Initially I wanted to start off with an applause: how nice that it is actually in Żoliborz, by the church that thanks to Rev. Jerzy Popiełuszko’s tomb is visited by the whole nation, we have a Feliński street. As if it was a saints’ meeting and so on, ah! oh! But I had a premonition and I decided to check that out and, on this occasion, to visit Rev. Popiełuszko’s tomb (which paid a lot because late in the evening I met there three teenagers who simply went in to say a prayer and thus fill me with optimism in the context of the youth losing its faith).

Before I get to the punch line, I shall add that I checked with five acquaintances out of which four remained under the same illusion: that in front of the gate of this famous church there is a St Zygmunt Szczesny Feliński street. Nothing of the sort! Yes, it is a street in honor to Feliński, but to Alojzy. By the way, Warsaw archbishop’s paternal uncle although the relatives didn’t get to know one another as Alojzy died (1820) before the nephew was born (1822).

The uncle, i.e. this Alojzy was a distinguished person anyway: son to a patriotic family from Volhynia, he joined the 1794 insurrection and was even one of Tadeusz Kościuszko's secretaries; no wonder that then he spent twenty years quietly in his brother’s estate in Wojutyna. When he returned to Warsaw in 1815, he staged the famous play “Barbara Radziwiłłówna” but he went down in history mainly because of his poem, sung to this day in churches on a par with the official Polish anthem, that is to say “Boże, coś Polskę”.

Aha! This is another trap: not everyone knows who is the author of the words “Boże, coś Polskę” but those who know that it was Felinski think that’s the Archbishop (I recommend a quick quiz among friends, including clergymen). The more so he was a writer too.

SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE Agata Kłosek, PhD, from the University of Warsaw said during a conference devoted to him in June this year that although Archbishop Feliński began to create literary texts only during his exile, in Russia, at the age of over 40, they stand the test of time. In addition to excellent sermons, he wrote very interesting and literary diaries, philosophical essays on social issues, and poems.

In addition, he had not only a seminary, theological and philosophical education, but also a scientific one as he graduated in mathematics at Moscow University, where he studied in the years 1839-44. Then he studied in Paris, at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France. He was acquainted with Adam Mickiewicz, he was close friends with Juliusz Słowacki, he came into intimacy with Prince Adam Czartoryski.

Genetic patriotism

But let’s start from the beginning: he was born in the family estate of Wojutyń, in Volhynia - in a happy, numerous family: out of eleven children, six survived the infancy, and he and his sister Paulina, after the death of their father (1833) and the deportation of mother Ewa Felińska to Siberia for independence activity alongside Szymon Konarski (1839), were a support for the rest of the siblings.

The property was confiscated, the family without shelter and without any protection. If I hadn’t been for relatives and friends, the fate of the young Feliński family would have been tragic. Zenon Brzozowski from Podole took care of the gifted, hardworking, disciplined boy, and it was he who paid him for his studies, found a job and then, in 1847, sent him to Paris.

In Paris, Zygmunt Feliński came close to the Hotel Lambert, was invited to Thursday evenings and devoted himself wholeheartedly to the “national cause”. On the website zfelinski.blogspot.com we read: “when the dawn of the <>”swept Europe (1848), together with his friends and Juliusz Słowacki, he went to Poznań, where he took an active part in the final phase of the uprising in the partisan ranks”. He took part in a skirmish near Stęszewo and in the battle of Rogalin, where he was wounded, he also reached Konarzewo.

“From that moment on, his patriotism took on a different dimension: from a program of fighting with weapons to the program of internal struggle. He saw the path to freedom of his homeland in its moral, spiritual and religious revival” – emphasized Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, opening the Greater Poland Trail of Saint Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński this year, which leads from Komorniki through Konarzewo, Trzcielin, Stęszew, Łódź, Mosina, Rogalinek all the way to Rogalin.

The best priest in Russia

Meanwhile, it was already 1849: Feliński, in the rank of lieutenant, goes to Paris, where he set off on the last journey of his closest friend. Juliusz Słowacki died in his presence, endowed with the sacraments, reconciled with God.

Feliński returns to his homeland and in 1851 he enters the theological seminary in Zhytomyr, to soon move to the famous – it had excellent professors and ambitions to extend Catholicism to the whole of Russia – St. Petersburg Theological Academy. Four years later he was ordained priest.

