The Catholic Church under Tsarist rule

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Bažnyčios istorija; Katalikų bažnyčia; Krikščionių tikėjimai; Krikščionybė; Lietuvos istorija; Religingumas; Christianity; Church history; Lithuania; Lithuanian history; Religiosity; Christian faiths; Catholic Church.

ENAfter the Third Partition the greater part of ethnographic Lithuania along with the dioceses of Vilnius and Žemaitija fell into the grasping hands of the Russian Empire. A century of repression and persecution began for the Lithuanian Catholic Church. In her desire to reduce the Church's influence over society Empress Catherine II sought to isolate it in all ways from Western Europe and especially its spiritual centre, Rome. The rules which had governed the Catholic parish of St Petersburg since 1769 were applied to the lands annexed by the Russian Empire and remained in force until a concordat was signed by the Holy See and Russia in 1847. Catherine applied these rules first in the Mogilev and Vitebsk regions where 100,000 Latin-rite Catholics and 800,000 Uniates lived. Direct contacts with the pope were forbidden and all correspondence was controlled by state institutions for whom all letters and texts were translated into Russian. In demonstration of her absolute power at the end of 1773 Catherine set up a bishopric of Belorussia centred on Mogilev and appointed a Calvinist convert, Stanislav Sestrentsevich as bishop. In January 1782 Catherine gave this diocese archiépiscopal status and elevated Sestrentsevich to the rank of archbishop. His authority stretched over the secular clergy and monasteries. Although the Roman Curia did not recognise the new archbishop officially, it had to give him the necessary powers. After long negotiations Pius VI confirmed the new ecclesiastical order, according to which certain Vilnius diocese deaneries became subjected to the archdiocese of Mogilev. The new province existed with certain changes until the end of the Empire in 1917. [Extract, p. 114]