Ad Honorem Immaculatae Conceptionis Mariae Oblatio

44 into existence. They were looking for an installation decree rather than for pivotal events in the Congregation’s history, which – in such researchers’ opinion – could not have any essential meaning because those belonged to the private sphere, rather than to the sphere of public ecclesial acts. This kind of reasoning led the first Marians after the Renovation (e.g., G. Mat- ulaitis-Matulewicz and C. Reklaitis) to believe that the Marians formally appeared in the Church in 1679, when Bishop Stefan Wierzbowski issued the first decree, establishing the Congregation. In later times, the authors attempted to push the date of origin back to some earlier years; however, they tried not to challenge the rule stating that only a formal ecclesial de- cree can produce specific causal effects within the Church. The first for- mal Church document regarding the Congregation of Marians was Bishop Stanislaus Jacek Święcicki’s post-visitation ordinances given to the Puszcza Korabiewska hermitage in 1673, 21 which ordinance started being consid- ered as the beginning of the Marians. Attentive examination of the document of Bishop S. J. Święcicki’s leads to the conclusion that its purpose and intention were far from raising the Congregation of Marians into existence, rather, it was intended to regu- late and order the life of the Puszcza Korabiewska hermits who had been residing there for nearly 10 years. The contents of the document have no statements, directly or indirectly expressing the will to found the Con- gregation. On the contrary, some wording of the Bishop’s post-visitation decree indicates that he knew of the existence of the Congregation of Mar- ians and he treated it as an existing reality. Counting the people residing at the hermitage at the beginning of his document, the Bishop makes a strict distinction between the lay and religious persons, among whom he men- tions only two by name: Fr. Stanislaus and Br. John, i.e. Krajewski, while among the lay people he mentions only one: Szymon Werbicki, noting that the latter was a Third Order Franciscan and adding that there were other lay people beside him. This proves the oblation made by the two religious was not seen by Bishop Święcicki as an act of private devotion, but that it changed their status within the Church, making them the religious. Thus, the Bishop acknowledged their becoming Marian religious through the oblative profession of the evangelical counsels, which they had made prior to the Bishop’s arrival on the visitation. The fact of the Congregation of Marians’ existence prior to the Bishop’s visitation in Puszcza Korabiew- 21 Posnaniensis... , 339-345.