Alexander Nadson BISHOP CESLAUS SIPOVICH
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Alexander Nadson BISHOP CESLAUS SIPOVICH 1. The First steps Ceslaus Sipovich was born on 8 December 1914 into a farming family at Dziedzinka, a small village in the north-western corner of Belarus which at that time formed part of the Russian Empire. As the result of changes brought about by the First World War and the Russian Revolution, the territory of Belarus was partitioned in March 1921 by the Treaty of Riga between its neighbours. Its western regions came under the Polish rule, and the eastern part became the Belarusian Soviet Republic, a constituent part of the Soviet Union. It was a cynical deal which paid no regard to the interests of Belarusians. The Poles who were in a stronger position than the Soviets, but who had only recently regained their independence, were afraid of having a large ethnic minority within their borders and carved up for themselves only that portion of Belarus which they thought they could easily assimilate. In the words of the Polish politician Stanislaw Grabski, they "cut out the Belarusian abscess". The great majority of Belarusians (over 70 percent) were Orthodox, with a sizable minority (about 25 percent) Roman Catholics, most of whom lived in the western regions which after 1920 came under Polish rule. The Orthodox were mainly descendants of Catholics of Byzantine rite or, as they were known, Greek Catholics or Uniates. In 1839 the Greek Catholic Church in Belarus was suppressed by the Russian authorities and forcibly incorporated into the Russian Orthodox Church. Some of the Greek Catholics, in order to safeguard their faith, secretly managed to change their rite, thus increasing the number of Roman Catholics in Belarus. It is hard to say whether the ancestors of Ceslaus Sipovich were among them, but his parents, Vincent (1877-1957) and Jadviha, nÈe Tychka (1890-1974) were both Catholics of Roman rite. They had eight children, of whom five ñ four boys and one girl, ñ survived, Ceslaus being the eldest. The life of a Belarusian peasant was not easy, and children were expected at an early age to start to help their parents with the farm work. Ceslaus was no exception, and from that time on, throughout his entire life, he retained a love and respect for manual labour, especially that of a farmer. According to his younger brother Peter, the decisive influence in the formation of his character was his mother. Although without any formal education, she knew how to instil in her children the love of their native language. She was endowed with a lively intellect and considerable poetical talent. Her songs and poems were learnt by others by heart, thus becoming part of local village folklore. According to the testimony of Bishop Sipovich himself, he felt an inclination towards the priesthood from early age. The inclination became firm resolution when in November 1928 he joined the "juniorate", a kind of monastic "minor seminary" for potential candidates for religious life at the monastery of the Belarusian Marian Fathers in the nearby town of Druia (pronounced "Drooia") on the river Dzvina, which marked the frontier between the Polish Republic and Latvia. The boys continued to attend school, but were subject to monastic discipline under the supervision of a priest of the Congregation, allowances being made for their age and necessity of study. The first year in the "juniorate" for Sipovich was spent in preparation for entering the High School (the so called "gimazjum") run by Marian Fathers. It was a 1 fee-paying coeducational school, ñ a feature rather unusual at that period, ñ with fees varying according to whether children came from the families belonging to the Druia parish or from elsewhere. There were also non-Catholic pupils, in particular children of Druia Jewish families, but their fees were accordingly higher. Apart from day pupils there were also boarders. The boy boarders lived at the monastery under the supervision of a priest. The boarding house for girls was run by sisters of the Eucharist, a female congregation founded by Blessed George Matulewicz, of whom more below. The idea of a Belarusian monastic foundation in Druia came from Blessed George Matulewicz (1871-1927), who was Bishop of Vilna in the years 1918-1925. A Lithuanian, conscious of his national identity, he spent most of his life in Poland, where he was highly respected as an exemplary priest, full of apostolic zeal and deeply concerned with social justice. In 1909 he secretly joined the Marian Fathers, a religious congregation founded in the 17th century in Poland, but which at that time was on the point of extinction because of the policy of the Russian government which did not allow Catholic religious orders to accept new candidates. Matulewicz became Superior General and gave the Marian Congregation a new constitution, adapted to the necessities of the time. He also established a novitiate in Fribourg in