Fedeltà a Roma o lealtà all’Impero? La questione uniate nel Regno di Polonia (1831-1863)

Abstract

Matteo Piccin
Fealty to Rome or Loyalty to the Empire? The Uniate Question in the Kingdom of Poland (1831-1863)

The article describes the policies that the Tsarist authorities pursued towards the Chełm Greek-Catholic eparchy in the Kingdom of Poland between 1831 and 1863. It focuses in particular on a little-known episode: the attempt to suppress the Chełm eparchy implemented during the episcopate of F.F. Szumborski (1828-1851) with the approval of the viceroy of Poland Paskevich and of Tsar Nicholas I. The conversion of the Uniates to the Orthodox Church, successfully achieved in the Western (Lithuanian-Belarusian) provinces of the Tsarist Empire in 1839, was inscribed in the process of assimilation of these territories, which were considered to have belonged to the Russian state and to the Orthodox Church since the age of Kyivan Rus’. These lands had been incorporated into the Empire by the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the second half of the Eighteenth century. The episode described reflects the nationalistic evolution of Imperial policies, but the failure to convert the Chełm Uniates shows that, for reasons of diplomatic balance with the Holy See and the European powers, the Tsar’s government preferred to adopt a policy of compromise, rather than a unilateral resolution of the Uniate question. The Chełm Uniates were not converted to Orthodoxy until after the Polish Uprising of 1863, when a shift towards a broader Russifi cation of the outlying areas of the Empire took place in offi cial policies.