The Renewal of the Order redone 2018

The Renewal of the Marian Order in 1909-1910 12 the twentieth century, there were just a handful of male monasteries in which a few aged men were living out their days. The Revolution of 1905 forced the Russian government to assume a more liberal policy. The Marians hoped that they would succeed in renewing the monastery, including the novitiate. Father Sekowski collected several thousand signatures under a petition to Prime Minister Witte. He also sent a few letters to the diocesan authorities. Administrator of the Diocese Jozef Antonowicz also wrote a number of times to the Ministry of Interior Affairs. He received an answer on November 7, 1907: the Department of Religious Affairs announced that, until a new law could be enacted by the Duma, the monastery could not be revived. 19 Father Andrzej Jurewicz died on August 11, 1908, and Father Maciej Gillis three days later. 20 Only the ailing Fr. Wincenty Sekowski survived. The Congregation was facing extinction. It was at this point that Rev. Jerzy Matulewicz took action to save the Order. He was a native of the Mariampole parish and he grew up in the shadow of the Marian monastery. As a priest, he had received an excellent education and he had extensive connections among Lithuanians, Poles, and Russians. From that point on, he would become the main driving force of the effort to revive the Marians, and he became the successor of Fr. Sekowski as their General. 21 19 Ibid. pp. 51-54, Documents 5,7. 20 EAM, pp. 15, 23. 21 Matulewicz (Matulaitis, Matulevicius), Jerzy (1871-1927), born in the village of Lugine in the Mariampole parish, he was baptized by Fr. General Jerzy Czesnas, and his religion teacher in high school was Fr. Wincenty Sekowski. He enrolled in the seminary in Kielce. He continued his studies in Warsaw, in St. Petersburg where he was ordained as priest in 1898, and in Fribourg. For many years he collaborated with Blessed Honorat Kozminski and his secret congregations, especially with the Servants of the Heart of Jesus who boarded him and gave him care at 24 Piekna Street in Warsaw from 1904 to 1907. At the same time, he was a social activist, a co-founder of the Association of Christian Workers, and the editor of a bi-weekly, “Labor Comrade.” In 1907 he was named professor at the Theological Academy in St. Petersburg. In 1909 he joined the Congregation of Marian Priests. Two years later he was elected its General and performed this function until he died. In 1918- 1925, he was Bishop of Vilno and then the Apostolic Delegate to Lithuania. He died in 1927. Pope John Paul II beatified him on June 28, 1987 (PSB, XX, pp. 208- 211).