Yuras Bacyshcha
The study of the Belarusian Catholic movement at the beginning of the 20th century was initiated by its participants themselves. The first scientific works on this subject were published by an active fighter for the Belarusian identity of the church, the chairman of the Belarusian circle at the Vilnius Catholic Seminary, and one of the organizers of the Congress of Belarusian Clergy in Minsk in 1917 – Father Adam Stankevich. Most of his works were published after the October Revolution and, of course, provoked outrage from the party organs, which later repressed him. During the Soviet regime, the true history of the church was hidden behind an ideological facade, and several printed propaganda brochures predominantly featured an atheistic anti-church direction. The real history of the church was being written in exile during this time. Articles by Father Lev Haroshka, published in the journal “By God’s Path,” which was issued in London, are of great interest. There we find information not only about the history of the church in Belarus but also about individual Christian figures. These materials formed the basis for later publications by Yu. Harbinski “Belarusian Religious Figures of the 20th Century” and several articles by Ya. Tracsyak. The latter systematically compiled material on the Belarusian Catholic movement and wrote a comprehensive dissertation “Cultural and Educational Activities of Belarusian Catholic Priests (Early 20th Century – 1939).” In addition to the aforementioned works, the history of the church in recent years has been researched by V. V. Grigoryeva, U. I. Navitski, Father U. Zavalnyuk, U. Konan, and others. These works revived our spiritual heritage, brought back from oblivion the history of the church in Belarus, and returned to the people their heroes who fought for national revival during the difficult times of Russian Tsarism. Before us emerged in a new light the figures of Professor of the Catholic Spiritual Academy B. Epimakh-Shypila, priests F. Abrantovich, F. Budzka, V. Hadlevski, A. Stankevich, and others.
The author of the article was struck by the fact that even in encyclopedias published during the Soviet era, most of these names are absent. There has not been enough printed about these outstanding individuals even now. Unfortunately, most of the information about them is found in Polish rather than domestic publications. Therefore, in his article, the author decided to introduce the reader to the life and activities of one of the pioneers of the Belarusian Catholic revival, the long-term administrator[1] of the Mogilev Archdiocese, the suffragan bishop Stepan (Stefan) Danishevich.
In 1836, on the eve of the abolition of the Uniate Church in Belarus, a son was born into a poor Belarusian noble family from the Chareyski parish in the Mogilev province. At that time, probably no one knew what fate awaited this boy, but a few decades later, he became known not only in Belarus but also in Russia, Poland, and the Vatican. However, this was preceded by many years of spiritual development. In 1856, the young man became a student at the Minsk Spiritual Seminary, after which, in 1859, he was sent as one of the best to continue his studies at the Spiritual Academy in St. Petersburg. Upon graduating from the academy with a master’s degree in theology in 1863, on April 16 of the same year, he was ordained as a chaplain and worked for three months as a law teacher in Orsha, and later in Mogilev.[2] However, as the Belarusian priest Francis Budzka wrote, “he did not stay there long, for the following year he sharply opposed the teaching of religion in Russian and himself renounced the chaplaincy.”[3]
His further fate brought him to the city of Smolensk, which became the place of active work for the priest as the local pastor until 1872. It was thanks to his efforts that a brick church was built in the city, a shelter for poor children was established, and his charitable activities remained in the hearts of the parishioners for a long time. After a short stay in Mogilev, having served for three years as the Mogilev dean, Father Danishevich returned to Smolensk for pastoral work. From 1891, he served as the dean of Klimavichy-Mstislavl, from where in 1895 he was invited by Archbishop Kazlowski to St. Petersburg to the position of assessor[4] in the Roman Catholic spiritual consistory.[5] Appreciating the great merits of the Smolensk pastor, the archbishop appointed him a canon[6] in the Mogilev chapter[7], where he remained during the administration of the Mogilev metropolitans Karl Nedyalkovsky and Boleslaw Klapotowski. After the death of the latter, on February 17, 1903, Prelate[8] Danishevich was elected by the chapter as the temporary administrator of the Mogilev Archdiocese until the election of the new Archbishop Yuri Shembek on May 9, 1904.