Mariae Vitae religious order
The Mariae Vitae Order Community , also Mariawitek Order Community ( Latin Congregatio Mariae Vitae , lit. Mariae Vitae seserų kongregacija (Marijavitės) , Polish Zgromadzenie Sióstr Życia Maryi , English Mariae Vitae Lithuania Congregation ) was the first and probably the most important missionary institution in Poland of the 18th and 19th centuries, founded by Provost Józef Stefan Turczynowicz , St. Stephan (Vilnius) . According to her rules she was active with a new kind of social program in the religious / lay education of (especially Jewish) converted girls. It included financial aid and taught the neophytes practical work skills so they could establish themselves in Catholic society. The Mariawitek Order was active from 1737 to 1773 (closure due to pressure from the shtetls ) and from 1788 to the January uprising in 1864.
Branch offices (convention) in Poland-Lithuania
The Mariawitek order was organized in 17 convents (monasteries) with nuns ; the nuns also had male helpers within the order to carry out their daily work, which was apparently intended to show male non-Christians that they too are cordially invited to convert to Catholicism.
The headquarters of the Mariae Vitae religious order was the Klasztor Maryawitek in Vilnius.
Almost all of the 17 religious branches were in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania :
Kaunas , Vitebsk , Mścisław , Minsk , Słonim , Połock , Orsza , Grodno , Nowogródek , Wołkowysk , Mozyrz , Pińsk , Bobrujsk , Krorzy, Hołowczyn, Chołopienicze
In Poland itself there was only one Maria Vitae convent: in Częstochowa .
history
The Roman Catholic provost Józef Stefan Turczynowicz , St. Stephan (Vilnius) felt an inner urge to missionary activity in 1737 and in the same year obtained the foundation of the Mariawitek Order by the Bishop of Vilnius , Semgallia, under the name Congregatio Mariae Vitae and Polish Livonia .
He received the approval of Pope Benedict XIV on April 15, 1752.
The main goal of the Mariawitek Order was the conversion of non-Christians ( Jews , Karaites , Tatars ) to Catholicism as well as the education and care of its neophytes. In doing so, he mainly reached poor, destitute women from the Eastern Jewish shtetl , girls and orphans . Jewish mothers and their children also came from the shtetl; they were then baptized with their children. So came under the protection of the Mariawitek order u. a. boys too. If the mother could not withstand the enormous emotional pressure of her tabula rasa status after the baptism and wanted to return to the shtetl, she had to leave her children behind as Catholics in the order.
This, as well as the charitable activity of the Mariae Vitae Order as a whole, caused a strong conflict with the respective shtetl in the area, because because of the life in the diaspora in the poorest, medieval conditions there, the Roman Catholic Church now seemed to take advantage of it. Complaints to the Roman Curia finally led to the closure of the religious order in 1773. But the former Mariae Vitae nuns did not want to put up with it and personally brought a supplik to Rome before Pope Clement XIV , who approved the activity of the order again in 1788. Since then, the Mariae Vitae Order has existed for 76 years, but went into decline between 1842 and 1850 when, after the complete dissolution of Poland-Lithuania, the Russian authorities closed many Mariawitek conventions. As part of the reprisals against the Polish people , the Mariae Vitae Order Community was finally dissolved by imperial Russian authorities during the January uprising in 1864 and its operations ceased. All assets of the order were taken over by the treasury and the nuns were forced to join other religious orders.
literature
- Małgorzata Borowska: Dzieje zgromadzenia Mariae Vitae czyli Mariawitek . Nasza Przeszłość 93/2000.
- Elena Keidošiūte: Mariae Vitae Kongregacijos Misionieriška veikla in "Lietuvos istorijos studiojos" 24/2009, ISSN 1392-0448
Web links
- Elena Keidošiūte: Missionary work of the Mariae Vitae Order Community (English) (PDF; 153 kB)
- Obituary for the Mariawitek Vilnius Monastery , in: Tygodnik illustrowany No. 202, August 8, 1863 (Polish)