Ad Honorem Immaculatae Conceptionis Mariae Oblatio

40 The Opinion of a historian of the 17 th -Century religious orders Małgorzata Borkowska, a Benedictine Sister, is the author of many his- torical works, based on the 17 th and 18 th -Centuries source documents con- cerning religious orders, monasteries, and religious sisters. In response to the request from the Góra Kalwaria city government, she prepared a book about that city. 13 The book contains a short, (only 5-page-long) chapter about the Marians who were associated with that town from nearly the beginning. This is how this historian briefly relates the early years of the community’s existence: Chronologically, the Marians were the last religious Order settled in Góra. Besides, those were the early years of their existence, since the origin of the Order should be recognized as 1671, when Fr. Stani- slaus Papczyński, having previously received a dispensation from his vows made in 1656 in the Piarists, donned the white habit of the new Order under the invocation of the Immaculately Conceived Mother of God and started working on establishing the spirituality and the rule of this Order. In 1673, Fr. Stanislaus settled in Puszcza Korabiewska, where a small community of hermits existed at the time. Bishop Wierzbowski wished to curtail their [improper] lifestyle. Although this very place, known today as Puszcza Mar- iańska, has become the cradle of the Marian Order, none of the original hermits had persevered long in it, and for several years the future of the new Order was uncertain. However, in 1674 its Founder obtained permission to build a chapel and a retreat house there, and in 1677, the Korabiew commu- nity was granted the Diet’s approval and was capable of dispatching a few of its members to New Jerusalem, where – on Nov. 22 nd – they were solemn- ly introduced into the ownership of the Cenacle and the adjacent grounds. There was still a long road ahead before the ultimate approval of the text of the Order’s by-laws and its papal ratification, but it was in fact a living and functioning community. From the moment that Fr. Papczyński settled there, the Monastery in Góra became the headquarters of the Order’s Superior General, while the Novitiate was in Korabiew. 14 AlthoughM. Borkowska was well acquainted with the source documents and the works on the Congregation’s history, yet she expressed a view con- trary to the views of many of the community’s historical scholars, that the origin of the Order should be recognized as 1671, when Fr. Stanislaus Pap- czyński, [...] donned the white habit of the new Order. It is possible, that she, as a historian and expert on that time period, deemed the views stat- 13 M . Borkowska OSB, Dzieje Góry Kalwarii , Krakow 2002. 14 Ibid, 271.