PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS IN POLAND.

Warsaw, 1835.

If our august clergy is, with very few exceptions, worthy of admiration, that of Lithuania is sublime, and really one can desire nothing better. The exaltation increases, energy develops itself in proportion as the danger augments. In every age, persecutions have been the period of the triumph of religion. This grand truth makes itself felt as much as ever, and the manly fervour of the sermons attracts crowded assemblies of the faithful. They are simple, religious, frequently full of unction, but bold, going straight to the end; alluding unceasingly to the perishable grandeur of the Nebuchadnezzars of the age; the evil that God permits, but sooner or later punishes; the rewards due to patience, to resignation, which alone can appease and shorten the punishment of our faults and of those of our fathers. The rewards will be immense, the wicked will yield up their places to those who were suffering and persecuted; in fact, the persecution is such that it re-tempers our courage, and stirs up all the powers and the depths of the hearts of those least susceptible of fanaticism or exaltation. It is a rich and powerful mine of gold in a constant course of exportation, to which there is nothing to be added. It is native gold. In fact, all moderation has ceased, no terms whatsoever are kept.

Besides the individual persecutions of the past days, a prohibition was issued against singing in the churches anthems to the Virgin, or mentioning the names of St. Stanislaus, St. Vladislas, St. Albert, St. Casimir. I shall speak to you no more of the Church of the Piarists, which was seized upon to be converted into a Cerkiew (Greek Church). In all the small towns they are now constructed. Where there are two churches, one is taken, and

always that of the Piarists is preferred, wherever one is to be found. We wished that the Piarists should celebrate divine worship in the old dilapidated church which had been assigned to them (that formerly occupied by the Jesuits).

They did not dare to do so, although it would have produced a grand effect amongst the broken ruins and shattered panes.

The Archimandrite, the Bishop of Warsaw, is here. He is the only one we have, Woronioz not having been replaced.

The Bishop Pawtowski gave the Archimandrite a dinner, at which he presented to him all our clergy, which, taken by surprise, was extremely mortified. In the small towns priests have been established, although without any cure or any church, but with the mission to watch over several charities. That of Lowicz, for example, gives dinners every Friday to all the poor of the country. A splendid repas maigre is served to them, with a profusion of beer, spirits, and even wine. The priest serves in person, with all the humanity of the primitive ages, but with much less temperance, for both host and guests are all dead drunk after the banquet. Before separating, large alms are distributed, with an injunction to meet again the following Friday, and bring fresh guests.

In Lithuania the persecution is active and ostensible in a very different manner. The resistance also is energetic in a very different mode. Nevertheless, the higher classes, as with us, do not seek martyrdom, but, on the other hand, the inferior clergy is sublime; and what is surprising, the United Greeks show great attachment and an unlimited fidelity to the Chief of our Church; an attachment which exposes them to many dangers, which they brave with a courage and a devotion truly pious. These are the persons who for the present are the most persecuted and most exposed to direct and indirect attacks. They are ordered to establish in their churches what are called Imperial Gates; to place there the great Altar, almost in the middle of the church, a distinctive mark indispensable to the schismatic service. Very few have consented. Many have been deposed. The Bishop says to them, "You will

not do this, others will, and you will go without bread." The schismatic Missals (expressly printed in Russia) which have been sent to them have been unanimously sent back, and no one knows yet what will be the result. But the fact at present is, that prayers are offered up more ardently than ever to the Almighty Father.

I send you herewith the petition presented by fifty united curates to their bishop; the five who were charged with this mission were sent to Siberia, but they were aware in undertaking it to what they exposed themselves. In White Russia, in a large village, the priest of the place, more careful of the favour of the government than that of Heaven, having arranged his Church according to the new decrees, prepared on a Sunday last autumn to celebrate the mass according to the schismatic ritual.

The

He began therefore what are called the Prostrations. peasants, the moment they perceived it, and understood its purport, went out one after the other; when they found themselves all outside, they closed the gates of the Church, set fire to it, and burned it to the ground, together with the priest, whom they would not allow to escape. This is an averred, well known fact, which the authorities, however, and the evil-disposed, take care to conceal and to deny. In Lithuania, of seven Catholic parishes only one now remains, so that sometimes the people have to go fourteen miles to be able to have a child baptized, or to assist a dying relation. They marry and baptize their children amongst each other, and only go once a year to some distant Church to be confirmed, to the confessional, and to communion, thus avoiding the Schismatic Churches; the essential point being not to set foot in them.

You see that the clergy labours in the vineyard of the Lord. Muravieff did all in his power to effect the fusion of the Churches. He has established everywhere the Imperial Gates, and this at the expense of the proprietors. Sometimes consent is obtained by force, but more easily because this kind of ornament, which is indispensable to the schismatic worship, has nothing in it essentially

contrary to the ritual of the united Greeks; but the prostrations and the altar in the middle of the Church are still obstinately objected to.

You surely have heard mention made of a certain Szymanski, of such unfortunate celebrity, who arrived here in order to make the guerillas rise, with passports from Pozzo di Borgo, and who threw into the extreme of misery more than three hundred families, whom he denounced, whether truly or falsely, as having given him asylum or even a glass of water. Amongst this number were three priests, one of whom, having received him poor and an orphan, had educated him from his childhood, clothed him, and sent him to the army in 1831. Szymanski, on his arrival in the country, immediately addressed himself to his adopted father. Welcomed as his child, he had frequently taken up his abode with the good curate. The moment having arrived, he denounced him to the authorities as the man at whose house he had alighted, and who had, as it were, allowed him to establish his head-quarters there. The curate was immediately seized, with two of his companions and neighbours, and carried off at the exact moment when he was about to celebrate the fiftieth year of his priesthood. Convicted, condemned to death by the court martial, the punishment of father Adamowicz was commuted into perpetual exile and to forced labour. Dzieduszycki and Ziclonka, of less advanced years, were clothed in the livery of crime and sent to Siberia.

At Wilna they underwent their condemnation with all the fortitude and strength of mind which might have been expected from three apostles of the faith and the gospel.

Bishop Ktagicwicz, although he fainted three times in concluding the iniquitous and sacrilegious ceremony of depriving them of the sacrament (which he had no effective right to do), although he had not the courage to do his duty in refusing entirely this office, could not however refrain from pronouncing the following words:—

"Touched by the finger of God, thou departest, brother, for a land where the faith which thou confessest is unknown. Thou

wilt not find there the altar on which thou didst depose thy pious offerings during fifty years. Thou wilt find there no associate to bring consolation to thy afflicted soul. It is in thine own heart that thou must find the faith, the altar, and the consolation-and to this end I give thee my pastoral benediction."

He again fainted away. Yet he finished the ceremony, and the three old men departed-Father Adamowicz to Nerczynsk, and the two others destined to repeople the frozen deserts.

I abstain from all reflections, but an eyewitness having recounted to me all this, I attest its authenticity.