Switzerland, far from the eyes of the Russian secret police. After the retreat of the Russians during the First World War, the Marian Fathers came into the open and established their houses in Poland and Lithuania. In December 1918 Matulewicz became Bishop of Vilna. This city was a bone of contention between newly independent Lithuania and Poland, and became eventually part of the latter. The situation of Matulewicz was delicate. A Man of God, he wanted to be the pastor and father to all members of his flock, and maintained that his field of action was the Kingdom of Christ, and not human politics. Unfortunately the fact that he was Lithuanian made him suspect in the eyes of the Polish authorities and nationalistically disposed clergy. What angered them most, however, was the bishopís attitude towards Belarusians, who formed the largest part of the faithful of his diocese. Belarusians were in a difficult position. According to the Polish policy of an "ethnically-uniform state", they were due for assimilation. The Catholic Church was expected to play an important role in this process of assimilation. In the words written in 1923 by the representative of the Polish government in Vilna Province, Walerian Roman, the Catholic Church was expected to be the most powerful factor "in polonising the local population with hitherto undefined national identity". Matulewicz could not permit such a blatant use of the Church for political ends. But he could do little to prevent it. His efforts to satisfy the legitimate religious demands of Belarusians brought accusations of encouraging "Belarusian nationalism".The establishment of a strong Belarusian religious centre in the form of a House of Belarusian Marian Fathers seemed to be the best solution in the circumstances. This was done in May 1924 in Druia. The first superior was Father Andrew Tsikota (1891-1952), an exemplary priest and able administrator. He was soon joined by other Belarusian priests, among them Father Joseph Hermanovich (1890-1978), a well known Belarusian poet and the favourite teacher of Ceslaus Sipovich. Marian Fathers were also in charge of the Druia parish, which covered several neigbouring villages and hamlets. The monastic church of the Holy Trinity served as the parish church. At the beginning of 1930 the parish had 5024 parishioners, of which 3274 were Belarusians. The remaining 1754 comprised 2 206 members of the Polish frontier guard unit, 34 Lithuanians, 3 Latvians, 2 Russians and 1509 Poles (including 1163 polonised Belarusians)1. Despite the fact that the overhelming majority of the faithful in the Druia parish were Belarusians, the Marian Fathers had to exercise considerable moderation in their work, hoping thereby not to antagonise the authorities. Thus schooling in their high school was conducted in Polish, and Belarusian was not even taught as a subject. In fact pupils were forbidden to speak among themselves in Belarusian during the breaks. Similarly, in the parish church two out of three sermons every Sunday were preached in Polish, and only one, at vespers, in Belarusian. At the same time the fathers never made any secret of the fact that they were Belarusians; they spoke Belarusian among themselves and with the faithful, and used that language to teach the catechism to peasant children who in any case did not understand Polish. But even this discreet attitude failed to placate the Polish civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The Belarusian Fathers were subjected to all kinds of harassment, unfounded accusations and attacks in the Polish press. The situation deteriorated after 1925, when Poland signed a concordat (treaty) with the Holy See. According to the terms of the concordat the episcopal see of Vilna was raised to the dignity of archbishopric and became the centre of the new metroplitan province. In practice this meant that in the Polish-Lithuanian quarrel about Vilna the Holy See recognised the claims of the former. The position of Bishop Matulewicz became untenable. In July of that year he tendered his resignation and was replaced eventually in 1926 by Romuald Jalbrzykowski (1876-1955), a Pole who showed neither sympathy with, nor understanding of, the needs of Belarusian faithful in his diocese. The Belarusian fathers in Druia soon began to feel the change. Their offer in 1926 to extend their pastoral work was rejected. In 1929 Jalbrzykowski appointed a special commission to investigate their various alleged misdeeds, including their alleged attempted poisoning of Jozef Borodzicz, a Polish priest, originally from the diocese of Vilna, but since 1912 belonging to the Italian diocese of Ventimiglia and residing in San Remo. Every summer he spent his "holidays" in the Vilna diocese where, with the tacit consent of civil and ecclesiastical authorities, he conducted a campaign in defence of "Polish borderlands" which according to him were in peril. As a special target he singled out the Belarusian Marian Fathers in Druia.