Bishop Sipovich new file

6 had no religious (institutions) of their own" 6 , there is no mention of Russia or a special role for Druia in converting that country. On the other hand, on 19 April 1926 he wrote to the Polish Marian Father W. Jakowski: "With regard to the Belarusian question there is no need to worry. Our people (i.e. Belarusian Marian Fathers – A.N .) will surely do no harm to Poland. They are getting ready for mission work in Russia, and only wait for the opportune moment... Only a few of them will remain in Poland to take care of the parish and to prepare candidates for Russia" 7 . As far as Buchys was concerned, he had no doubts about the real aims for which Druia was established. On 17 August 1928 Fabian Abrantovich, the first of the Druia Fathers to be sent to Manchuria, wrote from Rome to Tsikota: "According to George (Matulewicz – A.N. ) of blessed memory, Russia will not be converted by Poland or Lithuania, but by Belarus, i.e. Druia, which was founded by him specially for this purpose. Druia must justify his hopes, otherwise its existence has no sense, it will be closed... If we resisted and refused to go, that would be the end of us. That is roughly what I was told by Father General (Buchys – A.N. ) before his departure...". A few years later, if one believes Buchys, it was no longer Matulewicz, but the Pope himself who set out the aims for Druia. In 1932 Tsikota asked Buchys that one of Druia clerics studying at the Russian College in Rome should be ordained in the Roman, and not the Byzantine rite. Buchys’s answer on 13 April 1932 was quick and unequivocal: "Thomas Padziava with your consent was accepted in the Russian college on condition, that after completing his studies he would work for the conversion of Russians... Your request was contrary to the scope set out by the Holy Father for the Druia monastery". According to hisbiographers, d’Herbigny was adept in passing off his own wishes as those of the Pope. It looks like Buchys was not slow in adopting the methods of his protector. Coming back to the year 1927, a little more than a month after he wrote his letter, Buchys received an an swer from the Oriental Congregation. In it he was asked to give his opinion on the suitability of Father Fabian Abrantovich, who was then a novice at Druia, for the post of "prelate for Russians of Byzantine Rite in Harbin, outside Poland". Father Fabian Abrantovich (1884-1946) was considered one of the most prominent Belarusian priests of his time. Born in Navahradak which then belonged to the diocese of Minsk, he was educated in the Seminary and Imperial Catholic Theological Academy in Petersburg, and then Louvain University, where he obtained his doctor’s degree in Philosophy. In 1915 he became a teacher in the Catholic Seminary in Petersburg and in 1918 – rector of the Seminary in Minsk until it was closed by the Communists in 1920. Incidentally, one of the teachers in the Minsk Seminary was Fr Tsikota, the future superior of Druia. After 1920 Abrantovich lived first in Navahradak and then in Pinsk. In 1925 Pinsk became the centre of a new diocese, comprising roughly those parts of Minsk diocese which fell within borders of the Polish state. It was there that he received for the first time the proposal to go to Harbin. By that time Abrantovich realised that there was no future for him in Poland. On the other hand the idea of leaving Belarus and going to Manchuria, and in particular abandoning the Roman rite, in which he was born and brought up, did not appeal to him. Thus it may be that the wish to avoid being sent to Harbin was one of the factors which made him decide to join the Marian Fathers in Druia. He reckoned without Buchys. In August 1927 Abrantovich finished his novitiate, and in December 6 "pro alborussis, quae gens maxima pars schismatica hucusque nullos religiosos indigenos habet". 7 Matulewicz Jerzy, Listy Polskie . Vol. I, Warsaw 1987, p. 178