These were chivalric questions composed by Charny that were intended for debate
by members of the Company of the Star. Because King Jean abandoned the Company of the
Star within nine months of creating it, the debate never happened, and the spaces that the
scribes left for filling in the answers to Charny’s questions were left blank.
22. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Cloisters, MS 69, 86.
23. From the positioning of the lost panels relative to the text, these illuminations
almost certainly included an equestrian portrait of Charny in full livery, together with him
performing at jousting tournaments, and episodes from his military adventures.
24. Fol. 331.
25. In the light of the anatomical convincingness of the injuries visible on the Shroud,
Nicolotti might also have taken an interest in the pioneering Lombard physician Guido da

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Nicolotti devotes a couple of pages26 to the June 1353 Act27 by which
Charny formally founded the collegiate church at his tiny fief of Lirey.
According to a memorandum that bishop of Troyes Pierre d’Arcis prepared for Pope Clement VII in 1390,28 this Lirey church was where during
the time of his predecessor bishop, Henri de Poitiers, the Shroud would be
publicly shown and so controversially declared the genuine article circa
1356, the very year Charny would be famously killed defending France’s
oriflamme battle-standard at the battle of Poitiers. The Act is a very
lengthy, micro-managing document in which Charny set out for his six
canon employees the Masses they were to celebrate, the vestments they
were to wear, the emoluments they were to receive, even the number of
candles they were to burn on particular feast days. Charny unequivocally
declares their prime purpose as to pray daily for his soul and for that of his
deceased first wife Jeanne de Toucy.29 The big puzzle presented by the Act,
one which Nicolotti takes little account of, is that Charny mentions not
even a word of the Shroud’s existence, let alone anything concerning its
housing and what arrangements he expected from the canons for its cult
and security. Such omissions are in very marked contrast to an otherwise
very equivalent Act of Foundation drawn up a century earlier for the Sainte
Chapelle, Paris, by King Louis IX (Saint Louis), in which Louis accorded
the care and security of Christ’s Crown of Thorns and similar Passion relics
a very high priority.30
Charny’s Livre poem, dating a year earlier than the Act, is another
work in which Charny might have been expected to say something about
the Shroud and how it had come into his life, yet he again omits any mention of it. As Nicolotti is definitely aware, even as late as May 28, 1356,
therefore only four months before Charny’s death, Henri de Poitiers (the

Vigevano, a prominent member of the French royal court during the reign of King Philip VI,
but he too has been missed.
26. Nicolotti, Shroud, 78–79.
27. The original, which Charny sealed on-site, is preserved in the Archives of the
Département of the Aube at Troyes, file 9. G. 1. A transcript was provided by Nicolas
Camusat, Promptuarium Sacrarum Antiquitatum Tricissinae diocesis (Troyes, 1610).
28. Nicolotti provides an English translation on pages 90–96. An alternative translation
appears in Herbert Thurston “The Holy Shroud and the Verdict of History,” (The Month, CI
[1903], 17–29).
29. Charny married her in 1336, and she had probably died during the Black Death.
30. See Meredith Cohen, The Sainte-Chapelle and the Construction of Sacral Monarchy,
(Cambridge, 2014), 212–19: “in the aforesaid chapel they [the chaplains] will keep a perpetual presence in good faith . . . [and] faithfully guard for us and our royal successors the holy
relics, each and every one.”

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Troyes’ bishop who took such exception to the first Shroud showings),
went on record fulsomely approving the Lirey church’s foundation,31
strongly suggesting the showings at Lirey could not yet have happened,
because this would have been the bishop’s opportunity to object to the
whole venture.32 Nicolotti fails to draw adequate attention to any of this,
assuming, as most authors long have, that the showings must have taken
place within Charny’s lifetime, probably in 1355 and if not during the
months post-1356.
In fact, any careful study of Charny’s 1356 military activities indicates
it to be highly unlikely that the first Shroud showings were staged even
between May 28 and September 19, 1356, i.e., during the very last four
months of his life. No less than two English armies were already on the
move on French soil, hardly suitable circumstances for staging pilgrimattracting events. Precisely because of this military threat Charny was virtually continuously preoccupied with France’s defence during this period,
being documented first at St. Denis collecting the oriflamme (June), then at
Breteuil directing a siege (July/August), then accompanying the French
army as it fatally manoeuvred against the English army of Edward the
Black Prince leading up to its Poitiers nemesis (September). Nicolotti displays scant attention to any such matters, even seeming to think that
Charny was not back in action until the mid-August.33
Likewise Nicolotti disregards what has to have been the serious plight
faced by Charny’s very young34 wife Jeanne de Vergy, the mother of his still
very infant only son. Sometime shortly after Poitiers she would have been
brought the dread news that her bread-winner husband had been killed in
the battle and that the king who had been his patron was now a prisoner
of the English. Hundreds of other noble families around France would
have received similar tidings, quickly plunging the country into social and
economic chaos. Food prices are known to have risen astronomically
during the next couple of years, inevitably threatening the very survival of
the newly founded Lirey church that Charny had staffed so extravagantly,35

31. This was as part of the ongoing process legally ratifying the Act of 1353.
32. Arguably, it was in the care of his personal chaplains, who accompanied him everywhere, and were completely independent of the clergy at Lirey.
33. Nicolotti, Shroud, 95.
34. Although her birthdate is unknown, she would live on until 1428, suggesting she
was most likely a teenager when Charny married her circa 1355.
35. Besides the six canons, the Act of Foundation makes clear there were also three
wardens, and quite possibly further domestic staff ancillary to these.

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399

the staffing of which was now Jeanne’s responsibility, acting as ‘lord’ of
Lirey on behalf of her infant son. Though unconsidered by Nicolotti, it
may therefore have been specifically at this post-Poitiers point, with the
Shroud now brought for safety to Lirey, and Jeanne now in charge of it,
that one of the redundancy-threatened canons came up with the idea of
using it for money-making showings, arguably inspired by the showings of
the Veronica cloth that had lucratively attracted pilgrims to Rome only a
few years before.36
Very germane to this possibility are two slightly differing versions of
pilgrim badges that, despite their having suffered some damage, can both
confidently be adjudged to have been produced as money-making souvenirs for showings of the Shroud whilst it was under Charny family tutelage. The first of these is an actual badge that was found in the mud of the
Seine in 1855 and was bequeathed by its finder to the Musée de Cluny,
Paris. The second is a schist mould for making a slightly different design of
badge that was found in a field at Machy, a next-door village to Lirey, as
recently as 2009 and is in the hands of a private collector. Commendably,
Nicolotti is aware of both versions, and he illustrates them on page 113.
However his textual discussion of them, though lengthy, struggles to
decide to which of the two fourteenth-century showings of the Shroud
each badge should be attributed, i.e., either the first set of showings to
which Henri de Poitiers objected, as currently under review, or the later set
of 1389–90, during Pierre d’Arcis’ episcopate. In his illustrations list he
leaves their datings open, listing both to “between 1355 and 1410.”
Nicolotti’s difficulty here is very understandable. Both badge designs
feature Charny-Vergy heraldry, though the positioning of the family
shields is notably left to right reversed on one version compared to the
other, one of several indications that they derive from different periods.
Whereas the Machy version features a Veronica-like Christ face between
the two shields, this same location on the Cluny version has a roundel
encompassing a depiction of the Empty Tomb with instruments of the
Passion. The quality of the Machy mould’s artistry is markedly inferior to
that of its Cluny counterpart, particularly in its rendering of the Shroud’s
weave. The Machy version includes an inscription, “SVAIRE IhV,”
whereas on its Cluny counterpart what appears once to have been an
inscription-bearing banner has been lost due to the historical damage it
has sustained.

36. These were held for the papal Jubilee Year of 1350.

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Hence initially I too struggled with the same problem as Nicolotti,
having long supposed the first Shroud showings to have been held within
Charny’s lifetime on the evidence of the Charny-Vergy heraldry featured on
the Cluny badge, this despite Henri de Poitiers’ May 28, 1356 approval document. However, careful appraisal of the Machy version dramatically changed
that view. This was because on the Machy version it is Jeanne de Vergy’s coat
of arms that can be seen to be in the dominant heraldic position, a fact which
when combined with its inscription SVAIRE IhV (“suaire of Jesus”—a clear
claim of the cloth’s authenticity), virtually pinpoints it as having been produced for the first showings that so enraged Bishop Henri de Poitiers.
Therefore in contradiction to Nicolotti continuing to date the first showings of the Shroud to circa 1355, these can now with reasonable confidence
be attributed to circa 1357–58 under Jeanne de Vergy’s auspices, the further
corollary being a redating of the Cluny badge to the 1389–90 showings of
Geoffroi II de Charny’s time,37 an argument that I have explained at proper
length in a recent article for Peregrinations.38 However, the further element of
considerable significance in respect to the Machy badge is its use of the word
suaire to describe what is today known as the “Shroud of Turin.” Though
unremarked by Nicolotti, the surprise here is that these first presenters of it at
Lirey did not use the word linceul,39 which would have clearly established that
they thought of it as the clean linen sindon or shroud the three synoptic gospel
writers describe as being purchased for Jesus’ burial proper. By their use of
suaire, the Latin equivalent of which, sudarium, is repeatedly used of the Turin
cloth by Bishop d’Arcis in his report to Pope Clement VII,40 they were associating it with the sudarium exclusively described in the Latin of the Vulgate
version of the John gospel as having been “over his head,” and “not with the
linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.”41
Now exactly what that sudarium cloth was, one seemingly observed
personally by St. John when he entered Christ’s tomb on the first Easter
morning,42 even today remains as much a matter of uncertainty amongst

37. This was evidently in partnership with his mother Jeanne de Vergy, who astonishingly would live on until 1428.
38. Ian Wilson, “The Earliest Pilgrim Badges Produced for the So-Called Shroud of
Turin,” Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture, 7, no. 3 (2021), 174–211).
39. Well before the discovery of the Machy mould, the oddity was noted by Chevalier,
Autour des origines, 16, but neither he nor others accorded it serious attention.
40. Translations of this report, including Nicolotti’s, fail to make this distinction.
41. John 20:7, Jerusalem Bible translation.
42. There is a strong argument for John having been the unnamed disciple who accompanied Peter into the tomb.

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401

theologians and etymologists as it was back in the fourteenth century,43
inevitably rending inadequate any meaningful debate on this within the
confines of this review. However, the quite fundamental point is that the
Charny family evidently perceived what we now call the “Shroud” not as
Christ’s burial shroud proper, but instead as whatever function was served
by the soudarion (original Greek)/sudarium (Vulgate Latin)/suaire (Charny
French), reported by St. John. Because the common root of all three words
is the Latin sudor, ‘sweat’, it is reasonable to infer that the Charny family
believed their suaire to have been used to soak up all the sweat and blood
from his body shortly after this had been brought down from the Cross,
thereby prior to the deployment of any “final” shroud proper.44 In which
light, if we recognise that even the Charny family did not think of Turin’s
“Shroud” as having been Christ’s shroud, but instead as a separate “sweat
cloth” left behind in the tomb, then a radical new angle on the subject
begins to unfold. Not only can Nicolotti’s ostensibly so exhaustive hunt
through pre-fourteenth century “shrouds” now be perceived to have been
doubly futile, suddenly the hard facts that the Image of Edessa was similarly not thought of as Christ’s shroud, and that its main tenth to twelfth
century documentation happens similarly to describe it as an image derived
from Christ’s sweat (and blood), take on a whole new complexion.
Now I readily acknowledge that I have dwelt disproportionately long
on the period of the Turin cloth’s history relating to the time of Geoffroi de
Charny, though necessarily so because of the pivotal nature of this period,
and the need to explore it in considerably more depth than Nicolotti has
displayed. There are similar weaknesses apparent in Nicolotti’s handling of
the 1389–90 showings of the cloth under the auspices of Charny’s son of
the same name (for distinction purposes Geoffroi II de Charny). On the
43. This is very evident from comparing the varying translations of John 20:7 in the
numerous alternative translations of the New Testament now available, many of these insistent on the soudarion having been a “napkin” or “face-cloth.”
44. There are plenty of indications that such a perception of it continued even after
Geoffroi II de Charny’s daughter Marguerite had ceded the cloth to the Savoy dynasty in 1453.
Around the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth century, it was depicted being brought
over Christ’s body whilst this lay at the foot of the Cross in a beautiful aquatint by the Savoyard
artist Giovanni Battista della Rovere now housed in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin (see John
Beldon Scott, Architecture for the Shroud [Chicago, 2003], pl. 4). At much this same time the
French antiquarian Jean-Jacques Chifflet, comparing it with a rival “shroud” at Besançon (subsequently destroyed in the Revolution), adjudged it as having been used “ante-pollincturam,”
the Besançon version being thought of as the burial shroud proper (Jean-Jacques Chifflet, De
Linteis Sepulchralibus [Antwerp, 1624], engraving opposite 198). Following on from the cloth’s
1578 transfer from Chambéry to Italian-speaking Turin, souvenir engravings often continued
to label it santissimo sudario, though others now styled it sacra sindone.

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REVIEW ESSAY

throne of France was now the unstable twenty-year-old Charles VI, who
had recently dismissed the regency of his uncles, for one of whom, Philip
the Bold, Geoffroi had acted as a chamberlain. Uncritically, Nicolotti takes
it at face value that it was Charles in person who, in August 1389, ordered
a bailli to travel to Lirey to seize the Shroud. Equally uncritically, he omits
to try to ascertain why Geoffroi II might have been away from Lirey at this
particular time. The actuality is that, during the period in question, Charles
VI was far too busy preparing for the coronation of his Queen Isabel of
Bavaria to be bothered with Parlement matters, whilst Geoffroi II, for his
part, was amongst the top performers at the jousting tournaments that were
being staged as part of the coronation’s entertainments. Bishop Pierre d’Arcis, as a member of the king’s Parlement, appears to have taken advantage
of such royal court distractions to push through the royal orders for the
Shroud’s seizure from Lirey when in actuality Charles VI and Geoffroi II
were happily socializing together in Paris at this time. Properly to address
this episode needs considerably more detail than is possible within the scope
of this review, as is likewise the case in respect of Nicolotti’s representation
of the personality and motives of Geoffroi II’s daughter Marguerite de
Charny in the lead-up to the Shroud’s transfer to Duke Louis I of Savoy.
Whereas Nicolotti represents her as unprincipled and mercenary, a rather
more balanced view of her is as a childless, widowed noblewoman with a
sense of heavy responsibility towards a cloth that she sincerely believed genuine, her overriding motivation being to secure its long-term future by
transferring it to a dynasty of suitable stature and piety.
Nicolotti’s weaknesses handling of the Charny period of the Turin
cloth’s history represent only a relatively small proportion of his book, and
by way of balance it is only fair to acknowledge that when he is on “home”
ground, in particular when he is discussing the centuries of the Savoy
dynasty’s cult of the cloth in Turin from 1578 onward, he is altogether more
assiduous. He has brought to light a substantial amount of information that
has not previously been available in the English language, some of this new
to me, and certainly valuable for a better understanding of this period of the
cloth’s history. A decade ago he was also a valued correspondent in respect
of the claims of Vatican archivist Barbara Frale that she had found a
manuscript clearly indicating the Turin cloth to have been in Templar
hands during the thirteenth century. Much as I would like there to be some
solid documentary evidence of this kind, Nicolotti rightly showed me that
Frale had falsified her translation and had also lied to me concerning the
manuscript’s legibility for a non-specialist. It was a clear case of some of the
squalid behavior that has too often besmirched the subject on both sides of
the argument, and Nicolotti displayed sound scholarship in this instance.

