Lumen 2018

191 At the Crossroads in the diocese of his bishop and would be obedient only to him, Opa- towski summoned the guards, abducted Fr. Stanislaus, had him tied up, and took him to Podoliniec. 149 In his later account of this incident, Fr. Papczynski recalled the particularly cruel manner in which Provincial Opatowski treated him at that time. The incident took place on January 9, 1670, a snowy and frosty day. 150 Opatowski abducted Fr. Stanislaus unexpectedly, so he was insufficiently dressed for the weather. With the help of two Russian Orthodox guards, he placed him in a covered carriage and took him to Podoliniec (well over 100 kilometers away from Cracow), along a road leading through the mountains. According to Fr. Stanislaus, the carriage was a covered sled, but Bishop Oborski claimed that it was a carriage without a roof. Kraus explained this inconsistency by saying that at first the roof of the carriage was up, but later, on the road outside Cracow, it was pulled down, so that the passenger could sit more comfortably. 151 This was a dubious kindness towards the abducted, for Fr. Stanislaus, frozen to the bone, almost lost his life then, the more so that he was struck on the back by a thill and badly wounded. This is what Fr. Papczynski himself wrote about this abduction: “The Provincial Superior put me in a carriage with a roof (...) he transported me, half dressed, in severe winter weather, for almost twenty miles and almost killed me during the trip by a strike with a thill on my neck. In Podoliniec, he kept me locked in a cell even though I was sick. When I asked to receive the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, he forbade that. He for- bade anyone to come to me even t hough I was close to death.” 152 At the time, when Fr. Stanislaus was abducted, Br. Casimir was at a philosophy lecture at the Dominicans. The other Brother, Bernard, witnessed the abduction. Unable to go through the door, he jumped over the wall near the well and ran to the Dominicans to inform Br. Casimir and the fathers there that Fr. Stanislaus had been abducted, brutally tied up like a criminal, and taken away. He re- peated all of this to the Bishop’s Curia. 153