Piotr Skarga
Piotr Skarga (real name Piotr Powęski ; born February 2, 1536 in Grójec , † September 27, 1612 in Krakow ) was a Polish Jesuit , preacher , hagiographer , polemicist and the leading figure of the Counter Reformation in the Polish-Lithuanian Rzeczpospolita of the late 16th century. Century.
Skarga had studied at the University of Cracow and had been tutor in Vienna for three years until he became cathedral preacher and canon in Lemberg in 1564 . In 1569 he entered the novitiate of the Jesuit order in Rome . After serving the order as a preacher and missionary in Poland, Livonia and Lithuania from 1571 , he appointed him Provincial for Poland in 1579 . King Stefan Batory called Skarga 1580 the first rector of the newly established Jesuit College in Polotsk and in the same year as rector of a Jesuit college with Jakub Wujek incurred Vilnius University , to him the Order from 1584 as Superior began in Krakow. From 1588 he was there as a preacher at the court of King Sigismund III. Wasas active, so he sometimes preached in the Polish parliament, the Sejm . The Polish nobility ascribed him great influence on King Sigismund (Skarga was a proponent of strong royal power in the aristocratic republic ). Among his writings, the Lives of the Saints (Żywoty świętych, 1579), his Sejm sermons (Kazania sejmowe, 1597) and the moral writings describing the model of the Polish knight are remarkable and also worth reading.
In Poland, Skarga is seen as an energetic advocate of reforms in the state administration of Poland-Lithuania and a critic of the aristocratic republican government aristocracy . He advocated strengthening royal power at the expense of the Sejm, the magnates and the Szlachta. He established and expanded many Catholic charities and Jesuit schools and was one of the creators of the Brest Ecclesiastical Union . Because of his rhetorical skills, Skarga is also known as the “ Polish Bossuet ”.
Skarga's tomb is located in the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Krakow.
On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Skarga's death, the Sejm , the Polish parliament, decided by a large majority in 2011 to honor Skarga as Person of the Year 2012 .
literature
- Tazbir, Janusz: Piotr Skarga. Szermierz kontrreformacji . Warsaw 1978.
- Tadeusz Glemma: Skarga . In: Michael Buchberger (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church , Volume 9, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1937, Sp. 617 f.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Jan Matejko: The Painter and Patriot. Fostering Polish Nationalism ( Memento of the original from May 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Skarga, Piotr |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Piotr Powęski (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish Jesuit, preacher, hagiographer, polemicist and counter-Reformation personality |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 2, 1536 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Grójec |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 27, 1612 |
| Place of death | Krakow |