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403

So whilst I have no wish to minimize Nicolotti’s competence as a
researcher, nevertheless, his book’s fundamental flaw is that it too readily
accepts the radiocarbon dating “artist’s forgery” judgment on the Turin
cloth, and it is too slanted in favour of “proving” this historically. This might
be acceptable if he had succeeded in that aim, but palpably he has not. If
you set out to write a definitive history of the Shroud as a medieval forgery,
then you need convincingly to show how someone of the Middle Ages
could conceive an image that is so out of kilter with anything else from the
time and “fake it up” as one radiocarbon dating scientist crudely expressed
it.45 Nicolotti has tried to pass this fakery off as something “easy to understand.” In his view the artist simply thought up ‘the effect brought on by a
corpse, soiled with blood, sweat and spices.’46 From the practical experience
of having studied traditional life drawing at Oxford’s Ruskin School of Art
alongside my history degree, I can assure him that rendering onto a sheet of
paper the ever-subtle falls of light and shade on a human body’s contours is
difficult enough. Thinking this out with light values reversed on a fourteenfoot length of cloth is well-nigh impossible, as historical artists’ attempts to
copy the “Shroud” image tone-for-tone readily corroborate.47
In similar vein, if you want to argue for the “Shroud” being an artist’s
forgery then you need also to study in proper depth the life, the personality,
and the associates of the man in whose possession it first appears, i.e. Geoffroi de Charny. You need to show how such a fraud came to be perpetrated
either upon him by some charlatan, or directly by him as a mendacious
instigator. You also need to account for some of the peculiarities to the
behaviour of Charny and his successors, peculiarities that can and arguably
do have a quite different explanation to Nicolotti’s interpretation of them.
Nicolotti has failed in all these respects.
In the final, section of his book “The Creation of a Myth,” Nicolotti
extols those of the modern era who have argued for the Shroud being an
artist’s forgery, whilst conversely demeaning with slick pen portraits those
45. “Someone just got a bit of linen, faked it up, and flogged it[.]” Professor Edward Hall
of the Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory, quoted in the London Times, October 14, 1988.
46. Nicolotti, Shroud, 280.
47. For an illustrated catalogue of these copies, see Emanuela Marinelli and Maurizio
Marinelli, “The copies of the Shroud,” Proceedings of the International Workshop on the
Scientific Approach to the Acheiropoietos Images (ENEA, Frascati, Italy 4–6 May 2010.)
Additionally the presumed medieval forger’s renderings of “bloodstains” appear to be medically accurate, as affirmed by numerous well-qualified physicians and anatomists. But
Nicolotti, with no medical credentials, prefers to dismiss such details as “completely unnatural” (Shroud, 235).

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404

who have taken an alternative view, including myself. His pen portrait for
me is typical: “he has dedicated himself to various miraculous and esoteric
topics (like life after death, reincarnation, stigmata, a biblical flood and
Nostradamus).”48 Although during three decades as a freelance author some
of my books were indeed on such topics, what Nicolotti adroitly omits to
point out is that these were serious, critical, investigative books on those
themes. Reincarnation? investigated people hypnotically regressed back to
so-called “past lives,” demonstrating that under hypnosis they revivify historical novels they had read perhaps decades before. The Bleeding Mind
showed that the stigmata phenomenon was mainly psychosomatic, stigmatics’ widely differing wounds cancelling each other out as representative of
Christ’s true injuries. Nostradamus: The Evidence was a serious biography of
the historical Michel de Nostredame, one unexpectedly asked of me in the
immediate aftermath of “9/11” and showing that in the very rare instances
his predictions are checkable (notably his birth charts for historical nobility),
they were wrong. Nicolotti might have mentioned my Shakespeare: The Evidence, as reviewed by none other than Alfred Leslie Rowse: ‘‘Conscientious
[and] full of good sense. The reader will not go wrong with it.”49 Either, yet
again, Nicolotti has failed to do sufficient background research to back up
his argument, or he has intentionally set out to portray me as just a deluded
crackpot. Neither of these alternatives exactly commends him.
Ultimately, the writing of a brand-new twenty-century-long history of
the Turin cloth is required. This needs convincingly to demonstrate how for
a very substantial portion of that history it was simply not understood as a
shroud. It needs to include some now much-needed revisions to current historical suppositions concerning the Charny and pre-Charny periods. Not
least, it needs to explain (and necessarily very satisfactorily), how the radiocarbon dating that was carried out on it in 1988 could and did make a monumental scientific error. The task is an intensely demanding and far-ranging
one, requiring the utmost scholarly rigor. Nevertheless it is in hand and progressing slowly but steadily. I hope to live long enough to bring it to completion, not least in order to present the cloth’s long career, and the colorful
lives of those whom it has touched along the way, as a saga rather more
worthy and more remarkable than that conveyed by Nicolotti.
Independent Scholar
Caloundra, Queensland

48. Nicolotti, Shroud, 391.
49. Review in London Evening Standard.

IAN WILSON

Book Reviews
GENERAL
The History of England’s Cathedrals. By Nicholas Orme. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies. 2017. Pp. xii, 304. $45.00. ISBN: 978-0-88844441-7.)
This book is admirably successful in fulfilling the aim stated in the title. It is
indeed a fascinating and detailed description of the historical development of the
English cathedral from the arrival of Christianity in A.D. 314 until the present day.
The ten chapters, presented in chronological order, are embellished with ninety
illustrations, most of them in colour; and there are also several helpful maps and
diagrams. Moreover, all the relevant ecclesiastical terms are clearly defined within
their historical context; the reader thus becomes familiar with them and learns to
recognize and appreciate their continuing significance in the light of their historical
development.
In the first chapter the author takes care to warn the reader that the initial visit
to a cathedral may be likened to viewing an iceberg from the deck of a ship because
we remain unaware of what goes on in daily life within the precincts where the
clergy, the official lay assistants, and workers, as well as a number of volunteers, all
work together to maintain the daily religious services as well as the myriad of other
essential duties associated with the upkeep of its buildings. His approach to achieving his aim has been by means of posing several fundamental questions, for example
by emphasizing the things that the cathedrals had in common and the things that
differentiated them from one another.
In 1066, before the Norman Conquest, there were already in existence fifteen
cathedrals, the largest being Canterbury and Winchester, both of which were home
to a community of monks of the order of St. Benedict. There were also flourishing
schools which developed within several of these early cathedral precincts. However,
the arrival of the Normans resulted in a number of changes, some of which affected
their number and status: Bath and Coventry, for example, two monastic foundations, were both raised to cathedral status. Under Norman rule there were other
significant challenges and developments including, among others, the recurring
problem of the competing authority of bishops and cathedrals as to their respective
rights and privileges.
Among the many topics that the author takes care to explain is the constantly changing role of cathedral officials—deans and canons, for example, in
405

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BOOK REVIEWS

secular cathedrals and priors and monks in monastic cathedrals. He also discusses
in some detail the problems that repeatedly arose concerning the election and
appointment of bishops, occasions which frequently found cathedral chapters in
conflict with both king and pope. He provides the reader with a tour of the cathedral precinct and includes fascinating details concerning their historical development, for example, the introduction of Lady chapels during the fourteenth century. With regard to cathedral worship he presents the reader with an account of
the developing role of music in the liturgy and includes details concerning the
introduction and inclusion of organs, choirs, and also of congregational singing.
These are followed by a tour of the buildings enclosed within the cathedral
precinct, and a description of an average liturgical day in the life of a secular
cathedral under its resident canons.
The dramatic and disruptive succession of developments during the Reformation period, in the first half of the sixteenth century under the early Tudors, has
been judiciously treated and includes a clear and helpful summary of the frequent
changes of authority, of liturgy and ritual which challenged every member of every
cathedral chapter and congregation. During this critical period the ten monastic
cathedrals were surrendered and refounded in secular form.
The succeeding centuries, up to and including the present day, are judiciously
treated in comparable detail including the dramatic consequences of the execution
of Charles I and the abolition of the cathedrals with their clergy during the Interregnum. The return of the monarchy in 1660 and the renewal of relationships
between church and crown led to a new set of relationships which included the
reintroduction of services in conformity with the new regime. A period of reconstruction of cathedral buildings and of architectural innovation followed in a
number of the cathedrals including St. Paul’s London, Durham, Hereford, and
Salisbury. Professor Orme provides interesting details here of some of the architects involved, and he also includes additional information in contemporary
descriptive reports by writers such as Daniel Defoe.
Nineteenth-century developments included the addition of several new cathedrals such as St. Albans, a former Benedictine monastery, and the innovative introduction of several Catholic cathedrals originating in a decree from Rome to affirm
and regulate the Catholic presence in England. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries within the cathedral setting were witness to a succession of changes that are
outlined here in fascinating detail. Among these, for example, are new forms of
attracting public attention and interest, which include choral festivals, festivals of
art, archaeology, and culture, ecumenical services, guided tours, and the promotion
of schedules of daily services.
In conclusion, the author provides us with an inspired phrase describing seventeen centuries of “immense and varied creativity” not only in the spheres of
liturgy and worship but also, as outlined above, in the arts including music, stained
glass, sculpture, archaeology, and historical studies.

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407

There are a useful guide to technical terms used in the text and also a
bibliography.
JOAN GREATREX

Robinson College
Cambridge, U.K.

ANCIENT
The Christianisation of Western Baetica. Architecture, Power and Religion in a Late
Antique Landscape. By Jerónimo Sánchez Velasco (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press. 2018. €149,00. ISBN: 978 90 8964 932 4).
The lack of written sources for the early spread and institutional development
of Christianity in any part of the Iberian Peninsula makes evidence of other kinds
all the more valuable. In this respect, the contribution of archaeology is crucial,
often providing, along with inscriptions, the only contemporary testimony to both
local details and an overview of the processes involved. However, it needs careful
interpretation. This book confines itself to the western half of the Roman and then
Visigothic province of Baetica, in the south of Spain. This is a region for which its
author enjoys long-established expertise as both an excavator of archaeological sites
and a cataloguer of museum collections. His choice of region is thus dictated by his
own experience, but the level of detail into which he must enter in the discussion
of the sites he describes shows that a broader, more generalized geographical coverage would be far less satisfying. His approach calls out to be replicated at a similar
level across all of the Late Antique provinces of the Peninsula.
Western Baetica contained, by the late sixth century at the latest, six episcopal
dioceses, including the metropolitan see of Seville. The existence of all six is
attested to in the documentary record, in the form of episcopal subscriptions to the
acts of a series of ecclesiastical councils of the late sixth and seventh centuries.
While this proves the presence of these dioceses, it does little to indicate their
mutual borders and geographical extension, except where, in a small number of
cases, disputes over individual churches between rival episcopal claimants feature
on the conciliar agendas. With such additional information and equipped with a
knowledge of the terrain and the main routes of communication of the period, Professor Sánchez Velasco starts his study with a proposed reconstruction of the diocesan limits of the each of the six sees, while allowing for much inevitable uncertainty
on the detail.
The central part of the book consists of six chapters, one per diocese, intended
to identify and discuss the archaeological and other evidence for sites and artefacts
that can be identified or plausibly described as Christian. These include churches,
monasteries, mausolea, as well as individual survivals such as reused Roman altars
that may serve as the only trace of a long vanished ecclesiastical structure. Each
chapter is divided into sections, the first of which is devoted to the diocesan urban
center, and the rest to its territory, subdivided geographically. The very different

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BOOK REVIEWS

rates of survival of Christian archaeological remains from each see means that these
chapters are very different in length and in the quantity and significance of the material to be described. Thus, Seville, although the seat of the metropolitan bishop of
Baetica, provides little material evidence of its important early Christian past, while
the city of Córdoba is extremely well represented. Similarly, hardly any evidence
comes from the city of Itálica, while its territory is more substantially represented.
The book concludes with two analytical chapters, covering all six dioceses; the
first of which classifies the different types of monument, structure or complex previously discussed in the descriptive chapters according to their clear or presumed
nature and purpose. Allowance is made for continuing uncertainty about the character of several of them, and for the need for future excavations or the completion
of current ones that might produce more definite conclusions. The final chapter
offers a more general analysis of the archaeological evidence previously surveyed to
try to present a broader view of the nature and consequences of the Christianization
of the region. For this the author also depends on interpretative theories derived
from other than strictly archaeological study. Here he is at the mercy of the historians and theorists in whom he decides to place his trust, not all of whom would
command general approval. This interpretative chapter also suffers, as do some of
the interpretations of individual sites, from ignored or unresolved chronological
problems. Too many statements are based on assertion rather than proof, as in the
suggestion that a large basilica in Córdoba must have belonged to the age of Constantine I (307-336) and be the product of imperial benefaction.
Influenced by theory rather than evidence, the author is too quick to see ecclesiastical institutions as primarily being expressions of power. Thus monasteries are
described as “controlling” certain key roads, or even the port of Seville, as if they
were customs’ posts or fortresses. Similarly, the emphasis on expressions of power
leads to too ready identifications of ambiguous sites as possible “episcopia” or episcopal complexes, which are then presented in political rather than pastoral terms.
Alternative sources of local status and influence are largely ignored.
In his description of several sites, of both greater and lesser significance, the
author challenges the interpretations of the original excavators and suggests alternatives of his own. While this may be quite legitimate, the lack of plans and the limits
on scale imposed by the broad nature of the enquiry makes it impossible for the
reader to judge the merits of the cases. A book of this kind that offers an overview
of numerous sites is not well suited to launching revisions of current views on individual ones. Among such candidates for revision is the complex of El Cercadilla on
the northern edge of Córdoba. First seen as a possible imperial palace of the Tetrarchic period, with an extension of use by local Christians after the Arab conquest, this
is argued here to be the city’s earliest episcopal complex. No mention is made of the
destruction of most of the site, following necessarily hasty excavation, to make way
for the new high speed rail station. To be fair, Professor Sánchez Velasco is clear
about other problems that beset archaeological research in the region, such as an
over-emphasis on anachronistic reconstruction for the promotion of tourism.

