Bishop Sipovich new file

4 the nationalism of the Druia Marian fathers, which nationalism is said to disturb the peace of Druia parishioners" 2 . In 1929 Father Vitalis Khamionak was dismissed from the post of teacher of religion in the Druia schools, and in his place was appointed a Polish diocesan priest, who, in the words of Bronikowski, "began to undo the Belarusian work of Father Vitalis by telling the children stories with religious content from Polish history". About the same time the Belarusian Marian community in Druia had been weakened by the departure of some of its members for missionary work among Russians in Harbin in Manchuria. They were victims of the then fashionable policy of "conversion of Russia". According to its proponents, after the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union (in which they did not doubt) the Russian Orthodox Church would be weak and demoralised. This would present a unique opportunity for the Catholic Church to extend her frontiers eastwards right to the heart of Russia. The most prominent exponent of this idea was Bishop Michel d’Herbigny, a learned French Jesuit, Rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, who knew how to gain the confidence of the Pope Pius XI. In 1925 a special Commission "Pro Russia" was established, first as part of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, and from 1930 as an independent department of the Vatican, directly responsible to the Pope. Like a new Napoleon, d’Herbigny was preparing the spiritual conquest of Russia by amassing his troops on the borders of the Soviet Union. One such bridgehead was the Jesuit House in Albertyn in Western Belarus which was then under Polish rule. At the same time the affairs of the Eastern (Byzantine) rite in Western Belarus were placed under the jurisdiction of the Commission "Pro Russia". This fact dismayed Belarusians who saw their hopes for a revival of their Greek Catholic Church dashed. It also antagonised Poles who considered Belarus to be their "sphere of influence" and did not take kindly to the idea of Belarusians being russified by... the Vatican. Another place which attracted the attention of Commission "Pro Russia" was Harbin, the capital city of the Chinese province of Manchuria. Out of a population of half a million nearly one third were Russians, mostly refugees from the Communist regime in their country. This was the largest compact Russian community outside Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church was well organised, with one archbishop, two bishops and some 250 priests. For d’Herbigny it must have seemed the ideal place to start missionary efforts. Matulewicz died early in 1927 and was succeeded as Superior General of Marian Fathers by his friend and companion Francis Buchys (1872-1951). A Lithuanian, he spent many years before the First World War in St Petersburg, first as a student and later as professor of Fundamental Theology and Vice-Rector of the Catholic Theological Academy. It was there that he became attracted to the idea of 2 "Agitur de investigatione nationalismi Marianorum Drujensium, qui nationalismus dicebatur nocere paci parochianorum Drujensium)". Father Kazimierz Bronikowski, Polish Provincial General of the Marian fathers, at the request of Buchys made an extraodrdinary visitation of Druja from 15 February to 16 April 1930. The report of the visitation consisting of 25 typewritten pages in Polish, was not presented to Buchys till 10 November 1930. It was entitled "Sprawozdanie z wizytacji nadzwyczajnej w Drui na zlecenie Jego Excellencji Najdostojniejszego Ojca Generala". Before the end of the visitation, on 3 March 1930, Bronikowski wrote to Buchys: "For the sake of peace...the Druja Fathers, after long deliberations at their meetings, without my participation and insistence, decided to abandon Belarusian sermons at Vespers... If I had any doubts, then they disappeared with shame because of this their Catholic magnanimity". Father Thomas Padziava in his unpublished work "Ojciec Andrzej Cikoto (Father Andrew Tsikota) (a typescript copy in the F. Skaryna Library in London), writes that according to Father Vitalis Khamionak, Belarusian sermons were abandoned at the insistence of Father Bronikowski...