Kult św. Jozafata Kuncewicza w Kościele rzymskokatolickim w Polsce – między religią a ideologią

Abstract

The Cult of St. Jozaphat Kuntsevych in the Roman Catholic Church in Poland – Between Religion and Ideology
The figure of Josaphat Kuntsevych – a martyr of the Greek Catholic Church, proclaimed a saint of the Catholic Church – is of interest primarily to church historians due to the involvement of the Archbishop of Polotsk in the process of the unification of the clergy and faithful of the Orthodox Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the Roman Catholic Church. This article addresses an equally interesting issue – the formation of the cult of St. Josaphat in the Roman Catholic Church in the religious dimension; starting with his martyrdom, through the history of the saint’s relics, the religious life of Roman Catholic communities, and in the ideological dimension; related to Polish aspirations for independence starting from the period of partitions. An analysis of the ideological foundations for the spread of the cult of St. Jozaphat in the 19th century is based mainly on the activities of the Polish ultramontane movement, involved in efforts to canonize Kuntsevych in 1867. The conducted analysis allowed the author to formulate the conclusion that the cult of St. Josaphat in the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, initially focused on the religious dimension on the idea of religious unity of Christians, from the moment of the fall of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth took on ideological and political forms, directed against the tsarist power and the anti-Polish and anti-Uniate imperial policy pursued by Russia. After Poland regained independence, the anti-Russian and patriotic nature of the cult was supplemented by the thread of Poland’s civilizing mission directed to the East.