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409

There is much to applaud in this book, but its author is let down by his publishers’ not putting in the effort required to eliminate error and ensure linguistic
accuracy. Here is but one of many examples: “The baptismal font, to be analysed
later, appeared contained in several tombs and some columns, of which at least six
were stolen” (p. 185). This is incomprehensible unless ‘appeared contained’ is
understood as meaning “is surrounded by.” This is far from the only example in a
book marred by other copy-editing errors, and avoidable mistakes, such as referring
to the archaeologist Cristina Godoy as ‘he’ throughout or describing Isidore and his
siblings as “brothers,” even when one of them was the nun, Florentina. Written in
English by a Spanish author for a Dutch publisher, the book should have been subjected to either final revision or full copy-editing by a native English speaker.
ROGER COLLINS

University of Edinburgh

MEDIEVAL
From the Depths of the Heart: Annotated Translation of the Prayers of St. Gregory of
Narek. By Abraham Terian. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press Academic,
2021. Pp. 568. $49.95 hard cover. ISBN: 9780814684641.)
Gregory of Narek was little-known outside the community of Armenians and
scholars of Armenian Christianity until April 24, 2015, when this great Armenian
saint, theologian, mystic, and poet of the tenth-eleventh century was recognized by
Pope Francis as the thirty-sixth Doctor of the Catholic Church. His popularity has
since grown in the West, and more people have become familiar with this great
author of the medieval Church. He is considered the best representative of Armenian spirituality of the Middle Ages and has been named the great poet in Armenian
literature. His literary heritage is diverse and multi-faceted.
The most famous and familiar of his works is his book of penitential prayers,
traditionally titled The Book of Lamentation but commonly known as Narek, after
the monastery in which he spent most of his life. It consists of ninety-five chapters,
and each chapter begins with the epigraph “Speaking with God from the depths of
the heart.” This epigraph Professor Terian used, then, as a title for his translation.
The book covers a wide variety of topics that have to do with the fallen human
soul, self-discipline, fasting, and prayer. It incorporates contemplation on scripture,
which is unceasing and causes the flow of tears in the author. With his prayers,
Gregory speaks with God directly, bringing the issues tormenting the human soul
and presenting them in the heavenly court before the supreme Judge. Although
most of the prayers are private, penitential prayers, at the same time, Gregory does
not exclude them from being also a communal prayer that the members of the
monastic community can offer. He describes his prayer book as a fragrant sacrifice
of words to God, which is composed to aid ailing humanity. The book is provided
as a remedy, a help for spiritual turmoil, that Gregory attests that he himself has
experienced by suffering the effects of sin. Therefore, he has composed this book

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for all people, those who would read them with penitential confession, joining him
in prayer for the healing of all ailments.
The beauty of Gregory of Narek’s prayers consists in their deep and, at the
same time, metrically enthralling style. The original Classical Armenian text of the
prayer can be difficult to grasp even by those well versed in the language. It can be
challenging to translate Gregory’s exegetical and theological thought accurately and
articulately by keeping the original beauty and reverence so fluently expressed in the
prayers. Syntactical and grammatical styles may present some challenges to even
the most skillful translators.
Yet in Abraham Terian’s version of the translation of the Prayers of Gregory
of Narek, one can notice the work of a master translator exhibited in its highest
form, where he skillfully finds ways to present even the most difficult theological
images and exegetical complexities of Narek’s literary language and style. The work
of translating Gregory’s Book of Prayer into English could not have been entrusted
to a better teacher and theologian than Professor Terian, who in his long and illustrious career has worked with complex texts and translated the most challenging
and complicated works of Armenian literature.
His supreme knowledge of the Scriptures enables him to understand and
interpret every image and thought expressed by Gregory of Narek in their own correct context and translate them accurately and comprehensibly, so that readers can
grasp them and appreciate the beauty and profoundly spiritual and biblical messages expressed in the prayers.
Similarly, Professor Terian’s knowledge of early church history and patristics
enhances his translation of prayers to correctly present the theology of the Book of
Lamentations expressed by Gregory of Narek, who was profoundly influenced by
Ephrem the Syrian, Evagrius Ponticus, Cappadocian Fathers, and the other early
authors of the Church. The new translation not only interprets Gregory’s theological and dogmatic beliefs adequately but also examines them from a historical and
literary perspective, thus interpreting them correctly in their context.
The intrinsic magnificence of words and images depicted in the prayers in his
native tongue and the profound thoughts and delicate feelings expressed in them
have endeared this book of St. Gregory of Narek to his Armenian readers for a millennium. Thanks to Dr. Terian’s skillful translation Narekatsi now will inspire all
those who pick up this book and utter the “Edifice of Faith” so eloquently expressed
by the author.
St. Mary Armenian Church in Washington, D.C.

HOVSEP KARAPETYAN

BOOK REVIEWS

411

Lying and Perjury in Medieval Practical Thought: A Study in the History of Casuistry.
By Emily Corran. (New York: Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2018. Pp.
224. $90.00. ISBN: 9780198828884.)
Lying has always been a part of human life. For centuries rulers have practiced
the art, husbands and wives have dealt with their troubled marriages through
deceptions, although their children are admonished constantly that lying is a grave
moral shortcoming. Perjury is a more complex set of ideas. In law it is the wilfully
making false statements in court under oath. However, in the Middle Ages broken
promises, vows, and oaths were considered perjury no matter where they were
taken. In an appendix Corran edits a series of case studies and examines how Peter
the Chanter, Robert Courson, William of Rennes, William of Pagula, and Berthaud of Saint-Denis (†1307) dealt with moral dilemmas ranging from the priest’s
duty not to reveal what he learns in the confessional to the dilemma of spouses who
question the legitimacy of their marriage.
Another central theme is Corran’s book is the role that casuistry and equivocation played in solving moral dilemmas that the confessions of the laity posed to
priests. Although casuistry was a method of reasoning long associated with the
Jesuits, she presents evidence that the modus arguendi dates back to the early
Middle Ages and gives examples from hagiography, Chansons de geste, vernacular
fiction, and other clerical writings. The examples that she cites from the Chansons
de geste are brilliant illustrations of how deeply embedded in the moral consciousness of medieval Christianity equivocation was. The deceits of Reynard the Fox
may have been an attempt to project a very human vice to all of God’s creatures.
The use of literature as a foil for understanding moral, theological, and legal issues
in society is an important source for historians, and Corran explores literature masterfully. I especially enjoyed her analysis of Yseut’s oath that she never had anyone
between her legs other than her husband King Mark and the leper (a disguised
Tristan) who had just transported her over a marsh.
Corran also exploits more traditional theological treatises. Peter the Chanter’s
moral dilemmas in his Summa de sacramentis provides her with insights into medieval ideas about the moral dilemmas created by lying. She edits four of them in an
appendix and argues that Chanter “was the most important of a number of twelfthcentury authors who began to consider casuistical questions about lying” (p. 40).
A particularly long-lived conundrum that began with Saint Augustine and
challenged moralists to Kant and beyond in its various permutations was the murderer at the door dilemma. Corran edits a version of the story written by a student
of Peter the Chanter, Robert of Courson, a teacher at Paris and who was raised to
the cardinalate by Pope Innocent III at the beginning of the thirteenth century.
Perhaps the most graphic version of the conundrum that Courson explores is a mad
knight (miles insanus) who rode around the countryside challenging all he met with
the option of doing homage to him or being killed. “Unde plures mentiti sunt ei ut
aufugerent” “Consequently, many men lied to him in order not to be killed,” concluded Courson approvingly.

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The jurists also entered the field of lies. Raymond de Peñafort tackled the
murderer at the door problem in his Summa de casibus. Raymond’s Summa was
enormously popular. Over 100 manuscripts of the work are still extant. It is a little
puzzling why she did not use Ochoa and Diez’ edition which would have saved her
the trouble of consulting manuscripts to check the 1603 edition’s text. Raymond
solved the murderer at the door problem by having him cleverly equivocate and lie.
Both Raymond and Henricus de Segusio (Hostiensis) dealt with another interesting problem of a woman who has had a child from an adulterous laison that arose
from a case decided in 1209 by Pope Innocent III and included in Raymond’s
Decretales of Pope Gregory IX (X 5.38.9). When Hostiensis treated this case of marital deception in his Commentary on Innocent’s decretal he threw up his hands and
declared, “Unde in hac materia vere dici potest illud Satyricum” (Certainly in this
material can truly be called a nest of satrys) and concluded with a famous medieval
proverb that circulated all over Europe from Sicily to Scandinavia, ‘In modio rendi
non est vola plena sciendi’,” which can be translated as “In the basket of opinions
there is hardly any firm knowledge.” Some dilemmas give birth to many opinions
but without any firm answers. Corran’s book is a splendid afirmation of Hostiensis’
frustration. Her array of stories give much support to Quintillian’s maxim: “a liar
must have a good memory” (Mendacem memorem esse oportet). The book will be
a wonderful source of material for lectures, teaching, and scholarship.
() *+,-./01 2304)560,7 .8 9:)501+

KENNETH PENNINGTON

After the Black Death: Plague and Commemoration Among Iberian Jews. By Susan L.
Einbinder. [Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press. 2018. Pp. 240. $69.95 cloth; ISBN: 97808122250312; $27.50 paperback; ISBN: 9780812225228.)
After the Black Death offers a compassionate cultural history of the plague and
its influence on the Iberian Jewish community. Despite the centrality of the event
in European history, it is one of the few studies that takes on seriously an examination of its emotional reverberations. Guided by the question “what mark did the
second pandemic leave on the Iberian Jewish community?” Einbinder analyzes a
diverse set of sources written by Iberian Jews during the years of devastating death
and violence against their communities which this plague engendered.
Each of the five chapters of the book is devoted to a distinct genre of texts
within a particular context: Chapter 1 considers the commemorative conventions
of lament liturgy written before the plague, during the Pastoureaux riots; Chapter
2 looks at the lament written in the years of the plague by Emanuel ben Joseph and
compares it with more private accounts of the events; Chapter 3 is devoted to Avraham Caslari’s medical treatise on pestilential fevers and his scientific analysis of disease and therapy; Chapter 4 shows the sustained “individuality and elegance” of
tombstone epitaphs from Toledo; and Chapter 5 reads the archeological evidence
gathered from the burial site of the victims of the 1348 assault on Tàrraga’s Jews
alongside the liturgical lamentation of one of its survivors, Moses Natan.

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Through close readings of the Hebrew texts, which are rendered with beautiful
translations, Einbinder ponders on ritual performance, the power of communal
prayer, collective and transplanted memories, the structure of scientific language,
and scientific Hebrew in particular, the diversity of experiences across Iberia, and
more. Einbinder’s findings run against the current of traditional and popular historiography. The plague, she argues, was not the singular cataclysmic event that
shaped Iberian Jewish community. Fourteenth-century Jews were well acquainted
with loss, mourning, and distress. They suffered previous anti-Jewish riots, endured
famine and sickness, and had seen their livestock ravished by infectious diseases.
Natural and socio-political sorrows were an expected facet of life, and the communities developed certain internal mechanisms of making sense of their harsh experiences, by virtue of the lament and the burial epitaph. Einbinder posits that the
stability of these structures through the turbulence of the mid-fourteenth- century
epidemic testifies to the accumulative approach to hardship. The events surrounding the plague were incorporated into the history of Jews in exile; in some sense, it
became another episode in the age-old story. In turn, this reasoning enabled private
suffering to be subsumed in a comforting collective narrative and guaranteed that
language would not shatter even in the face of trauma.
The concept of trauma and its relevance to plague studies is another anchor in
the book. Avoiding the pitfall of anachronism, Einbinder uses trauma and modern
psychological theory of trauma as a thinking tool for exploring the response to
plague in the sources, acknowledging for example, the possibility that the sources
encompass lapses in memory, or that institutional commemorations are a way to
accommodate personal suffering. But for Einbinder thinking with “Trauma”
appears to include another significant dimension—an ethical commitment.
Inspired by contemporary discourse Einbinder wonders, often knowing that no
factual answer may be found, how did the violence shape the life of the perpetrators
and bystanders? What was the emotional weight of collective complicity? How did
individual sufferers cope and how did their experience resonate in their communities and their communities’ past? Although much is left unknown, it is the awareness to the complex reality of living with the plague and its consequences that Einbinder invokes.
As such, After the Black Death contributes methodologically to the analysis of
emotional attitudes and the manner in which modern psychological concepts may
be used in historical analysis. It also contributes a thought-provoking test case for
the enduring question of how to identify continuity and change in emotional structures; an issue that is also at the heart of Nicole Archambeau’s recent book Soul
under Siege: Stories of War, Plague, and Confession in Fourteenth-Century Provence,
which provides a complementary picture.
Einbinder has a profoundly attentive approach to her sources. In her unique
style, she both conveys the evocative language of the medieval texts and produces a
contemplative history on humanity and resilience. This book is a must read for
scholars studying and teaching the plague—not only because of its focus on the

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Jewish community which unwillingly played an important role in the social events
that followed its wake, but for its sensitive and inquisitive attempt to bring to the
fore the ways in which the plague, and historical events more broadly, imprint
people’s lives. Herein lies its even greater and more universal value.
NAAMA COHEN-HANEGBI

Tel Aviv University

MODERN EUROPEAN
Religion and Society at the Dawn of Modern Europe. Christianity Transformed. Bu
Rudolf Schlögl. Translated by Helen Imhoff. (London: Bloomsbury Academic. 2020. Pp. vi, 352. $120.00. ISBN: 9781350099579.)
This is a wide-ranging, theory driven-text that is founded on an immsense
breadth of reading in most western European languages. Rudolf Schlögl ‘s book is
not a text for the faint-hearted. It contains many insights, most plausible, others
less convincing, and there is no doubting his determination to establish his topic on
secure, coherent intellectual foundations, in this case, Christianity considered as a
“system” within European society, moving between the social structures of religion
and the semantics that articulate its contents. Schlögl is insistent: “religion must be
understood as a social phenomenon” (p. 2).
There are five chapters. The first considers the churches as part of aristocratic
society, and forms a competent guide and summary. The underlying claim is that
they could only be restructured in as much as society as a whole underwent a comparable transformation, which, of course, is the entry point for Chapter 2 on Christianity and civil society in the wake of the French Revolution. Schlögl makes the
familiar contention that the Revolution transferred sacrality into the political
sphere (p. 58); maybe, but in so doing it hardly emptied the organized confessions
of their sense of the sacred, indeed it is better seen as intensifying it. And while the
Revolution was engaging with new political forms the churches unavoidably did so.
To write that they were “bystanders” (p. 101) oversimplifies. There is coverage of
most European states, and the third chapter is strong on the subject of monarchy
and religion after 1815 as most restored régimes tried variously to repair the
damage done to their legitimacy over the previous generation. The long struggle
against Napoleonic France had brought clergy to endorse armed engagement with
few reservations. Schlögl overestimates the novelty of this attachment and, again,
one finds the occasional dubious generalization, such as “the military was slowly
displacing religion” (p. 126).
He moves onto “Christianity in modern [i.e,. nineteenth-century] society” in
Chapter 3. There are some insightful observations about the role of missionary societies and the way religion was moving outside the churches as the social framework
of the family became more important than the church community. Other scholars
might argue that they were complementary, especially for women. Schlögl endorses
the widely posited claim that Christianity became more feminine in this period as

