EN Stanisław Wojeński’s Way to the Episcopal Mitre. The Adventurous Church Career of the Son of the Rector of the Cracow Academy

2017

Biuletyn Biblioteki Jagiellońskiej

Rocznik: 2017 | Tom: 67

artykuł naukowy

polski

EN Stanisław Wojeński – who was Bishop of Kamieniec in the years 1680–1685 – was the author of a printed account of the Polish-Turkish wars of 1684 and was one of the distinctive (albe it forgotten) figures of the Church and political life during the reign of King Jan III Sobieski. He was the son of the Rector of the Cracow Academy and received his education in Poland, Germany and Italy. From the reign of King Jan II Kazimierz, he was active not only as a diplomat, but also as a Canon of the Cracow Cathedral and as the Archdeacon of the Collegiate Chapter in Pilica. In 1677, he was nominated as Bishop of Kamieniec Podolski, which at that time was under the Turkish jurisdiction. However, it was not until three years later that his nomination received papal approval, the delay being due not only to the geopolitical situation of the Diocese of Kamieniec, which had temporarily been lost to the Turks by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but also to the fact that Wojeński had been accused – first before the Apostolic Nuncio in Warsaw and later in the Roman Curia itself – of necromancy, a lack of personal piety, involvement in the anti-imperial opposition in Hungary (i.e. in today’s Slovakia, which at that time belonged to the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen) and of having falsified his own origins (which were in fact non-noble) in order to be able to become a senior Church dignitary. Of all these accusations, the last at least was true, as Wojeński’s ancestors had actually been burghers in Kościan in Greater Poland. Because – on the one hand – the charges had been made by Andrzej Trzebicki, who was Bishop Ordinary of Cracow, while – on the other hand – the Royal Court (including King Jan III Sobieski himself) showed intransigence in supporting the candidacy, it was a long time before a decision was eventually made in Rome (and then only after the death of Bishop Trzebicki in 1679). This article presents the most important aspects of Wojeński’s case – which was atypical as far as the filling of episcopal vacancies in the seventeenth century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was concerned – with the aid of sources from the Vatican Archives (Archivio Segreto Vaticano), which have hitherto not been analysed in this particular context.

http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-f11dae99-99ee-489f-9832-4f6ef0eb4944

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