[9] During the administration of Metropolitan Shembek, Stepan Danishevich received the position of protonotary apostolic, and after the death of the archdiocese’s leader, he was again elected as the administrator of the metropolis, which he headed from July 30, 1905, to November 23, 1908. This was a time of partial revival of the Catholic Church, the emergence of the Belarusian Catholic national direction, and Prelate Danishevich was involved in all of this. Utilizing the Decree on Toleration from October 17, 1905, thousands of former Uniates, forcibly classified as Orthodox, transitioned to Catholicism without seeking the government’s consent. Danishevich made every effort to assist them, seeking from the government to recognize this transition as legal and to simplify the extremely complex rules of transition. Promoting the increase in the number of church believers, he appealed to Rome with a proposal to introduce the Russian language into the church alongside Polish, which not all parishioners understood, to which a positive response came from the Apostolic Capital. The aforementioned decree on toleration also lifted the ban on printing in Belarusian using the Latin alphabet, which was immediately noted by the figures of the Belarusian revival. Being a patriot of his native land and well aware of the harm that the use of the foreign Polish language in the sanctuaries of Belarus brought to the church and the Belarusian people, the administrator of the Mogilev Archdiocese, Prelate Danishevich, published in 1906 in St. Petersburg “Elementary for Good Catholic Children,” written in Belarusian.[10] “He faced many attacks for this from those for whom faith is needed only for the expansion of their nationality, but he did not pay attention to this, for he was strongly convinced that the Belarusian language would not harm the Catholic cause in the least, but would be very useful for a better understanding of their faith by Belarusians. For this reason, he encouraged writing and publishing religious books in Belarusian and even censored some of them before their publication,” recalled Father F. Budzka.[11]
Prelate Danishevich was also very concerned about the education of Catholic youth. Under the influence of Danishevich and B. Epimakh-Shypila, the Belarusian Catholic movement expanded in the first decade of the 20th century. Thanks to them, a Belarusian circle was established at the Spiritual Catholic Seminary in St. Petersburg, which united Belarusian clerics and produced a whole series of outstanding figures of the Belarusian revival.[12] Prelate Danishevich was personally acquainted with many Belarusian Catholic priests and always sought to assist them in their charitable cultural and educational activities. It was precisely the close friendly relations he had with Father Francis Budzka that helped the latter obtain his priestly certificate, as the Polish Catholic leadership was unwilling to ordain the cleric, fearing his Belarusian identity. In 1907, Danishevich sought permission to open elementary Catholic schools in the parishes within the diocese, with the teaching of subjects in local languages alongside Polish at the request of parents. However, the Tsarist government did not agree to such radical changes, fearing the strengthening of Polish influence on the Belarusian population and the outflow of students from state Russian schools.[13]
On June 12, 1908, at the request of Pope Pius X, Prelate Danishevich received the honorary title of Bishop of Claudia from the hands of the new Mogilev Archbishop Unukovsky. After the death of the latter, Bishop-suffragan[14] Stepan Danishevich on May 29, 1909, became the administrator of the metropolis for the third time. All his good initiatives were guided by his own conscience, always aiming to bring as much benefit as possible to his people, and nothing could hinder him in this. With each passing year, he more resolutely defended the rights of the church before the imperial leadership, for which he was not always in the favor of the higher state authority. Upon finding in the archive correspondence between Danishevich and the Mogilev governor Erdeli regarding the opening of the Goradishchansky church, one is unintentionally surprised by his bold polemics with the provincial authority. On November 18, 1909, without the governor’s knowledge but with the permission of the ruling bishop of the Mogilev Roman Catholic Archdiocese, Bishop Danishevich, the priest Ivanovsky opened and consecrated the church in the village of Goradishcha in the Pinsk district. The Mogilev governor sent a letter to the bishop demanding to address the actions of Father Ivanovsky and not to allow further worship in the church, to which Danishevich responded by emphasizing the independence of the church: “Not only according to Canon Law but also according to State Law, both the closure of churches for worship and their restoration belong to spiritual authority, while secular authority is granted this only in exceptional cases, and even then only through legislative means… The closure of a church could only follow from the Catholic Bishop in cases provided for in Canon Law, which are not present in this matter. In view of this, I, as a Catholic Bishop, cannot issue orders to prevent worship in the Goradishchansky church…”[15] In doing so, Danishevich was not afraid to interpret the decrees and orders of the Tsarist government in his own way, referring to them.