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the number of female communities and congregations increased while the faith ran
up against “male ideals of moral autonomy and personal resposnibility”’ (p. 177)—
as though those values were necessarily in tension with Christian profession. Chapter 4 considers religion as culture. This is the nearest that Schlögl comes to treating
belief, and he begins with deism and theodicy moving on to the emergence of a historicized pluralization of the concept of religion. Hume, Vico, Voltaire, Rousseau,
Herder, and others are all cited in this interesting discussion. It will be no surprise
to readers at this point that Rudolf Schlögl considers that secularization is a valid
concept, that it exists and can be observed. For him religious meaning is essentially
a production, where the contingent is always in play. In short, the book will appeal
to those persuaded of the insights afforded by social-science models but the prose
in translation is dense and does not yield its insights easily. There are a few slips in
detail, but Schlögl’s essential grasp of the materials he deploys is never in doubt.
NIGEL ASTON

University of York

AMERICAN
The Course of God’s Providence: Religion, Health and the Body in Early America. By
Philippa Koch. (New York: New York University Press. 2021. Pp. xiv, 265.
$39.00. ISBN: 9781479806683.)
This is a book about cultural consensus and continuity, not contestation and
transformation. Against older secularization models that posited an eighteenthcentury paradigm shift from a religious world view to modern disenchantment,
Koch argues that traditional Protestant attitudes about God’s superintendence
over human affairs were remarkably unified, stable, and powerful throughout the
period—at least when early Americans contemplated and experienced sickness
and health. The book’s five chapters closely examine pastoral manuals, memoirs of
sickness, ministers and medicine, Philadelphia’s 1793 yellow fever epidemic, and
religious and medical views of maternity. Throughout she emphasizes the power
of providentialism: every illness is read as a sign of God’s particular purposes for
the sufferer.
With a keen eye for fine theological distinctions, Koch rescues the Pietist
Lutheran Samuel Urlsperger from contemporary charges that his writings on sickness had drifted from orthodoxy to “works righteousness,” attributing too much to
human effort (p. 37). Koch shows instead how he carefully balanced repentance and
the hope for faith through grace, portraying sickness as a gift reminding sinners of
their dependence upon God for redemption. She also rescues Calvinists from the
historians’ charge that they were fatalists in the face of physical ailments. Like other
Protestants, Calvinists such as Cotton Mather (who recommended inoculation)
saw at least some medical interventions as providentially ordained to assist the
soul’s healing work. For Koch, though, even believers refusing all medical care
because resigned to God’s will are being “active” rather than passive by interpreting
the meaning of their suffering (p. 5).

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Koch stresses throughout the persistent cultural power of the providential
framework: “A providential narrative of suffering was not easily overtaken in the
eighteenth century—not by grief, a new conception of heaven, a more benevolent
image of God, or, finally, the rejection of the theological doctrine of predestination” (p. 82). In her view, even those who doubted or challenged it remained in its
grip: “doubts and uncertainties could overwhelm observers of sickness and pain, but
their narratives returned always to God’s providence” (p. 85, emphasis added, and
see p. 80). She finds what she admits are “secular” accounts of epidemics as being
profoundly shaped by “familiar forms of Protestant sickness writing” (pp. 122,
124). Even the stark medical naturalism of some of the maternity manuals discussed in the fifth chapter is said to be undergirded by providentialism, though here
we see a moral penumbra of natural laws attributed to a more distant Creator rather
than the sort of the particular divine interventions described by Ulsperger, Mather,
or John Wesley.
The Course of God’s Providence should not be mistaken for a more general history
of providential thought in eighteenth-century British North America. It barely
glances at arguments about whether God was actively involved in the created order
outside of bodily sickness and health, speaking to his people with comets and earthquakes, bad harvests and battlefield victories. And whether the book describes a “significant consensus” (p. 9) on bodily and spiritual health in the broader population is
open to question. Koch’s focus is on Protestantism, and while comparisons, even
brief ones, to Catholic, Native, and African attitudes would have been welcome, she
does a very good job showing the similarities among Puritans, Lutherans, and
Methodists. Still, readers might hesitate in generalizing from her sources, which are
heavily weighted toward clergymen. Pious narratives preserved in the archives show
us devout believers who “lived these theologies” (p. 194), believers who were challenged but never broken by the cognitive dissonance of doctrines about God’s goodness and human suffering. Their providential frameworks are uncomplicated by the
folk supernaturalism we know persisted through the eighteenth century and mostly
untroubled by Enlightenment reformulations of the relationship between God and
nature. Nevertheless, the book is an important intervention at the intersection of the
histories of medicine and religion in early America.
Brown University

CHRISTOPHER GRASSO

Irish Nationalists in Boston: Catholicism and Conflict, 1900–1928. By Damien
Murray. (Washington: Catholic University of America Press. 2018. Pp. viii,
284. $75.00. ISBN: 9780813230016.)
Much good work has been done on the history of Irish American Catholic
support for Ireland’s struggle for independence in the 1910s and 1920s. Yet,
though we have long known that the experiences of Irish Catholics in America
have varied significantly from region to region or even city to city, few studies of
Irish American nationalism in this era have focused on the local history of the
movement. Damien Murray has written such a history, which not only smartly and

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thoroughly analyzes the distinctive nature of Boston’s Irish American nationalism
in the period, but as exceptional local histories like his often do, opens up important
new perspectives on the broader national movement in America.
Murray reveals, for example, how moderate parliamentary, Home Rule sentiment flourished in Boston—perhaps more than anywhere else in America—building on the political and religious accommodation Boston’s Irish Catholics had
forged with local, native stock, “Yankee” Protestants in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. The prevailing narrative in the history of Irish American
nationalism in this period has suggested that when events in Ireland caused Home
Rule to falter in America in 1914, the Clan Na Gael, physical- force revolutionary
nationalists, took control of Irish American nationalism and dominated it thereafter. Home Rule withered in Boston as it did elsewhere, but there the Clan was
not able to successfully replace it and create a “ mass revolutionary separatist movement” even after rebellion erupted in Ireland and the British cruelly executed its
leaders in 1916 (p. 89). Murray thus raises some important questions about how
broadly popular Clan-led Irish nationalism really was among Irish Americans
before the United States entered World War I. After the War ended, it would,
indeed, become a mass movement in Boston, but Murray finds that it was Cardinal
William O’Connell and his Catholic clergy, not the Clan leaders, who initially
made it so. Murray argues that O’Connell was worried about the possible infection
of the movement by socialism in the turbulent postwar years of widespread labor
unrest in America and the potential dangers of spreading radicalism following the
Russian Revolution.
Murray’s most important contribution to the study of Irish American nationalism in this era, however, is his fresh take on Eamon De Valera’s impact on Irish
American nationalism, especially on the Irish leader’s fight with Daniel Cohalan
and John Devoy of the Clan na Gael over control of the Irish nationalist movement
in America. This conflict is sometimes depicted as a battle of clashing, outsized personalities, or in other accounts as a “diaspora” battle pitting the “Irish” De Valera,
who had come to America in 1919 seeking support for the Irish revolution, against
the “Americans,” Cohalan and Devoy of the Clan na Gael, who had dominated
Irish American nationalism since 1914 and run it through their front organization,
the Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF), since 1916.
There is some truth in both these contentions, but Murray offers a new and
intriguing perspective on this struggle. De Valera would take over the FOIF in
Massachusetts and make it his “power base’ in his fight with Devoy and Cohalan.
Inspired by De Valera, the FOIF there grew faster and drew on a wider variety of
supporters including, interestingly, substantial numbers of women, than Cohalan’s
and Devoy’s FOIF in New York.
De Valera finally broke with Cohalan and Devoy in the fall of 1920, abandoning the FOIF and creating his own organization, the Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic (AARIR). He had priorities different from those of the

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two Clan leaders. He wanted to gain American recognition of the new Irish
Republic and raise money to carry on the Revolution in Ireland, while they focused
on defeating Woodrow Wilson’s proposed League of Nations. As Murray’s study
of the movement in Massachusetts reveals, however, De Valera also understood
that he was more popular among Irish Americans than Cohalan and Devoy, and
his support was more representative of Irish America’s diversity than theirs. The
AARIR thus quickly grew to mammoth size, while Cohalan’s and Devoy’s FOIF,
withered away. Notably, women were presidents of nine out of the twenty-one new
AARIR councils formed in Massachusetts, but women would also be prominent in
the Association’s leadership in Connecticut, Ohio, Missouri, New York, New
Jersey, and California.
As good as Murray’s book is, it is sometimes difficult to get a clear fix on the
major social divisions within Boston’s nationalist movement in his painstaking
reconstruction of a complicated tale. Some episodes in the story such as American
Progressivism’s impact on Boston’s Irish also deserve better attention.
Yet these minor criticisms should not detract from Murray’s great achievement. The book is exceptionally well researched in a wide variety of sources, including an extraordinary number of private manuscript collections in both the United
States and Ireland. Again, however, it is the insights he has taken from this
research that makes the book such an exciting contribution to the study of Irish and
Irish American nationalism as well as the broader history of the Irish in America.
The Catholic University of America (Retired)

TIMOTHY J. MEAGHER

The Fathers Refounded: Protestant Liberalism, Roman Catholic Modernism, and the
Teaching of Ancient Christianity in Early Twentieth-century America. By Elizabeth A. Clark. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2019. Pp. viii,
440. $79.95. ISBN 9780812250718.)
By the late nineteenth century the study of history had taken its place as a
proper academic subject and was being integrated into the curricula of major
American universities. The profound impact of History’s new status as a critical scientific discipline, rather than a “faithful” chronicle of the past, is the immediate
context of Elizabeth A. Clark’s account of what Philip Schaff, in an 1892 letter to
Arthur C. McGiffert, described as a “theological revolution” unfolding in the leading American seminaries and divinity schools of the day. Specifically, the critical
history of early Christianity and the New Testament was threatening to displace
traditional theology and doctrinal studies. What would it mean to acknowledge
that the eternal truths revealed in Scripture and preserved in Christian thought and
practice were not “fallen from heaven,” as it were, but rather the product of the contingent, contentious, contradictory processes of history?
Clark addresses the question through a close study of three prominent professors who made the historical turn: the liberal Protestant theologian McGiffert, suc-

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cessor to Schaff as professor of church history at Union Theological Seminary; the
self-proclaimed Protestant modernist Shirley Jackson Case, professor of New Testament at the University of Chicago Divinity School; and, most intriguing, the
Catholic modernist (and former priest), George LaPiana, who arrived in the
United States from his native Italy in 1913, began teaching at Harvard in 1916, and
served as Morrison Professor of Church History at Harvard Divinity School from
1926 to 1948. (LaPiana thought little of the short-lived struggle of his U.S.-born
counterparts to “modernize” American Catholicism.)
Despite their significantly different backgrounds and institutional settings, all
three men, Clark demonstrates, moved well beyond the conventional denominational practice of teaching history as a form of confessional apologetics, and
adopted a developmentalist paradigm to help explain what they saw as early Christianity’s remarkable and rapid evolution from small Jewish sect to the official religion of imperial Rome. Among the avant-garde ideas one or another of the trio
advanced was the then-controversial view that early Christianity had quickly
escaped its moorings in Judaizing forms of the Jesus movement by adapting to and
borrowing from the Greco-Roman salvation cults, the imperial cult and the “mystery religions.”
Placing her subjects at different points along the spectrum of Liberalism and
Modernism, Clark summarizes and synthesizes the voluminous literature on these
influential currents in American theology, drawing on the insightful analyses of the
American religious and intellectual historians William Hutchison, Gary Dorrien,
and David Hollinger, among others, to underscore the distinctively American
appropriation of the European Enlightenment tradition, whereby the relevance of
Christianity did not disappear under the pressure of science and critical studies, but
was preserved through the liberalization of doctrine and biblical interpretation. The
role of denominations as voluntary, community-building mediating institutions
between family and the larger society also “Americanized” the liberal-modernist
impulse. The Enlightenment, as Hollinger put it, “was extremely engaged within,
rather than merely beyond the churches” (quoted, p. 35).
Rejecting the notion of Tradition as fixed and stable, McGiffert, Case, and
LaPiana called for the subordination of theological commitments to the findings of
critical historical scholarship; in so doing, Clark writes, they “challenged the
authority structures of their respective communions” (p. 324). The three professors
shared the modernist tendency to reformulate the language of creed and confession
(and for Case and LaPiana, even their meanings) to address the needs and worldview of the twentieth century.
The Fathers Refounded makes historiographical contributions on two fronts.
Filling in gaps in the historical record, Clark excavates and cobbles together scattered sources to bring an admirable level of coherence to the profiles of the lesser
known LaPiana and the relatively understudied Case (who left little in the
archives). And her treatment of McGiffert, a figure more familiar to historians of

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American religion, clarifies his relationship to the disciples of the German
Lutheran theologian Albrecht Ritschl by underscoring the pragmatism at the core
of the American appropriation of the Enlightenment. In addition, second, Clark’s
inclusion of a distinguished Roman Catholic historian among the leading Christian
developmentalists of the early twentieth century lends a welcome comparative lens
to the study of this crucial period in the maturation of the academic study of religion. One would welcome similar attempts to de-denominationalize the story of
American Christianity in the twentieth century.
University of Notre Dame