He was an unusual example – worth following also today – of a priest with a conscious, mature vocation, rich in life experience, including military one, with extensive knowledge not only from seminars.

Before two years later he was appointed chaplain, spiritual father and professor of philosophy at his Spiritual Academy, he had managed to establish the Roman Catholic Shelter for the Poor and a female religious congregation, “The Family of Mary”, to which he entrusted the care of orphans and the elderly in the shelter.

The congregation was thought out very thoroughly, because the religious life was conducted in secret, whereas outside, the sisters were active in the Shelter for the Poor, which even had the right to their own chapel. In this way, the young priest outsmarted the tsarist authorities, although it would seem that this is not the right word for the deeds of a future saint.

Moreover, the principles of the congregation’s organizational and spiritual work were developed in such a way that it operates to this day and runs schools, kindergartens, and nursing homes – in 145 religious houses in Poland, Brazil, Italy, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. It survived despite many years of trouble with approving legal acts, prohibitions of activity, wars. It developed constantly, and during World War II it dealt with saving Jewish children under the leadership of the fearless mother Matilda Getter which we showed on our website).

The relatively young priest Feliński became famous in St. Petersburg as an outstanding preacher and charismatic – as we would say today – priest, also a confessor and spiritual guide. Several Russian aristocrats converted to Catholicism under his influence, Aneta Malcow joined the Congregation of the Sisters of the Family of Mary, and the imperial adjutant, Baron Leo Pavlovich Nikolai, joined the Carthusians and left for Grenoble.

Father Feliński, as a professor of the Spiritual Academy, did not limit himself to lectures and examinations. “Contrary to a large part of the clergy of the time, fearful of secular authority and often servile, he represented a new type of priest: educated, well-versed in his rights and duties, obedient to the ecclesiastical authority, loyal to the secular authority, without betrayal and secret plots, but boldly expressing his convictions and able to resist pressure from the government directed against the Church” – writes sister Antonietta Frącek, PhD from this congregation, an outstanding archivist and tireless researcher of the life of the holy founder.

Opinions reached the Vatican that “the good and the bad consider him the best priest in Russia”.

So when on January 6, 1862, the news spread that the Pope was appointing Father Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński as Archbishop of Warsaw, regret arose in the Catholic circles of St. Petersburg. All the more so because Pope Pius IX, kind to Poles, made this appointment in a great hurry, “because of the unfortunate situation of the country”.

During the meeting with Tsar Alexander II, the new archbishop did not hide that “if the Nation did not take into account my representations and drew upon itself the dangerous consequences of repression, I would first of all fulfill my duties as a Shepherd and share the misfortune of my people, even if it became the perpetrator of its misfortunes itself”.

They saw a tsarist agent in him

The situation in Warsaw was already very tense: for several months there had been martial law, curfew, arrests, imprisonment and deportation of lay people and clergy to Siberia.

Churches had been closed for four months by church authorities in protest against the bloody repression of February 27, 1861.

On that day, Warsaw students organized a demonstration. Its participants demanded, among others, the release of those arrested during the earlier demonstration on February 25, 1861. The Russian army opened fire on the protesters in Krakowskie Przedmieście. Five people were shot and killed. During the riots, the police and the Russian army stormed the churches where the demonstrators were hiding. So they were soon closed in protest. As a sign of solidarity with Catholics, Rabbi Izaak Kramshtyk ordered all Warsaw synagogues to be closed too.

On April 8, at Castle Square, the tsarist army pacified another demonstration, and its symbol was Michał Landy, a rabbinical school student, who died with a cross picked up from the hands of a casualty.

In such an atmosphere, on February 9, 1862, the new archbishop arrives from St. Petersburg, in addition preceded by the news that it was the tsar who had proposed his candidacy to the Vatican.

“He tried to soothe revolutionary moods, introduce <> – moral, social and spiritual – to the capital”, writes sister Antonietta Frącek.

First of all, the new archbishop ordered all churches to be opened, but earlier he met with the clergy who – as Rev. Robert Ogrodnik of the Catholic University of Lublin called it bluntly – regarded him as tsarist agent.

