Your fruit will remain

223 the Rule for the future Congregation. He called it the “ Norma vitae ”. To initiate his Institute, he went to a community of a handful of hermits living in Puszc- za Korabiewska (today Puszcza Mariańska – Marian Forest) in 1673, where he placed before them his vision of the monastic life. The “Hermit Marians” received the approval of the Church on 24 th October 1673 on the strength of a decree of Bishop Stanisław Święcicki during his visitation of the Warsaw Archdiaconate in the Poznań Diocese. On 22 nd November 1677, Stefan Wierzbowski, the Bishop Ordinary of Poznań transferred the Church of the Lord’s Cenacle in New Jerusa- lem, (today Góra Kalwaria), to the Marians, and on 21st April 1679, he canoni- cally consecrated The Marian Order in the Poznan Diocese. The first legal acknowledgement of the Holy See, together with the granting of various favors which the Marians received, came on 20 th March 1681 in Pope Innocent XI’s “breve”, “ Cum sicut accepimus ”. Papal approbation was obtained in 1699, however the Marians could not receive permission to take solemn vows, without the acceptance of the monastic rule, and they could not remain within the Constitutions of the “ Norma vitae ”, as formulated by Fr. Stanisław Papczyński, though originally, they expected to obtain this confirmation ( constitutiones pro regula ). They had to accept one of the rules approved by the Holy See. They chose the “Rule of Ten Virtutes” of the BVM. It was formulated by the Bl. Gilbert Nico- las (d.1532) under the direct guidance of St. Joan de Valois, and observed then by the Order of the Virgin Mary (OVM) which she founded, commonly called the “Annunciades”. Because this rule was in the jurisdiction of the Order, its choice meant that the Marians aggregated with it. Fr .Papczyński, however, anxious for the safe and stable growth of the new Order, had earlier, in 1691 asked the Fran- ciscan Observants to take the Community under their jurisdiction to which they had consented in the same year. After obtaining from the Franciscan Observants their permission to take the final vows on the “Rule of Ten Virtues” on 21 st September 1699, the Marian Order was legally confirmed by Innocent XII on 24 th November 1699. He also instructed his Nuncio in Warsaw to receive their vows. The Order then numbered about 20 members in three monasteries (the third was founded in Goźlin on 15 th October 1699). The Marian attire consisted of a white habit in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the BVM, under which, a white scapular was worn with the em- broidered or embossed picture of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, decorated in blue, and at the waist a “decymka” or ten black beads of the rosary, symbolizing the ten evangelical virtues of the BVM. Fr. Stanisłaus Papczyński was Superior General till his death (17 th September 1701). His vicar, then assistant, Fr. Joachim Kozłowski (d. 1730), was appointed and confirmed as such by the Founder himself during his lifetime. In 1710, the Marians took over another foundation in Skórzec near Siedlce, but soon afterwards their growth met obstacles. As a result of inner tensions