SCOTT APPLEBY

Chicago Católico: Making Catholic Parishes Mexican. By Deborah E. Kanter. [Latinos in Chicago and the Midwest.] (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois
Press. 2020. Pp. xiv, 218. $110.00 cloth; $2495 paper. ISBN 978-0252042973 cloth; 978-025-0848833 paper).
The field of Chicano/Latino Catholic history is significantly expanding, as
more historians come to realize that they must consider the role of religion—both
in its institutional and popular forms—in order fully to understand the Chicano/
Latino experience. Deborah E. Kanter’s study of Mexican Catholicism in Chicago
from the early twentieth century to the 1970s is a major addition to this field in several ways. First, very few such studies have been done for the Midwest, including
Chicago. Second, it departs from the typical institutional history (without neglecting the role of institutional Catholicism). Instead, it focuses on the role that laypeople played in integrating Mexican religious devotions and practices into parishes
that were initially dominated by Eastern and Southern Europeans. Third, it is an
intergenerational study that reveals an evolution of Mexican Catholicism: from the
generation of Mexican immigrants, in the 1920s, to their children—the MexicanAmerican generation—in the 1940s and 1950s. Finally, although it acknowledges
that Mexican Catholicism represented a type of resistance to assimilation, it pays
greater attention to religion as an affirmation of Mexican Catholic identity and culture. Through this affirmation, Mexican and Mexican American Catholics were
able to adjust, accommodate and integrate within national parishes formerly populated by European immigrant groups. This was particularly the case in the Near
West Side, and later in the Pilsen district in Chicago. St. Francis Church in the
Near West Side went from being a European church to what many considered to
be a “Mexican Cathedral.”
It is worth reflecting a bit more on why it is so refreshing that Kanter’s book
goes beyond the immigrant generation. Most immigrant histories generally focus o
nly on the first generation, especially with respect to European ethnics. Kanter,
however, correctly understands that due to racism against people of Mexican
descent this ethnic experience was unlike that of European immigrants, in that
Mexicans were not allowed to integrate into the dominant white society within a
generation. Desirable as cheap labor in the steel mills, stockyards, railroad yards,
and sundry services, Mexicans whether as immigrants or as the second-generation

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experienced racialization that tagged them as members of an inferior “Mexican
race.” Consequently, the second generation, while experiencing some level of educational mobility, still largely continued to live in the Mexican barrios. Although
limited in economic opportunities, the second generation still underwent a process
of transculturation whereby they brought together their parents’ Mexican culture
and the European immigrant cultures they experienced in their neighborhoods, as
well as American popular culture through movies and music, to produce a Mexican-American culture.
This transculturation impacted their religious experience in the Catholic
parishes. Instead of clashing with previous European forms of Catholicism in
parishes that were increasingly becoming Mexican, the second-generation fused
elements of the two to generate a particular Mexican-American Catholic experience. Of note is an important discussion of how World War II affected Mexican
American young men who went off to war, and how they received support from
their Mexican Catholic parishes through special services for them (in particular, by
encouraging those who remained to maintain contact with the servicemen in their
bases both in the U.S. and overseas). Kanter’s focus on the second generation significantly expands the importance of her study.
Kanter concludes by pointing out that in 2018 misas en español were celebrated
at 130 parishes in Chicago, which represented 38% of all parishes. Her wellresearched study and well-written narrative helps us to understand the factors that
led to—as she puts it—Chicago Católico.
University of California, Santa Barbara

MARIO T. GARCÍA

Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front. By Charles R. Gallagher. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2021. Pp. 336. $29.95.
ISBN: 9780674983717.)
It’s somewhat rare to come across a scholarly book that makes for truly thrilling
reading, but Charles R. Gallagher’s Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the
Christian Front fits the bill. In eleven fast-paced chapters, Gallagher reveals the previously unexplored history of the American Catholic laypeople and priests who
formed the Christian Front, a militant organization of far-right anti-Communists
and Nazi sympathizers. Galvanized by the persecution of Christians in Russia,
Mexico, and Spain, the Front blamed so-called “Judeo-Bolshevism” (p. 33) and
sought to eradicate both Judaism and Communism in America. From its founding
in 1938 by Catholics in New York and Boston, the Front attracted thousands of followers, who turned out in droves to hear the leaders’ anti-Semitic rants. It also galvanized antifascist opponents, who alerted the FBI and British intelligence agents to
the organization and ultimately helped lead to its final dissolution in 1945.
The book takes readers to a variety of places in the 1930s and 1940s, from
Flatbush, New York, where John Cassidy—radicalized by the inflammatory rheto-

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ric of Father Charles Coughlin – gathered guns and ammunition in order to launch
an (ultimately thwarted) violent rebellion; to Copley Square in Boston, where the
magnetic and handsome Francis Moran recruited devoted followers, including
many women, in order to build the Front into a nonviolent mass movement. The
narrative also touches down in Father Coughlin’s Detroit, Franco’s Spain, Hitler’s
Germany, the FBI’s Washington D.C., and even briefly to various Nazi havens in
South America. The book’s chapters are populated by British writers and intelligence agents, a German spy, Irish-American Catholics on the right and left, Gmen, right-wing policemen, and even a brave female Catholic antifascist activist,
Frances Sweeney, who became a thorn in the side of the Front.
Despite attracting significant attention, surveillance, and news coverage at the
time, the story of the Christian Front has largely been forgotten. According to Gallagher, there are two key reasons for this. First, the very existence of the Front does
not fit within the overarching narrative of Catholic history as espoused by the U.S.
Church and some historians of American Catholicism, in which American Catholics,
after facing persecution and marginalization from non-Catholics in the first centuries
of U.S. history, persisted and prevailed to become a part of the democratic political
mainstream by the twentieth century. This assimilationist and triumphant
trajectory—while not wholly untrue—leaves little room for the development of a radicalized, anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, and violent Catholic mass movement.
The second reason for the disappearance of the Christian Front from historical
memory is that historians of the far right can sometimes overlook the role of religion. Despite Catholic contemporaries who denied that the Christian Front was a
truly religious movement, its leaders were inspired by the theology of the Mystical
Body of Christ, which held that violence against Catholics in one place must be
met with resistance from Catholics everywhere; as well as by Catholic Action,
which calls lay Catholics into action to defend their faith. As interpreted by the
Christian Front, these two strands of theology justified anti-Semitism and even
violence. (It is important to note, however, that more moderate Catholics also
engaged with these theological beliefs, but did not deploy them in such radical or
violent ways.)
By challenging prevailing historical narratives and incorporating a theological
analysis into his investigation of the Christian Front, Gallagher offers readers a
comprehensive and compelling history of a little-known right-wing Catholic
movement in the United States. Nazis of Copley Square is accessible, and will make
an engaging textbook for undergraduates and graduate students. It will also be
useful and relevant for scholars of similar movements around the world – for example, Action Française, Mexico’s Unión Nacional Sinarquista, or Brazilian Integralist Action. The study of the histories of such seemingly fringe groups is particularly
urgent now. If we ignore them, as Gallagher points out in his conclusion, we are
shocked “when those principles reappear in the mouths of citizens” (p. 249).
The Catholic University of America

JULIA YOUNG

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423

The Story of Latino Protestants in the United States. By Juan Francisco Martinez.
(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2018. Pp.
xxiv, 240. $25.45 paperback. ISBN:9780802873189.)
One of the first things that came to my mind when reading Juan Francisco
Martinez’ The Story of Latino Protestants in the United States was Timothy
Matovina’s Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America’s Largest Church.
Although Martinez does not reference Matovina’s text, there is a similar project at
work in both: the effort to trace out the influence and importance of a specific
Christian tradition within the lives of an ethnic community living in the United
States. Whereas Matovina focuses on the influence of Roman Catholicism on
Latino communities and those communities on Roman Catholicism, Martinez
examines the diverse ways in which Protestantism has influenced Latino communities who have come to live in the United States during different waves of migration
and those who have lived here for generations.
Following an initial chapter that discusses terminology and current conditions
confronting Latinos, and a second that frames the larger context within which
Latino Protestantism has developed in an American milieu, Latino Protestants
shifts to a more straightforward historiographical approach. Martinez at one point
notes that at the time of writing his book there was only one other major attempt
to provide an historiography of Latino/a religious experience in the United States;
it was a subject that was well due for further examination. Consequently, in the
next six chapters, Martinez traces the Latino Protestant experience in the United
States, beginning with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) to the emergence
of Latino Protestantism as a social and political force in the first two decades of the
twentieth century. Each chapter focuses on some of the key historical developments
that shaped Latino Protestantism in the period under question, examines the
shifting denominational allegiances that marked different periods, and ends with a
brief overview of some of the key Latino Protestant figures of that time.
The diversity of Protestant denominations and their influence on various
Latino populations complicates Martinez’ efforts to better understand “Latino
Protestantism.” There are not always reliable data to chart membership roles or to
trace the rise and fall of small religious communities. This is particularly true the
further back in time one looks. The differences within Protestantism also shape
communities in divergent ways. Likewise, the use of the descriptive Latino/a to
cover diverse populations from a variety of countries that were formed by at times
overlapping but different political, social, and economic traditions is inherently
problematic. No singular category does justice to such diversity.
Martinez is both aware of these difficulties and recognizes on more than one
occasion the deficiencies of trying to analyze a “Latino/a” experience under an
umbrella term like “Protestantism.” Nevertheless, he probably does as good a job as
anyone can with the data available to him. Given its breadth of focus, it is a text
that is probably best used as a primer for those trying to get an understanding of

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the Latino Protestant experience in the United States. It could very easily be widely
used in an introductory course on American religion at any university or college. It
could also provide a helpful springboard for researchers who are trying to drill
deeper into a more narrowly tailored aspect of the Latino Protestant experience.
However used, The Story of Latino Protestants in the United States is an important
resource that helps more clearly define American Protestantism and the Latino
experience in the United States.
TODD SCRIBNER

Independent Scholar

LATIN AMERICAN
Tongues of Fire: Language and Evangelization in Colonial Mexico. By Nancy Farriss.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2018. Pp. xxi, 409. $99.00. ISBN 978-019088-410-9.)
Tongues of Fire is Nancy Ferriss’s magnum opus on the complex process of language acquisition and translation by European missionaries in their evangelization
efforts during the first century of Mexico’s colonial rule. Unlike the apostles’ miraculous linguistic acquisition bestowed by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and
alluded to in the title of this book, communication among the missionaries and
natives posed intellectual challenges and spurred a great degree of creativity and
experimentation. Ferriss’s rich research and sound arguments reveal that intercultural communication was an intricate process that ranged from nonverbal expressions to the creation of subtle written forms in the vernacular and Native languages
developed by pioneering Dominican missionaries for conversion in the Zapotec
and Mixtec areas.
The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 analyzes the early processes of intercultural communication between Europeans and Natives in Mexico. Nonverbal
communication through signs, gestures and visual images was limited. Nahuatlatos,
a class of interpreters that arose while the majority of the population were monolingual speakers, became essential in both the official and unofficial life of the
colony (p. 36). These Native mediators were people “in the middle” whose loyalties
to Spaniards were often questioned. Monolingual preachers ran the risk of unwittingly disseminating unfaithful translations; the use of Nahuatlatos for interpreting
confessions was declared inappropriate. Competent missionaries had to acquire linguistic competence in one or more Native languages for successful evangelization.
Part 2 begins with a study of the challenges that evangelization in the vernacular Native languages posed. Some priests considered Latin to be the only
appropriate language for Christian preaching; others argued that Spanish was an
adequate medium of conversion. However, a lack of consistent clerical resources
made both approaches unattainable. Nahuatl was also proposed as a potential
lingua franca, but translation into the Native languages of Oaxaca proved difficult
and ineffective. Even though linguistic acquisition of Native languages was an

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arduous task, however “to save Indians’ souls the missionaries had to communicate with them directly in their own language” (p. 83). To achieve this, a project
of collaboration emerged between missionaries and young noble Natives. Priests
acquired linguistic competence from the young Natives, while the Native students in turn learned the skills of alphabetic literacy and Christian catechism.
This educated Native elite helped the missionaries to develop artes, vocabularios,
cartillas (basic catechism), doctrinas (written compilation of church doctrine) and
confessionarios (written manuals to guide priests in questioning confessions).
These Native interpreters attained the closest linguistic and cultural equivalents
to translate the catechisms into the Native languages. In addition, written guides
were developed to help priests and missionaries who were not fluent in the
Indigenous languages.
Part 3 examines collaboration between Native translators as the “noncommissioned officers in the spiritual conquest” and priests who worked together to evangelize other Natives (p. 142). Recitation and memorization were considered an
adequate conversion method for illiterate Natives. However, this raises the question of the extent to which this method succeeded in preventing parallel Native
religious practices. Nancy Ferriss points out that measuring compliance is impossible due to the lack of written accounts, since many macehuales (Indigenous commoners) were illiterate.
The last section, “Lost and Found in Translation,” assesses the complex
process of translation between linguistically and cosmologically diverse systems.
Translation of abstract terms and concepts (e.g., “angel,” “sacrament,” “grace,”
“baptism”) presented enormous challenges. Tools for translation designed to
convey accuracy or intelligibility were sometimes used to fill the lexical and cultural
conceptual gaps. More difficult were the translations of cosmological, spatial concepts (e.g., “heaven” “hell”) for which the art of persuasion was implemented using
ritual oratories originated in the Native languages and rhetorical Native genres
(e.g., huehuetlatolli—ancestral and parental advice on how to live a good life and
behave in the society; and libiana—Zapotec ceremonial or courtly speech, also
applied to Christian sermons).
Nancy Farriss argues that the enterprise of evangelization was inevitably a syncretic blending in which translation was not only an engine of syncretism, but also
a collaboration with the Natives who also had agency. Evangelization thus created
a path to an Indigenized Christianity during the first century after the conquest.
Tongues of Fire is a well-researched, interdisciplinary work of scholarship. It
will provide a rich source for scholars of Colonial Mexico studying doctrinal evangelization and the art of intercultural communication and translation. The book is
written in a clear and accessible style that will also be suitable to a general audience
interested in the topic.
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

ROCÍO CORTÉS

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Alone at the Altar: Single Women and Devotion in Guatemala, 1670–1870. By Brianna Leavitt-Alcántara. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018. Pp. 312.
$65.00. ISBN: 9781503603684.)
Brianna Leavitt-Alcántara’s 2018 Alone at the Altar: Single Women and Devotion in Guatemala, 1670–1870 delivers an intriguing narrative of Catholic laywomen, the majority of whom were non-elite, who actively constructed space
within a closed, patriarchal, religious world. The core interrogative that drives this
research is the nature of women’s agency at a moment of significant political, social,
and economic change. The author’s finding that non-elites and women of color
forged new patterns of devotion in an urbanizing world deepens this significant
contribution to scholarship on the late colonial and early independence periods in
Guatemala and in the Americas.
Leavitt-Alcántara’s analysis captures three key moments that frame her argument about reform within the Church: first, women’s expanded financial role in
devotional endowments; second, educational reforms that vaulted non-elite women
into literate, urban circles; and third, visionary reforms with political implications
for the emerging Guatemalan nation. Put briefly, women in Guatemala expanded
their role in religious life, education, and piety. Both elite and non-elite women
demonstrated agility when confronting a religious institution that was slow to
adjust to the rapid political and economic changes of the era; they also displayed a
clever stubbornness when they encountered obstacles intended to snuff out supposedly “mystical” and popular religious practices. Women engaged in religious life
both as agents of change and as religious gatekeepers. Women of faith built
alliances with key clergymen from both the regular and secular ranks as they
expanded their network of influence and affiliation.
Given that Guatemala’s Catholic Church Archive (Archivo Histórico Arquidiocesano de Guatemala) remained closed during her tenure of research, LeavittAlcántara adroitly assembled these key documents from Guatemala’s Central
America Archive and other key public and private libraries in Guatemala, Mexico,
and in the US. The documents vividly demonstrate that single women, many of
color and outside traditional circles of wealth, worked independently to endow
devotional practices and chapels.
Leavitt-Alcántara offers two additional significant contributions to the historiography of Guatemala and Latin America. First, she demonstrates that women
adjusted quickly to the relocation of Guatemala’s capital city after the destruction
of the old capital (now called Antigua Guatemala) in 1773 and the construction of
present-day Guatemala City in 1776. Second, she describes how women allied with
clergy for the creation of four schools for poor girls. In particular, Leavitt-Alcántara
highlights how Guatemala’s City’s Teacher College for native women, possibly the
first of its kind in Spanish America, “challenged entrenched racial ideologies,” a
stunning “critical shift” toward native laywomen’s capacity to serve as teachers, role
models, and spiritual leaders (p.104).