State prisoner

A few months later the January Uprising broke out. By no means can the archbishop be called its supporter. But he was a Pole and he expressed it many times.

He had excellent contacts with the Vatican and with representatives of Western countries, and already in the St. Petersburg times he conducted deeply secret – because it was forbidden and threatened with repression – correspondence, informing about the situation of Poles. During the uprising he did not neglect this activity.

When he resigned from his membership in the Council of State in protest against the repression, on March 12, 1863, he wrote to Tsar Alexander II:

“Nobody can blame Poles for the fact that, having a great and rich historical past, they sigh for it and strive for independence. Poles cannot regard this hot patriotism as a betrayal, and the Russians have no right to condemn the attempts to regain independence that have been repeated for a hundred years (...). The blood flows in great streams, and repression, instead of calming the mind, irritates them even more. In the name of Christian mercy, and in the name of the interests of both nations, I beg Your Imperial Majesty to put an end to this devastating war. (...) Poland will not be satisfied with administrative autonomy, it needs an independent existence”.

The letter was published in Paris. The future of the archbishop was doomed. Grand Duke Konstantin, brother of Tsar Alexander II, proposes to punish Archbishop Feliński and call him to St. Petersburg.

On June 14, 1863, Archbishop Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński leaves Warsaw as a state prisoner, under military escort, he leaves his see forever.

During the sixteen months of his rule, however, he did a great job here: in January 1863, he organized a convention of the clergy of the Archdiocese of Warsaw, which was considered an act of great courage. He visited parishes and visited 30 churches, ordered a formation retreat for the clergy, obliged priests to spread education and establish elementary schools, he recommended the nation’s sobriety (already then!), and he further popularized the still popular May Mass. In addition, he founded an orphanage and a school at Żelazna St, and in order to lead them he summoned sisters of the Family of Mary from St. Petersburg (the sisters live in this place to this day and still conduct educational work).

“Thanks to his information and explanations, and even advice, the Holy See did not issue any act condemning the uprising, which was strongly insisted on by the Russian government” – reminds sister Antonietta Frącek.

Non possumus

At the last meeting with Warsaw priests, on the eve of his departure, he said: “If anyone persuades you to do such an act, which you cannot commit without infringing the laws of God and the laws of the Church, answer everyone: <>”.

He shared the vicissitude of Polish exiles. He spent twenty years in Jarosław upon the Volga, where, despite surveillance and restrictions, he carried out pastoral and charitable activities, supporting Polish exiles and other Catholics. He had a church built in Jarosław and constantly refused to resign from the Warsaw archbishopric. He left the decision in the hands of the Pope.

It was only in 1883 that he returned from exile, but not to Warsaw, oh no, the was not that unreasonable. At that time, the Vatican was ruled by Leo XIII who “transferred” Archbishop. Feliński to the titular archbishopric of Tarsus.

Feliński settled down in Podolia, in the godforsaken village of Dźwiniaczka, in the parish of Mielnica Podolska, in the Tarnopol Province. He became the chaplain of the court chapel of the counts Kęszycki and Koziebrodzki – and again he conducted pastoral, educational and charity work, in addition to the Polish-Ukrainian border, in the opinion of “an apostle of peace and national consent”.

He died on September 17, 1895 in Kraków, on the way from treatment. His funeral became a great national demonstration. He returned to Warsaw in 1920 – to the Church of the Holy Cross, and in 1921 he was buried in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

***

There is a month left to his bicentenary – enough to do something about the street that does not exist – and the one that actually exists. The Warsaw street renaming protests are well-known enough to avoid such demands – and yet let's try.

This time the matter seems simpler than usual. Since uncle Alojzy Felinski already has a street - and in such a good place – perhaps there are several courageous councilors who will undertake legal struggles and try to “add” the nephew, thus establishing a street of both Felińskis. The saint will not be offended, that he will be the “second”, that there will be Alojzy and Archbishop Zygmunt Feliński Street.

The psychosocial costs will be low because the name will not be mistaken, and may even pay off. After all, the war in Ukraine is going on and such a modest reminder of the hero from Podolia, and also the hero of Warsaw, will certainly be useful in the struggles that await us.

– Barbara Sułek-Kowalska
– Translated by Dominik Szczęsny-Kostanecki

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists