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started before they came on the scene. But they undoubtedly hastened the
kingdom's decomposition. Of all the States, Poland, who had millions of
orthodox Christians in her midst, should have had religious tolerance as one
of the most essential principles of her interior politics. The Jesuits did not
allow that. They did worse: they put Poland's exterior politics at the service
of Catholic interests in a fatal manner".(25)
This was written at the end of the last century; it is very similar to what
Colonel Beck, former Polish Foreign-Affairs minister from 1932 to 1939
said after the 1939-1945 war:
"The Vatican is one of the main causes of the tragedy of my country. I
realised too late that we had pursued our foreign politics just to serve the
interests of the Catholic Church".(26)
So, with several centuries in-between, the same disastrous influence has
made its mark once again on that unfortunate nation.
In 1581 already, Father Possevino, pontifical legate in Moscow, has
done his best to bring together the Czar Ivan the Terrible and the Roman
Church. Ivan was not strictly against it. Full of glad hopes, Possevino made
himself, in 1584, the mediator of the peace of Kirewora Gora between
Russia and Poland, a peace which saved Ivan from inextricable difficulties
This is just what the crafty sovereign had hoped for. There was no more talk of
converting the Russians. Possevino had to leave Russia without having
(25) H. Boehmer, op.cit., p.135.
(26) Declaration of the 6th of February 1940.
POLAND AND RUSSIA 41
obtained anything. Two years later, an even better opportunity offered itself
to the Fathers to get a hold on Russia: Grischka Ostrepjew, an unfrocked
monk, revealed to a Jesuit that he actually was Dimitri, son of Czar Ivan,
who had been assassinated; he declared himself ready to subdue Moscow for
Rome if he was master of the Czars' throne. Without thinking it over first, the
Jesuits took it into their hands to introduce Ostrepjew to the Palatine of
Sandomir who gave him his daughter in marriage; they spoke on his behalf
to King Sigismond III and the pope regarding his expectations, and
succeeded in making the Polish army rise against the Czar Boris
Godounov. As a reward for these services, the false Dimitri renounced the
religion of his fathers at Crascovie, one of the Jesuits' houses, and
promised the Order an establishment in Moscow, near the Kremlin, after his
victory over Boris.
"But it was these favours from the catholics which unleashed the hatred of
the Russian Orthodox Church against Dimitri. On the 27th of May 1606,
he was massacred with several hundred Polish followers. Until then, one could
hardly speak of a Russian national sentiment; but now, this feeling was
very strong and took immediately the form of a fanatical hatred for the Roman
Church and Poland.
"The alliance with Austria and the offensive politics of Sigismond III
against the Turks, all of which were strongly encouraged by the Order, were just
as disastrous for Poland. To put it briefly, no other State suffered as much as
Poland did under the Jesuits' domination. And in no other country, apart
from Portugal, was the Society so powerful. Not only did Poland have a
'king of the Jesuits', but also a Jesuit King, Jean-Casimir, a sovereign who had
belonged to the Order before his accession to the throne in 1649...
"While Poland was heading fast towards ruin, the number of Jesuit
establishments and schools was growing so fast that the General made
Poland into a special congregation in 1751 ".(27)
(27) H. Boehmer, op.cit., p.135 ss.
42 Section II
Chapter 5
Sweden and England
"In the Scandinavian countries", wrote Mr. Pierre Dominique,
"Lutheranism submerged everything else and, when the Jesuits made their
counter-attack, they did not find what was found in Germany: a Catholic
party already in the minority, but still strong".(28)
Their only hope then was in the conversion of the sovereign who was
secretly in favour of Catholicism; also, this king, Jean III Wasa, had
married in 1568 a Polish princess, Catherine, a Roman Catholic. In 1574,
Father Nicolai and other Jesuits were brought to the recently established
school of theology where they became fervent Roman proselytizers, while
officially assuming Lutheranism. Then, the clever negotiator Possevino
secured the conversion of Jean III and the care of educating his son
Sigismond, the future Sigismond III, king of Poland. When the time came to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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