Bishop Sipovich new file

3 206 members of the Polish frontier guard unit, 34 Lithuanians, 3 Latvians, 2 Russians and 1509 Poles (including 1163 polonised Belarusians) 1 . Despite the fact that the overhelming majority of the faithful in the Druia parish were Belarusians, the Marian Fathers had to exercise considerable moderation in their work, hoping thereby not to antagonise the authorities. Thus schooling in their high school was conducted in Polish, and Belarusian was not even taught as a subject. In fact pupils were forbidden to speak among themselves in Belarusian during the breaks. Similarly, in the parish church two out of three sermons every Sunday were preached in Polish, and only one, at vespers, in Belarusian. At the same time the fathers never made any secret of the fact that they were Belarusians; they spoke Belarusian among themselves and with the faithful, and used that language to teach the catechism to peasant children who in any case did not understand Polish. But even this discreet attitude failed to placate the Polish civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The Belarusian Fathers were subjected to all kinds of harassment, unfounded accusations and attacks in the Polish press. The situation deteriorated after 1925, when Poland signed a concordat (treaty) with the Holy See. According to the terms of the concordat the episcopal see of Vilna was raised to the dignity of archbishopric and became the centre of the new metroplitan province. In practice this meant that in the Polish-Lithuanian quarrel about Vilna the Holy See recognised the claims of the former. The position of Bishop Matulewicz became untenable. In July of that year he tendered his resignation and was replaced eventually in 1926 by Romuald Jalbrzykowski (1876-1955), a Pole who showed neither sympathy with, nor understanding of, the needs of Belarusian faithful in his diocese. The Belarusian fathers in Druia soon began to feel the change. Their offer in 1926 to extend their pastoral work was rejected. In 1929 Jalbrzykowski appointed a special commission to investigate their various alleged misdeeds, including their alleged attempted poisoning of Jozef Borodzicz, a Polish priest, originally from the diocese of Vilna, but since 1912 belonging to the Italian diocese of Ventimiglia and residing in San Remo. Every summer he spent his "holidays" in the Vilna diocese where, with the tacit consent of civil and ecclesiastical authorities, he conducted a campaign in defence of "Polish borderlands" which according to him were in peril. As a special target he singled out the Belarusian Marian Fathers in Druia. In June 1929 he made an attempt, allegedly with the permission of Archbishop Jalbrzykowski, to start building a new church in Druia in opposition to the already existing parish church. Pressed by Tsikota, Jalbrzykowski had to admit in writing that he had given no permission to Borodzicz, and ordered the latter to leave Druia immediately. At the same time, however, he appointed a commission to investigate Borodzicz’s accusations against the Marian Fathers. The commission was compelled to concede their absurdity, but the true reason for all this disagreeable affair was made manifest by the subsequent demand by Jalbrzykowski that Druia should divest itself of its Belarusian character and admit two Polish priests. Father Andrew Tsikota, in his comments to the Superior General of the Congregation of Marian Fathers on the findings of the commission, put it succinctly when he said: "The only crime, which we freely acknowledge, is that we are Belarusians". In 1930 Belarusian sermons in the Druia church were abandoned under threat of violence on the part of fanatical Polish nationalists. The decision to stop preaching in Belarusian was praised by Jalbrzykowski, as well as by the Polish Marian Father, Kazimierz Bronikowski, who early in 1930 was sent to Druia by the Superior General Peter Buchys "to investigate 1 The statistics was compiled by Father Vitalis Khamionak on the basis of the visitation of parishioners’ homes during the Christmas period 1929-30.