Lumen 2018

365 The End of Father Stanislaus’s Life Since the Order of the Immaculate Conception was an institute for women and was legally dependent on the Order of the Franciscan Friars, Fr. Stanislaus had to obtain their permission for his plan. Therefore, in March of 1691, he sent a petition to them in which he asked for legal incorporation (aggregation) of his institute into the Order of Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He also asked that the Marians be given the same privileges that the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception enjoyed. 7 The request was composed as a request from all of the Marians and signed: Clerici Mariani Immaculatae Conceptionis. Father Pa- pczynski, of course, was its author, which can be surmised from the manner in which the document was composed. As the Founder and the Superior General of the institute, he had every right to submit this letter on behalf of all his confreres. 8 The result of Fr. Papczynski’s request was a letter of recommen- dation written by the Commissioner General of the Order of Fran- ciscan Friars, Fr. Charles Francis da Varese on April 20, 1691, 9 in which he stated that the Marians had been placed under the protec- tion of the said Order of St. Francis and, therefore, he commended them to the care of the superiors of his order, especially in the King- dom of Poland and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. 10 The afore- mentioned letter was given an erroneous title in the Protocol : “Response and Incorporation.” After all, it is not addressed to the Marians, but to the Franciscan Friars. Its text suggests that it is not a formal response to a request, but a letter of recommendation. Its author is making an appeal to the members of the Franciscan Order. To an even lesser degree can this letter be considered an “incor- poration,” as it was phrased in the Protocol , because it does not speak about the legal incorporation of the Marians into the Order of the Immaculate Conception or into the Franciscan Order. To verify this, it is enough to compare the said letter with the document of the ac- tual incorporation. 11 It must be emphasized that, having received such protection from the Franciscans, Fr. Papczynski obtained only a part, and not even