Lumen 2018

S TANISLAUS P APCZYNSKI 178 get to Warsaw ahead of him. In his journey, he was accompanied by Fr. Francis Haligowski, Vice-Rector in Podoliniec, who was to become the next Rector of the Warsaw house, after Fr. James Wezyrka had died on April 23, 1668. In his letter, in which he an- nounced his decision about the re-election of Fr. Opatowski to the office of Provincial Superior, the Superior General also issued an order regarding Fr. Stanislaus. He said that, if the latter should leave the Piarist house in Nicolsburg without permission and come back to Poland, he should be thrown into a monastery prison. Father Opatowski wanted to fulfill this order as soon possible. 83 He pursued Fr. Stanislaus tenaciously and arrived in Warsaw on June 2, 1668. He met him three days later after his return from Lowicz. The meet- ing of these two adversaries was stormy. In reaction to Opatowski’s aggressiveness, Papczynski stated that he did not recognize him as Provincial Superior any longer. His rea- sons for this were not only personal. He told Opatowski that he had testified under oath before the Superior General and his council that Opatowski had committed an offence which rendered him unfit to hold his office and that he [Papczynski] was surprised that the Su- perior General approved him [Opatowski] in the same office again. 84 What was Fr. Opatowski’s offence? He violated the breve of Pope Paul V of September 1606 and the breve of Pope Alexander VII of July 8, 1660. Opatowski was guilty of violating these two breves be- cause he did not inform the Holy Officium that Br. Augustine of St. Adalbert fulfilled the duties of a priest without being ordained. 85 Ac- cording to the aforementioned breves, such a violation resulted ipso facto in the offender being stripped of any church honors, religious offices, the right to vote, and deemed perpetually unfit for all the above. 86 Therefore, it was quite obvious to Fr. Papczynski that Fr. Opatowski held the office of the Provincial Superior illegally. 87 In his opinion, Fr. Opatowski’s election during the provincial chapter in 1667 and later in Rome in 1668 were both invalid. Father Opatowski did not respond to the charges brought for- ward by Stanislaus Papczynski and ordered him to leave the Polish