Lumen 2018

S TANISLAUS P APCZYNSKI 302 with fish, drained the water away from the swamps, thus rendering a good part of the land tillable and turning “the lake” into a meadow. He achieved all this with only a handful of confreres, without any fi- nancial resources, and amidst envious neighbors who thought that the Marians only had a right to the fields while they were in their original condition, i.e., useless. Now that the “lake” had been drained and turned into tillable land, all the others had a right to it, too. 186 A very peculiar kind of logic, indeed! Persecutions The neighbors of the Marians did not merely question their rights to the foundation, but went even further. They were very unfriendly towards the newcomers, some of them did not even consider the Marians religious and thus questioned their right to the income from the foundations. They accused the bishop of not asking their opinion when he approved the new institute, which he was allegedly obliged to do. Therefore, they disturbed Fr. Papczynski’s peace and perse- cuted him and his companions with a stubbornness worthy of a bet- ter cause. They would send various ne’er-do-wells to pester the Marians and even used violence against them. A report made on Au- gust 20, 1678, in the Warsaw Curia refers to one such attack. A man by the name Gregory Dziak, his son, and other residents of the village Chynow forced their way into the area around the Ce- nacle, destroyed trees, and threatened the brethren with murder, using offensive language to insult them. In the general commotion, without any respect for a man of the cloth, they beat up Fr. Stanis- laus, leaving bloody bruises on his body. They would most likely have killed a monastery servant, too, if others had not come to his defense. 187 Another incident involving a certain resident of Nowa Jerozolima should be mentioned. In order to seize a part of the land that be- longed to the monastery, the said resident took Fr. Stanislaus to court. Father Papczynski tried to persuade him to give up his claims,