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Leavitt-Alcántara’s fifth chapter on “The controversial ecstasy of Sor María
Teresa Aycinena” is a real page-turner. She narrates how Sor María Teresa Aycinena, the daughter of one of the leading Creole families, became a living messenger
for the Divine. She produced mystical images with “stigmatic blood, such as hearts
and crosses, on handkerchiefs” and many affirmed the healing power of these items
(p. 134). Her experiences escalated to receiving angelic letters written to the Archbishop concerning needed reform in the convent and advice on engaging local
political controversies. In doing so, she challenged religious authorities (in particular the principal interlocutors of the Spanish Inquisition), while simultaneously
cultivating a strong relationship with the Archbishop, who defended her religious
autonomy. The Archbishop’s defiance of Spanish authorities, Leavitt-Alcántara
argues, laid the groundwork for an incipient religious and political separation from
Spain that would ultimately herald Guatemala’s independence in 1821.
With her analysis of how a multiethnic coalition of faithful laywomen participated in the forging of both a church community and an emerging nation in the
momentous eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Leavitt-Alcántara joins a stellar
group of young historians who have used new or overlooked archival sources in
order to make Guatemalan history come alive.
The University of Mississippi, Oxford

DOUGLASS SULLIVAN-GONZÁLEZ

Citizens and Believers: Religion and Politics in Revolutionary Jalisco, 1900–1930. By
Robert Curley. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018. Pp.
400. $65.00. ISBN: 9780826355379.)
In his book, Citizens and Believers: Religion and Politics in Revolutionary Jalisco,
1900–1930, Robert Curley offers us a new way to understand the role played by
Catholics in the construction of contemporary Mexico. He examines the politicization of Catholics, who have been ignored by much of the historiography on the
Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920. The title he chose for this book is significant.
The concept of citizens and believers might seem unremarkable for readers in countries where a secular age allows for the free expressions of belief. Yet in contemporary Mexico, a debate still exists about whether politics and religion can coexist, and
Robert Curley’s book allows us to understand the roots of that debate. In the book’s
eight chapters the reader will find one of the most precise, accurate, and comprehensive examinations of Catholic thinking in western Mexico. His analysis of
clergy and religious, lay Catholic activists, and Cristeros highlights the action and
martyrdom of this period and avoids hagiography, while also remaining faithful to
the voices of diverse historical actors, including peasants, workers, women, men,
and youth.
Throughout the book, Curley explains the complex reality of political participation of Catholic citizens who fought first for a political alternative to Porfirio
Díaz, then subsequently against the anticlericalism promoted by some of the revolutionary leaders, and finally in the Cristero War of 1926–1929. The first two chap-

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ters, “Religion and Society in Social Catholicism” and “Christian Democracy in
Mexico,” depict the organization and politics of Catholics during the final years of
Díaz’s regime. That context allows the reader fully to understand the particularities
of the archdiocese of Guadalajara. The other six chapters are focused on the state
of Jalisco. Robert Curley shows us political Catholicism in Jalisco scaled to national
and even transnational levels. The third, fourth, and fifth chapters (“The Limits of
Catholic Party Rule in Jalisco;” “The Battles for Jalisco;” and “Local Politics and the
Mexican Revolution in Jalisco”) are mainly focused on the second decade of the
twentieth century. As Curley argues, during these years Catholic politics were more
intense in Jalisco than in other parts of the Mexican Republic. In the final three
chapters (“Work and Religion in Post-Revolutionary Mexico”; “José Guadalupe
Zuno and the Collapse of Public Space”; and “Anacleto González Flores and the
Martyrs’ Plebiscite”) Curley’s analysis helps us to understand why Jalisco would
become the land of so many Catholic martyrs.
Curley’s study uses national, parish, diocesan, and Vatican archival materials
in order to examine Catholic politics during one of the most fascinating periods of
modern Mexican history. He did not limit his investigation to the Mexican Revolution or the Cristero Rebellion, but explains deeper roots of a new political modernity, which he calls ‘political Catholicism.’ Curley also demonstrates how political
Catholicism changed over time: it was at first an open movement that engaged with
revolutionaries in debates over citizenship. Later, it grew combative and intransigent toward the revolutionary project. For many, it became a revolutionary movement in its own right, first led by men, but becoming open to the active participation of women. The role of women in politics and armed resistance still merits
further investigation, but Curley’s study offers an entry point for analysis. Curley
also shows us the roots of transnational Catholicism by exploring the relationship
between Guadalajara’s archbishop, Francisco Orozco y Jimenez, and Francis
Clement Kelley, the influential Bishop of Oklahoma City and the founder of the
Catholic Church Extension Society. Curley’s study also challenges historians’ tendency to focus on Europe when exploring concepts as important as secularization,
laicization, and modernization. Along with Steven Andes, Adrian Bantjes, Elisa
Cardenas, Julia Preciado, and Julia Young, Curley is part of a new generation of
historians whose work is essential reading for those who wish to understand the
unique political landscape of contemporary Mexico.
Prepa Ibero Ciudad de México/CEHILA

YVES BERNARDO ROGER SOLIS NICOT

Social Justice and the Sacred: Exploring the Thought of St. Alberto Hurtado, S.J. Edited
by Scott FitzGibbon, John Gavin, S.J., and Fernanda Soza. (Philadelphia: Saint
Joseph’s University Press. 2021. Pp. 212. $35.00. ISBN: 9780916101091.)
There are few figures more important in the history of the Catholic Church in
Chile than Alberto Hurtado (1901–1952). One of only two canonized Chilean
saints, Hurtado entered the Chilean province of the Society of Jesus in 1923 and
yet would complete most of his Jesuit formation in Europe. Returning to Chile in

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429

1936 as a newly ordained priest with a doctorate from Louvain, Hurtado embarked
upon a broad and vigorous spiritual, intellectual, and social apostolate. Within a
period of roughly fifteen years until his death in 1952, he authored eleven books
and dozens of articles in spirituality and social ethics. He founded the journal Mensaje to address social issues from a Catholic perspective. He established a new
Catholic organization to assist labor unions, the Acción Sindical Chilena, and perhaps most notably, he founded the Hogar de Cristo, or the “home of Christ,” which
remains one of the largest and most active charitable foundations in Chile today.
Despite his prolific authorship and undeniable impact, however, there remains a
paucity of scholarship on Hurtado in the English language. For this reason alone,
this rich and diverse compilation of academic essays on Hurtado, which is the fruit
of a conference on his life and thought held at Boston College in 2018, makes a
welcome contribution.
Yet as this volume amply demonstrates, there are several deeper reasons that
Hurtado merits our sustained attention. In an illuminative and nuanced essay
placed near the outset of this collection, Fernanda Soza provides the historical
context for Hurtado’s work and ministry. He lived through a period of social and
political upheaval in which increasing inequity provoked increased conflict
between rival ideologies. While such polarities were not unique to the Chilean
context and may even remind us of our own, the profile of Hurtado emerges as
more distinctly exceptional. Few figures have combined academic research, public
advocacy, and direct social action on behalf of the poor with such inspired, discerning spiritual vision. Even as Hurtado’s devotion to personal charity on behalf
of those in need was a fundamental constant of his life, Samuel Fernández, in a
well-documented essay analyzing the development of Hurtado’s thought, illustrates how the saint became gradually more committed to structural reforms of a
political and economic nature. He advanced markedly progressive positions on the
right to education, the right to adequate “housing, the right to unionize and strike,
the family wage, and the right to social security” (p. 50). His approach was “integrative rather than dialectical” (p. 93), however. In Hurtado’s last major work,
Moral Social, which was first published posthumously in Spanish in 1952 and
recently translated and published in English by Soza and Scott FitzGibbon, Hurtado emphasizes that transformation must come both for individual human beings
and for the collective structures and society in which they live, all of which are
called to be conformed to Christ.
Here the distinctiveness of Hurtado’s contribution also rises in relief. In a
deeply insightful final essay, John Gavin explains how the mystery of theosis, or the
participation of human beings in the supernatural life of God in Christ, provides
the theological and spiritual backdrop to all of Hurtado’s writings and endeavors.
As emphasized by the nouvelle théologie to which Hurtado was introduced during
his formation in Europe, the end not only of the human person but of all human
society finds its fulfillment only in this mystery of deification, as within the communion of saints and the body of Christ. Here, what Hurtado describes as a sentido
or actitud social, as that which moves us to “seek justice in a broken world,” and the

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actitud catolica, as that which moves us by grace towards deifying communion, converge in Christ (p. 170).
Hurtado not only wrote of this mystery but put it into practice on a broad
scale. Several of the essays in this volume recount a pivotal moment in which Hurtado, finding a desperate homeless man under a bridge and realizing there was
nowhere to take him, felt impelled to found Hogar de Cristo, decrying that Cristo no
tiene hogar! (Christ has no home!). As M. Soledad del Villar and Francisco Jiménez
highlight in two poignant chronicles of the final years of Hurtado’s life, the christological convergence of his actitud social and actitud católica thereby becomes especially concrete in what Hurtado called the sentido del pobre. In a final testament
written days before his death, Hurtado so entrusted one last wish to the Chilean
people: “to create an environment of true love and respect for the poor because the
poor person is Christ” (p. 81).
While this collection possesses scattered typographical errors and a few of its
foreign-language essays lose some of their rhetorical force in translation, it effectively enables the life and thought of Alberto Hurtado to speak with striking contemporaneity and freshness. One hopes that it will prove but a forerunner of further
research and translation of this distinctly compelling saint from the twentieth-century and the Americas.
Boston College

HENRY SHEA, S.J.

Notes and Comments
ASSOCIATION NEWS
The Executive Committee of the American Catholic Historical Association is
pleased to announce that the ACHA has received a Sustaining the Humanities
Through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) grant from the American Historical
Association and National Endowment for the Humanities. The $75,000 award will
help change the calculus of current relations between historians, religious archives,
and Native communities by fostering conversation and collaboration between these
constituencies and to promote and secure greater access to records on Native
American Boarding Schools (NABS).
This announcement coincides with a call for participation in the ACHA’s
phased implementation of the grant. In addition to selected participants, we seek
members of the groups mentioned who are interested in the accessibility and development of the historical record on NABS. We started assembling participants at
the spring meeting of the ACHA, which took place at the University of Scranton,
April 22–23, 2022.
The project will unfold in phases. The first phase involves a selection of six to
eight participants for a series of three non-public Zoom forums between historians,
archivists, and Native American leaders to help identify some of the problems
scholars have faced in their work on NABS. The central theme of these kickoff conversations will be accessibility.
The second phase will involve teams of historians, journalists, archivists, and
Native American community leaders doing on-site research. The selection of at
least three metropolitan locations has been made to increase the number of repositories that could potentially be accessed.
Finally, a capstone, two-day public conference in conjunction with the Spring
2023 ACHA meeting is envisioned to summarize some of the key issues that promote or hinder archival access or communication between stakeholders, and widen
the aperture for future steps on research methods, collaborative prospects, and publication of initial findings.
In addition to the advancement of historical knowledge through increased
accessibility to archival documentation and networking, participants will also
receive a stipend. The ACHA, therefore, appeals to potential candidates for inclusion in this project:

431

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NOTES AND COMMENTS
• among its membership,
• among historians of the Native American experience, both at the graduate
and professional levels,
• among archivists of Catholic institutions whose collections bear on
NABS—whether religious, diocesan, or university-affiliated,
• and among Native American communities, including those involved in
Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, archives, or museums.

A five-person working group has been charged with implementing the grant. These
include:
• Maka Black Elk, secretary, Native American Boarding School Healing
Coalition and Director, Truth, and Healing, Red Cloud Indian School.
• Elisabeth Davis, Outreach Librarian, Rosemont College.
• Jack Downey, Newman Professor of Catholic Studies, University of
Rochester.
• Katie Holscher, Professor of Catholic Studies, University of New Mexico.
• Patrick Hayes, Archivist for the Redemptorist Archives, Philadelphia, is
serving as the coordinator.
In the aftermath of the revelations about the discovery in May 2021 of over
1,000 graves at the former Canadian indigenous school at Kamloops, the American
Catholic Historical Association committed to righting the historical record on
Native American Boarding Schools in the United States. In the wake of the US
Secretary of the Interior Deborah Haaland’s call last June to “recover the history”
of these schools, diocesan and religious archives are taking stock of boarding school
records in their collections. This situation calls, with urgency, for conversations
between stakeholders about what archival accessibility looks like.
Further inquiries and responses to this call for participants may be made
to Patrick Hayes at pjhayesphd@gmail.com or 347-325-0926.

CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS
The Istituto Sangalli of Floence will sponsor a summer workshop on religious
orders to be held in Rome from 13th to 17th June 2022. The seminar will consist
of morning lectures, workshops on documents, and guided tours to the central
archives of the religious orders and their educational institutions. The workshop
will offer a multi-disciplinary approach to the role played by the religious orders
and their impact on a global scale. The participants will learn how to identify, read,
and understand the different kinds of documents preserved therein. There will be
ten registrations reserved to archivists, museum curators, anthropologists, and
established scholars who are currently working on global Catholicism, and up to
five registrations, at a facilitated cost, reserved for master students, not yet
graduated nor enrolled in a Ph.D. program.