During his last administration of the archdiocese in 1910, Bishop Stepan Danishevich completely toured the Mogilev and Smolensk regions, where, meeting with the local population, “not only ordered priests to preach in Belarusian but also spoke in it himself.”[16] On May 10, 1910, he was succeeded in the position of the head of the metropolis by the new Archbishop Klyuchynsky, to whom Danishevich continued to assist in managing the archdiocese until a new wave of reaction reached him. The Tsarist government disapproved of the bishop’s attitude towards the church, whose rights he valued above state ones, and the fact that he was guided by his own conscience in his actions rather than by the grace or displeasure of the Tsar. He was reminded of numerous violations of the civil authority’s orders during his administration of the metropolis, and on April 7, 1911, by Tsarist decree, Danishevich was stripped of all pensions and official positions.[17] Later, thanks to Klyuchynsky’s efforts, he was restored to the position of prelate in the chapter and given a modest pension. However, the persecution by the authorities and the hardships left their mark on the prelate’s health, and in the spring of 1912, he returned to Smolensk, where he had once begun his priestly activities and where his beloved mother was buried. “Smolensk did not enjoy the Bishop for long, for he fell ill with cancer and departed this world on December 3, 1913. Several times during his short illness, he went to confession and received the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. With tears, the parishioners mourned their pastor, and most of all, the children from the shelter, who surrounded the coffin of their guardian and benefactor with a wreath. He was buried next to his mother in the Smolensk cemetery by the churches…”[18]
It is hoped that the memory of the holy father Stepan Danishevich will be preserved not only in the portrait in the Smolensk church and the modest article in the Encyclopedia of the History of Belarus[19], but also in the hearts of the Belarusian people.
Source: Bacyshcha Yu.A. Life and Activities of the Administrator of the Mogilev Archdiocese Stepan Danishevich // Vesti BDPU. 2003. No. 1 (35). P. 219-224
[1] Administrator – a temporary head of the metropolis, elected by the chapter after the death or removal of the former archbishop and managing the church until the election of a new archbishop (metropolitan).
[2] Falkowski Cz. Denisewicz Stefan.// Polish Biographical Dictionary. Krakow. 1939 -1946. Vol. V. P. 120.
[3] Budzka P. St. P. Bishop Stefan Danishevich.// Belarusian Religious Figures of the 20th Century. Minsk. 1999. P. 307.
[4] Assessor – a spiritual figure in the Catholic Church who is part of the collegial body governing the diocese.
[5] Falkowski Cz. Denisewicz Stefan.// Polish Biographical Dictionary. Krakow. 1939 -1946. Vol. V. P. 120.
[6] Canon – an honorary title of a priest of the diocesan cathedral, who is also a member of the chapter.
[7] Chapter – the highest spiritual council that assists the bishop in managing the diocese.
[8] Prelate – an honorary title for individuals holding higher positions in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
[9] Wasilewski J. Archbishops and Administrators of the Mogilev Archdiocese. Pinsk. 1930. P. 191.
[10] Stankiewicz A. Native Language in Sanctuaries. Vilnius. 1929. P. 74.
[11] Budzka P. St. P. Bishop Stefan Danishevich.// Belarusian Religious Figures of the 20th Century. Minsk. 1999. P. 308.
[12] Stankewicz A. Belarusian Christian Movement: Historical Outline. Vilnius. 1939. P. 40.
[13] Falkowski Cz. Denisewicz Stefan.// Polish Biographical Dictionary. Krakow. 1939 -1946. Vol. V. P. 120.
[14] Bishop-suffragan – the deputy bishop who assists the latter in conducting worship and also performs the functions of the head of the diocese in his absence.
[15] NGAB. F. 295 Inv. 1 Case No. 7680 Sheet 56.
[16] Stankiewicz A. Native Language in Sanctuaries. Vilnius. 1929. P. 75.
[17] Wasilewski J. Archbishops and Administrators of the Mogilev Archdiocese. Pinsk. 1930. P. 155.
[18] Budzka P. St. P. Bishop Stefan Danishevich.// Belarusian Religious Figures of the 20th Century. Minsk. 1999. P. 308.
[19] Lis A. Danishevich Stepan.// EGB. Minsk. 1996. Vol. 3. P. 206.