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433

For anyone interested, information and costs can be download here (we kindly
ask you to spread the news forward to anyone who can be interested): https://
www.istitutosangalli.it/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Summer-SeminarReligious-Orders_2022.pdf. For further information, please wrtie to Sofia
Sbardellati at La Segreteria dell’Istituto, Piazza di San Firenze 3, 50122 Firenze,
Italia or email her at segreteria@istitutosangalli.it; or www.istitutosangalli.it;
www.facebook.com/ istitutosangalli; twitter.com/Sangallistituto.
The Folger Institute, in partnership wth Queen’s University of Belfast, is
offering a workshop on “Teaching Intermediate Paleography” directed by
Crawford Gribben, Claire McNulty, and Kathleen Miller, with Heather Wolfe.
This weeklong intensive course offers up to a dozen intermediate and advanced
paleographers the opportunity to enhance their paleography skills, acquire
strategies for teaching paleography at the graduate and advanced undergraduate
levels, and visit Irish and British archives and collections to pursue their own
research interests. The week begins at Queen’s University Belfast, with experienced
instructors leading an intensive workshop on methods for teaching secretary hands
found in the Folger’s digitized manuscripts collection and manuscripts held by
QUB’s Special Collections. Following this training, participants will visit archives
and collections such as those located at Trinity College Dublin, Marsh’s Library in
Dublin, and the Robinson Library, Armagh, to acquire images of suitable teaching
manuscripts before the group reconvenes in the TCD Long Room Hub on Friday
to share their discoveries. Upon completion of the intensive course, participants
will have acquired the necessary skills to teach paleography at their home
institutions. The anticipated schedule is: Monday through Friday, August 1–5,
2022, at Queen’s University Belfast, various manuscript collections, and Trinity
College Dublin. Apply by June 13, 2022 for admission and grants-in-aid to support
travel and lodging. Visit info@folger.edu.
The Newberry Library of Chicago’s Center for Renaissance Studies is
sponsoring the 2022–2023 Dissertation Seminar: Violence to be held on October
14 and December 2, 2022; March 24 and May 12, 2023 at the Newberry Library.
This seminar provides an interdisciplinary, supportive community for graduate
students in the early stages of dissertation preparation who are examining violence
and social conflict in the early modern world (ca. 1400–1700). Participants will
learn research methodologies for utilizing archival sources and explore
interdisciplinary approaches to war, civil conflict, religious conflict, peasant revolt,
colonial conflict, massacre, assassination, dueling, and other forms of violence.
Each student will prepare a draft dissertation chapter or proposal and receive
constructive feedback from the instructors and seminar members. The seminar will
meet at the Newberry on four Fridays throughout the year: October 14 and
December 2, 2022; and March 24 and May 12, 2023. For more information about
this seminar, including instructions on how to submit an application, please visit
the program calendar page here: https://www.newberry.org/10012022-2022-2023dissertation-seminar-violence.

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

The German Historical Institute of Paris (IHA) is offering Gallia grants.
Within the framework of the long-term project »Gallia Pontificia« the IHA awards
grants of up to six months of funding. The project focuses on the development of
curial contacts with the French churches during the High Middle Ages and the
Central Middle Ages and on the publication of papal acts addressed to these same
churches. It is based on a partnership between the IHA, the Göttingen Academy
of Sciences, and the National School of Charters. Application is possible
throughout the year. To apply, please visit: › Vers l’appel à candidatures or write the
IHA at 8 Rue du Parc Royal, 75003 Paris, France or telephone +33 1 44 54 23 80.

EXHIBITION
Catholic Historical Research Center of Philadelphia is featuring an exhibit on
the theme “Teaching the Faith: Origins of Catholic Higher Education in
Philadelphia.” To view the exhibit. please visit https://omeka.chrc-phila.org/
exhibits/show/colleges.

SPECIAL RESEARCH COLLECTIONS
The Catholic University of America’s Archives Special Collections announced
the receipt in September of the donation of eight small collections of Pro-Life
archival materials from The Sisters of Life of New York City. While the Sisters
decided to donate the bulk of their archives, centered on the Joseph Stanton
Papers, to Harvard’s Schlesinger Women’s History Library, it is nevertheless
gratifying for Catholic University to host at least a portion of this valuable archive
dedicated to an issue of vital importance to the American Catholic Church and
forms the Natural Family Planning Collection. The Sisters of Life are a uniquely
American, Roman Catholic religious institute, following the Augustinian rule. It is
both a contemplative and active religious community, dedicated to the promotion
of pro-life causes. Their abbreviation S.V. stands for Sorores Vitae, which is the
Latin version of their name. They were founded under the auspices of John
O’Connor (1920–2000), the Cardinal-Archbishop of New York in 1991, when
eight women gathered in New York to begin the new community. Since then, they
have grown to over a hundred Sisters from across the globe, in the United States,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, and the Philippines. They have
also expanded missions from their birthplace in New York beyond to Denver,
Stamford, Philadelphia, Washington, and Toronto.
The new collections, known as the Secular Feminist Publication,
Spokeswoman, November 1, 1979, Catholic and Other Periodicals Collection,
totals fifty-one boxes, over sixty linear feet, covering the 1970s to 2000. They
include the Abortion Parental Consent Legal Research Case Files from the
University of St. Thomas Law School, the Center for the Rights of the Terminally
Ill Collection, The Long Island Grass Roots Pro-Life Collection, March for Life
Memorabilia, National Right to Life News Complete Collection, Natural Family
Planning Archival Collection, Pro-Life Movement Newsletters and Periodicals,

NOTES AND COMMENTS

435

and various rare Catholic and other periodicals. Another collection deals with the
Rights of the Termininally Ill. For more information on these and other
collections, including another order of homegrown sisters, please contact us at
https://libraries.catholic.edu/special-collections/archives/about/contact-us.html.
The Catholic Historical Research Center of Philadelphia is featuring its
Francis B. Gallagher Collection of Fenian Brotherhood Records. The Fenian
Brotherhood, the American branch of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, was
established in 1858 with the goal of establishing an independent Ireland. As well
as raising money and gathering arms to send back to Ireland, the Fenians also
engaged in military activity against the British, leading two failed invasions of
Canada. This collection primarily contains the correspondence of Francis B.
Gallagher, a Fenian Senator and district treasurer from Buffalo, NY with other
senior Fenian officials.

SNELL PRIZE IN EUROPEAN HISTORY COMPETITION
The Southern Historical Association’s European History Section invites
applications for the John L. Snell Memorial Prize, named for Professor John L.
Snell (1923–1972) who taught at Tulane University, the University of
Pennsylvania, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he
received his Ph.D. in 1950. The Snell Prize is given annually to the graduate
student who submits the best seminar research paper in European history, written
within the past year. “European” is defined as encompassing the entire continent,
including Russia, from pre-history to the present. The Prize winner will be honored
at the annual lunch meeting of the Section in conjunction with the Southern
Historical Association meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, in November 2022. The
award carries a stipend of $100. The Snell Award winner also receives one
complimentary year of student membership in the European History Section of the
Southern Historical Association. The competition is open to graduate students of
any member of the Section or of a program at a Southern college or university. For
more information on applying for the competition, please contact the chair of the
prize committee, Dr. Stephen J. Stillwell, Jr. at SJStillwellJr@gmail.com.

PUBLICATIONS
The eighth centenary of the death of Dominic de Guzmán is commemorated
in the Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia for 2021 (Volume 30) with six “Research Studies” on “Santo Domingo y el legado de una orden (1221–2021).” Álvaro Fernández
de Córdova has written a “Presentación” (pp. 15–21), which is followed by
Guillermo Nieva Ocampo, “Santo Domingo entre la historia y la tradición
hagiográfíca castellana (siglos XIII–XVI)” (pp. 23–63); Eugenio Serrano Rodríguez,
“«Laudare, benedicere, praedicare»: Toledo y la Orden de Predicadores. Historia y
fuentes documentales para su estudio” (pp. 65–102); María del Mar Graña Cid,
“Sancho IV, María de Molina y la promoción de la Orden de Predicatores: modelo
de realeza y cultura política” (pp. 103–39); Javier Vergara Ciordia, “Los dominicos

436

NOTES AND COMMENTS

de primera hora y su contribución a la sistematización pedagógica medieval: la figura
clave de Vicente de Beauvais (1190–1264)” (pp. 141–73); Alfonso Esponera
Cerdán, O.P., “Santo Domingo de Guzmán según Jerónimo Savonarola OP” (pp.
175–90); and Gabriella Zarri, “La «mamma» di Guglielmo Paleologo: Maddalena
Panattieri da Trino, terzaiaria OP (1443–1503)” (pp. 191–212).
“500 Years of Christianity in the Philippines (Quincentenario 1521–2021)” is
the theme of a special issue of Philippiana Sacra (Vol. LVI [September–December,
2021]). Following an “Editor’s Note” by Jorge Mojarro (pp. v–vi) are six articles:
Rona Catherine R. Repancol, “Sa Bayan ng Meycauayan (In the Town of Meycauayan)—the Quarries, the People and Their Church” (pp. 663–95); Ana M.
Rodríguez-Rodríguez, “Mártires, santos, beatos: discursos de lo extraordinario en
la expansión católica en Filipinas” (pp. 697–714); Regalado Trota José, “The Participation of the Local Clergy in late 18th Century Philippine Art” (pp. 715–46);
Matthew J. K. Hill, “Real Patronato, Military Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, and the
Licensing of Royal Chaplains in Manila, 1734–1737: A Case Study” (pp. 747–98);
Roberto Blanco Andrés, “Agustín Pedro Blaquier, Obispo agustino de Nueva
Segovia y promotor del clero Filipino” (pp. 799–830); and María Dolores Elizalde,
“Las órdenes religiosas, agente de colonización en Filipinas. Una Mirada exterior”
(pp. 831–68).
The Colonial Latin American Review has devoted its issue of September, 2020
(Volume 29, Issue 3), to the history of the Inquisition. Kris Lane and Kenneth
Mills have provided an introduction, “Beyond index and auto de fe: new directions
in the study of the Holy Office of the Inquisition” (pp. 351–56). Seven articles
follow: “Process and punishment: alleged alumbrados before the Mexican Holy
Office, 1593–1603,” by Jessica J. Fowler (pp. 357–75); “Corruption and careerism
in New Spain: don Alonso de Peralta y Robles, Creole inquisitor, 1594–1610,” by
John F. Chuchiak IV (pp. 376–97); “The dungeons of the Lima Inquisition: corruption, survival, and secret codes in colonial Peru,” by Ana E. Schaposchnik (pp.
398–413); “Illicit reassertions of the faith: blasphemy and the early Cartagena
Inquisition, 1612–1660,” by Andrés Vargas Valdés (pp. 414–33); “The inquisitor
and the Virgin: a study in personality and circumstance,” by Robert J. Ferry (pp.
434–60); “El Comisario de la Inquisición, el capitán portugués y un secreto bien
guardado en los confines del Imperio,” by Federico Sartori (pp. 461–94); and “A
remedy and a poison: perjury and trust in Bourbon Mexico,” by Javier Villa-Flores
(pp. 495–516).

Periodical Literature
GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
Catalogues de manuscrits latins: Inventaire hagiographique (trente-huitième série).
François Dolbeau. Analecta Bollandiana, 139 (Dec., 2021), 380–421.
Learning from Muslims and Jews: In Search of the Identity of Christ from Eighthcentury Baghdad to Seventeenth-century Hague. Paul C. H. Lim. Church
History, 90 (Dec., 2021), 753–75.
Statio orbis: Os Congressos Eucarísticos Internacionais: panorâmica histórica e
reflexão litúrgico-teológica. Francisco Taborda. Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira,
81 (Sept.-Dec., 2021), 704–39.
La congregazione per l’Evangelizzazione dei popoli tra concilio Vaticano II e
riforme della curia. Enrico Galavotti. Cristianesimo nella storia, 42 (2, 2021),
625–49.
Reconnecting Language and Materiality in Christian Reading: A Comparative
Analysis of Two Groups of Protestant Women. Britt Halvorson and Ingie
Hovland. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 63 (Apr., 2021), 499–
529.

ANCIENT
À propos de l’évêque Marus de Trèves. Bastien Dubuisson. Analecta Bollandiana,
139 (Dec., 2021), 339-58.
Les apographes grecs des anciens Bollandistes. Bernard Joassart and Xavier
Lequeux. Analecta Bollandiana, 139 (Dec., 2021), 359–79.

MEDIEVAL
Ancrage et circulation d’un culte au Moyen Âge. Le dossier hagiographique de
saint Baudile de Nîmes. Fernand Peloux. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France,
107 (July, 2021), 185–210.
How Old is the Vita S. Germani interpolata (BHL 3454). Mark Laynesmith.
Analecta Bollandiana, 139 (Dec., 2021), 272–88.
Odo of Cluny and the Authenticity of the Vita prolixior prima of St. Gerald of
Aurillac (BHL 3411). Christopher A. Jones. Analecta Bollandiana, 139 (Dec.,
2021), 289–338.

437

438

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Dal caso alla regola, dal tribunale allo statuto: Riflessioni su Roma nel XII secolo.
Dario Internullo. Archivio Storico Italiano, 178 (Apr., 2020), 233–62.
Rituali di liberazione dei prigionieri nell’Italia del Duecento: il caso toscano tra
diritto e religione. Lidia L. Zanetti Domingues. Archivio Storico Italiano, 179
(Apr., 2021), 221–58.
Reassessing a Late Byzantine masterpiece: the Deesis mosaic in the Hagia Sophia
of Constantinople. Konstantinos M. Vapheiades. Byzantine and Modern Greek
Studies, 45 (Oct., 2021), 166–83.
L’œuvre hospitalière et charitable des chanoines augustins en Normandie au XIIIe
siècle. Bruno Tabuteau. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 107 (July, 2021),
211–27.
Das spätmittelalterliche Synodalbuch der Diözese von Gran. Szilvia Somogyi.
Annales Historiae Conciliorum, 50 (2, 2020), 395–416.
Non perfidior Catilinae coniuratio: La strategia comunicativa di Benedetto XI al
tempo della legazione fiorentina di Niccolò da Prato. Samuele Fabbri. Archivio
Storico Italiano, 179 (Oct., 2021), 657–700.
Il Capitolo della cattedrale di Firenze prima della Peste Nera (dalle imbreviature di
ser Bonaccorso di Gerino del Cacciato, 1340–1346). Francesco Borghero.
Archivio Storico Italiano, 178 (Jan., 2020), 25–84.
“Comune Pisanum habere in fratrem precipuum maiorem”: Alcune note sulle
relazioni fra Filippo vescovo di Volterra (1348–1358) e il Comune di Pisa.
Jacopo Paganelli. Archivio Storico Italiano, 178 (Oct., 2020), 713–40.
Una bellezza che trasfigura la storia: Il Trittico poliziano di Taddeo di Bartolo
(1401). Manlio Sodi. Saeculum Christianum, 28 (2, 2021), 50–65.
Speerspitze der Reform? Orden und Ordensleute auf dem Konstanzer Konzil.
Asgar Frenken. Annales Historiae Conciliorum, 50 (2, 2020), 339–94.
Errori e peccati dei medici nei manuali dei confessori (secoli XV–XVI). Alessandro
Pastore. Archivio Storico Italiano, 178 (Oct., 2020), 775–98.
Grenzstreiten der Zisterzienser von Zyrich (Szczyrzyc) mit kleinpolnischen
Klöstern verschiedener Ordensobservanz (Chorherren vom Heiligen Geist,
Dominikaner, Unbeschuhte Karmeliten) vom 15. bis zum Ende des 18. Jhs.
Jolanta M. Marszalska. Saeculum Christianum, 28 (2, 2021), 95–112.

SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Mortuary dues in early sixteenth-century England. Paul Cavill. Continuity and
Change, 36 (Dec., 2021), 285–308.
The Monsters of Gaul: The Implications of the Concordat of Bologna (1516) for
French Episcopal Elections. Gianmarco Braghi. Cristianesimo nella storia, 42
(2, 2021), 451–75.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

439

The First Catholic Diocese in Asia and the Spread of Catholicism: Juan de
Albuquerque, Bishop of Goa, 1538–1553. José Pedro Paiva. Church History,
90 (Dec., 2021), 776–98.
Wie politisch war die Reformation in Polen? Maciej Ptaszyński. Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History, 112 (1, 2021), 66–95.
‘The Price of Sin’: Sexual Misconduct and its Social Consequences in SixteenthCentury Transylvanian Towns. Maria Crăciun. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History, 110 (1, 2019), 157–99.
Due vite o tre vie? Immagini e parole della scelta negli ‘Esercizi spirituali’ (1541–
1600). Lucio Biasiori. Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 47
(2, 2021), 115–36.

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
EASTERN HEMISPHERE
Persecuted or permitted? Fraternal Polyandry in a Calvinist colony, Sri Lanka
(Ceylon), seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Jan Kok, Luc Bulten, and
Bente M. de Leede. Continuity and Change, 36 (Dec., 2021), 331–55.
Sums Theological: Doing Theology with the London Bills of Mortality, 1603–
1666. Spencer J. Weinreich. Church History, 90 (Dec., 2021), 799–823.
Baybay, baybayin, Binondo, and the Parian: Documents on the Evolution of the
Mestizo Sangley. Regalado Trota José. Philippiniana Sacra, 57 (Jan., 2022),
91–134.
La communauté des prêtres de Saint-Sébastien à Nancy. Une fondation pieuse au
service de la paroisse. Aurore Benad. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 107
(July, 2021), 269–91.
Francis Cherry, Patronage, and the Shottesbrooke Nonjurors. John William Klein.
Anglican and Episcopal History, 89, no. 4 (Dec., 2020), 361–81.
Saved as by Fire (and Poets): Charles II, Restored Head of the Church. Kent M.
Pettit. Anglican and Episcopal History, 89 (Dec., 2020), 382–97.
Un prince-abbé dans la France du Grand Siècle. Philippe de Lorraine-Harcourt
(1643–1702). Elisabetta Lurgo. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 107 (July,
2021), 229–45.
Il collegio Oddi in Albenga sotto la reggenza degli Scolopi (e precedenti proposte).
Gian Luigi Bruzzone. Archivum Scholarum Piarum, 46, no. 91 (2022), 217–46.
El clero secular de la archidiócesis de Manila y la enseñanza superior en Filipinas
según un manuscrito de 1775-1776. Cayetano Sánchez Fuertes. Philippiniana
Sacra, 57 (Jan., 2022), 135–70.

440

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES
EASTERN HEMISPHERE
La Gratulatoria de ingreso del P. Jaume Vada en la Real Academia de Buenas
Letras de Barcelona (1805): un texto inédito. Eduard Puigventós López.
Archivum Scholarum Piarum, 46, no. 91 (2022), 179–216.
Les ouvrages scientifiques des bibliothèques du clergé briochin à l’époque
concordataire. Jean-Gatien Gilbert. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 107
(July, 2021), 293–316.
Becoming Armenian: Religious Conversions in the Late Imperial South Caucasus.
Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 63
(Jan., 2021), 242–72.
Scenografie pontificie: Il viaggio di Pio IX nelle Legazioni. Lorenzo Ciccarelli.
Archivio Storico Italiano, 178 (July, 2020), 545–76.
Evangelical “Others” in Ulster, 1859–1912: Social Profile, Unionist Politics, and
“Fundamentalism.” Andrew R. Holmes and Stuart Mathieson. Church
History, 90 (Dec., 2021), 847–72.
The First Global Revivalist? Reuben Archer Torrey and the 1902 Evangelistic
Campaign in Australia. Geoffrey R. Treloar. Church History, 90 (Dec., 2021),
873–99.
P. Manuel Sánchez 33° Prepósito General de las Escuelas Pías (1906–1910). José
P. Burgués. Archivum Scholarum Piarum, 46, no. 91 (2022), 49–178.
The Orthodox Church of Cyprus, Enosis politics and the British authorities during
the First World War. Anastasia Yiangou. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies,
44 (Apr., 2020), 137–53.
El papel del laico en la Iglesia según el Concilio de Moscú 1917 de la Iglesia
Ortodoxa Rusa. Carlos Iza. Annales Historiae Conciliorum, 50 (2, 2020), 417–
34.
Church, State and “Native Liberty” in the Belgian Congo. Gale Kenny and Tisa
Wenger. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 62 (Jan., 2020), 156–85.
In the Name of the Cross: Christianity and Anti-Semitic Propaganda in Nazi
Germany and Fascist Italy. David I. Kertzer and Gunnar Mokosch.
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 62 (July., 2020), 456–86.
Entre pétainisme et maréchalisme. Évolution de l’opinion de Mgr Grente sous
l’Occupation. Alexis Hamelin. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 107 (July,
2021), 247–68.
Tending the Flock: German Lutherans, reconstruction, and prisoners of war.
Augusta Lynn Dell’Omo. Cold War History, 20 (May, 2020), 123–41.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

441

Debate over secularisation of the marriage law in the Second Polish Republic.
Judyta Dworas-Kulik. Pravo Kanoniczne, 63 (3, 2020), 137–53.
Institutionalizing Theology: A. B. Goulden and the Community of Reparation to
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Greg Peters. Anglican and Episcopal History,
89 (Dec., 2020), 143–63.
Historical Revision in Church: Reexamining the “Saint” Edward Colston. Samuel
J Richards. Anglican and Episcopal History, 89 (Dec., 2020), 225–54.
Gli studi sul clero secolare italiano in età contemporanea. Il parte: Dagli anni
Settanta del Novecento a oggi. Giuseppe Battelli. Cristianesimo nella storia, 42
(2, 2021), 551–624.

AMERICAN AND CANADIAN
Auditing Revival: George Whitefield and Public Accounting in Colonial America.
Kristen Beales. Church History, 90 (Dec., 2021), 824–46.
Law and Gospel Order: resolving commercial disputes in colonial Philadelphia.
Esther Sahle. Continuity and Change, 35 (Dec., 2020), 281–310.
The First Convention of the Missouri Synod in 1847. Mark A. Loest. Concordia
HIstorical Institute Quarterly, 95 (1, 2022), 11–31.
The Move to Fort Wayne: The “How,” the “What,” and the Why.” David P. Scaer.
Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly, 94 (Winter, 2021), 17–33.
The Contentious Conferences of 1924: A Study of the Proceedings of the AngloCatholic Priests’ Convention and the Thirty-Eighth Episcopal Church
Congress. Jesse J. Lee. Anglican and Episcopal History, 89 (Sept., 2020), 281–301.
The Making of the American Prayer Book of 1928. Lawrence N. Crumb. Anglican
and Episcopal History, 89 (June, 2020), 123–42.
Charlie Kersten’s war: a Catholic crusader goes to Congress. Margaret M.
Manchester. Cold War History, 21 (May, 2021), 121–36.
The Elusive Goal: The Commitment to Indigenous Self-Determination in the
Anglican Church of Canada, 1967–2020. Alan L. Hayes. Anglican and
Episcopal History, 89 (Dec., 2020), 255–80.
Jonathan Daniels: Faith, Freedom, and Sacrifice. Robert B. Slocum. Anglican and
Episcopal History, 89 (June, 2020), 109–22.
Concordia Theological Seminary 1985-2010: A Story of Decline and Revival.
William C. Weinrich. Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly, 94 (Winter,
2021), 35–52.
The Unmasking of a Pedophile Priest: Transnational Clerical Sexual Abuse in
Guatemala. Kevin Lewis O’Neill. Comparative Studies in Society and History,
62 (Oct., 2020), 745–69.

442

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

LATIN AMERICA
Hyperdulia Americana: sacred history and devotional landscape. Jason Dyck and
Rosario I. Granados. Colonial Latin American Review, 283 (Sept., 2019), 295–
311.
Entre destellos se desvanece una devoción: la imagen de oro de la Asunción,
patrona de la catedral metropolitana de México. Denise Fallena. Colonial
Latin American Review, 28 (Sept., 2019), 312–35.
Bastions of the Virgin: Francisco de Florencia’s Marian cartography of Mexico
City. Jason Dyck. Colonial Latin American Review, 28, no. 3 (Sept., 2019),
336–66.
Shapes of love in the miracle testimonies of the Virgin of Chiquinquirá, New
Kingdom of Granada, 1587 to 1694. Karen Shears Cousins. Colonial Latin
American Review, 28 (Sept., 2019), 396–423.
Can the Devil Cross the Deep Blue Sea? Imagining the Spanish Pacific and Vast
Early America from Below. Kristie Patricia Flannery. William and Mary
Quarterly, 79 (Jan., 2022), 31–60.
“As [des] cortezias usadas entre os bispos.” Teologia e política no conflito pelo
direito à sagração de Dom Pedro II (1841). Sérgio Ricardo Coutinho. Revista
Eclesiástica Brasileira, 81 (Jan.–Apr., 2021), 130–60.
La sofferenza dell’esilio e la scoperta di un continente. L’esperienza di Arturo Paoli
in Argentina fra i boscaioli di Fortín Olmos (1960–1969): prime note a partire
dalle sue lettere. Silvia Scatena. Cristianesimo nella storia, 42 (2, 2021), 477–
550.
Paulo Evaristo Arns: Pastor do aggiornamento conciliar junto dos pobres e
vulneráveis. João Décio Passos. Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira, 81 (Sept.–Dec.,
2021), 740–55.
A construção simbólica do “mártir da caminhada latino-americana.” José Reinaldo
Felipe Martins Filho and Daniel Carvalho da Silva. Revista Eclesiástica
Brasileira, 81 (May.–Aug., 2021), 397–423.

Other Books Received

Allen, David, ed. The Cartulary and Charters of the Priory of Saints Peter and Paul,
Ipswich: Part II; The Charters. (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2020. Pp. 211.
$99.00. ISBN: 9781783274949.)
Broser, Tanja. Der päpstliche Briefstil im 13. Jahrhundert: Eine stilistische Analyse der
Epistole et dictamina Clementis pape quarti. (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2018. Pp.
406. €60.00. ISBN: 9783412511371.)
Busse Berger, Anna Maria. The Search for Medieval Music in Africa and Germany,
1891–1961: Scholars, Singers, Missionaries. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2020. Pp. xii, 360. $55.00. ISBN: 9780226740348.)
Clayton, Lawrence A., and David M. Lantigua. Bartolomé de las Casas and the
Defense of Amerindian Rights: A Brief History with Documents. [Atlantic
Crossings.] (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. 2020. Pp. xvi, 142.
$29.95. ISBN: 9780817359690.)
Cross, Peter, Chris Dennis, Melissa Julian-Jones, and Angelo Silvestri, eds.
Episcopal Power and Local Society in Medieval Europe. (Turnhout: Brepols,
2017. Pp. x, 293. €90.00. ISBN: 9782503573403.)
Gamberini, Andrea. Inferni medivali: Dipingere il mondo dei morti per orientare la
società dei vivi. (Rome: Viella, 2021. Pp. 216. €34.00. ISBN: 9788833137940.)
Grippaudo, Ilaria. Musica e devotionze nella « Città Felicissima: Ordini religiosi e
pratiche sonore a Palermo tra Cinque e Seicento. (Florence: Olschki, 2022. Pp. xv,
268. €32.00. ISBN: 9788822267917.)
Hahn, Cynthia. Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination: Art, Architecture, and
Society. (Oakland: University of California Press, 2020. Pp. xi, 176. $49.95.
ISBN: 9780520305267.)
Jones, Cameron D. In Service of Two Masters: The Missionaries of Ocopa, Indigenous
Resistance, and Spanish Governance in Bourbon Peru. (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2018. Pp. 352. $65.00. ISBN: 9781503604315.)
Jones, Michael, Julia Barrow, Trevor Foulds, David Crook, eds. The White Book
(Liber Albus) of Southwell, Volumes I–II. (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press,
2018. Pp. cxv, 941. $170.00. ISBN: 9780901134677.)
Kirk, Jordan. Medieval Nonsense: Signifying Nothing in Fourteenth-Century England.
(New York: Fordham University Press, 2021. Pp. 208. $30.00. ISBN:
9780823294466.)
443

444

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

Logan, Donald, ed. The Register of Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, 13751381. (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2020. Pp. xx, 391. $60.00. ISBN:
9780907239833.)
Park, Danielle E.A. Papal Protection and the Crusader: Flanders, Champagne, and the
Kingdom of France, 1095–1222. (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2018. Pp. x, 254.
$99.00. ISBN: 9781783272228).
Peres, Tanya M., and Rochelle A. Marrinan, eds. Unearthing the Missions of Spanish
Florida. (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press. 2021. Pp. xxii, 334.
$90.00. ISBN: 9781683402510.)
Safranski, Benjamin. St. Cyprian of Carthage and the College of Bishops. (Lanham,
MD: Lexington Books, 2018. Pp. xix, 250. $110.00. ISBN: 9781978700789.)
Salvestrini, Francesco, ed. I monaci Silvestrini e la Toscana (XIII–XVII secolo).
(Florence: Olschki, 2020. Pp. vi, 200. €26.00. ISBN: 9788822267054.)
Tavárez, David, ed. Foreward by William B. Taylor. Words & Worlds Turned
Around: Indigenous Christianities in Colonial Latin America. (Boulder, CO:
University Press of Colorado. 2017. Pp. xvi, 330. $38.95. ISBN:
9781607326830.)
Webster, Harriett R., ed. David Preest, trans. The Annals of the Dunstable Priory.
(Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2020. Pp. xlvi, 352. $130.00. ISBN:
9781843838135.)
Weidenkopf, Steve. The Church and the Middle Ages (1000–1378): Cathedrals,
Crusades, and the Papacy in Exile. (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2020. Pp.
xxii, 192. $17.95. ISBN: 9781594719530.)
Wranowix, Matthew. Priests and Their Books in Late Medieval Eichstätt. (Lanham,
MD: Lexington Books, 2017. Pp. xix, 242. $100.00. ISBN: 9781498548861.)