Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

of Historically Charged Liturgical Cult:

The Services for Josafat Kuntsevych, Afanasiy
Filippovych, and Andrzej Bobola

Maria Takala-Roszczenko*

The seventeenth century was a period of political and religious turmoil in the
Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania. The confessional conflicts produced
martyrs whose cults consolidated the confessional boundaries of the Roman Catholic,
the Orthodox, and the Greek Catholic Church. In my article, I compare three such
saints: Josafat Kuntsevych (1580-1623, Greek Catholic), Afanasiy Filippovych (c.
1595–1648, Orthodox), and Andrzej Bobola (1591-1657, Roman Catholic), who
were martyred in the hands of their Christian neighbours. For material, I use the
hymnographical services composed for the saints. I argue that, in quest of genuine
ecumenism, certain content in these services, such as exclusive concepts of the true
faith and church unity, may actually induce rather than prevent hostility between
the Churches.

Keywords: hymnography, liturgy, Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic,

confessionalization, ecumenism, saint, cult, martyr

Introduction
The seventeenth century was a period of great political, social, and confession-
al turmoil in the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania, a multi-ethnic
state that covered large areas of Central Eastern Europe. The religious plural-
ism of the Polish-Lithuanian society was, at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, giving way to the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church, which
was being restored after the Protestant Reformation had shaken its foun-
dations in the sixteenth century. The movement of the “religious tectonic
plates” in the Polish-Lithuanian lands also resulted in a division within the
Eastern Orthodox Metropolitanate of Kiev. In 1596, at the Union of Brest,
representatives of the Kievan Metropolitanate proclaimed their loyalty to the
Roman See.1 During the following century, the new Greek Catholic Church

* 
Maria Takala-Roszczenko, Assistant Professor of Church Music, School of Theology,
University of Eastern Finland, Matarakatu 35, 80130 Joensuu, Finland, [email protected].
1 
Barbara Skinner, The Western Front of the Eastern Church. Uniate and Orthodox Conflict in
18th-century Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, DeKalb, Northern Illinois University Press
2009, p. 4. For an analysis of the process leading to the union, see: Borys Gudziak, Crisis and

RES 12 (1/2020), p. 13-39 DOI: 10.2478/ress-2020-0002

Maria Takala-Roszczenko

and the Orthodox Church wrestled over legitimacy as well as property as

two parallel Eastern Rite Churches.2 The struggle became politicized in the
second half of the seventeenth century when the uprising Cossacks claimed
the Orthodox cause with the support of the Muscovite Tsar.3
The troubled time was burdened with violence. Confessional conflicts
were often loaded with political or ethnic motives, or vice versa, and resulted
in bloodshed. Yet from the perspective of the Church – Roman Catholic,
Orthodox, and Greek Catholic –, the tragic fates of individuals were ex-
tremely useful as fuel for each respective confessionalization process. The
victims, perceived as martyrs, became cornerstones for the local construction
of the Church. At the same time, they came to embody of the confessional
antagonism that has continued to feed mistrust and prejudice between the
Churches over the centuries. Since these saints perished literally in conflict
with another confession, their veneration as martyrs inevitably stands in
contrast with the perpetrators of their death, who in turn may have become
hailed as defenders of faith in their own community.
This article focuses on three prominent saints produced by the
seventeenth-century confessional conflicts in the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth. The Greek Catholic saint Josafat Kuntsevych, Archbishop
of Polotsk, from the monastic Order of Saint Basil (1580-1623), was an
active advocate of the Greek Catholic Church and a controversial figure es-
pecially in his dealings with the Orthodox faithful. He was murdered in
his own diocese, in Vitebsk, in 1623, by enraged masses of Orthodox peo-
ple.4 The Orthodox saint Afanasiy Filippovych, Abbot (igumen) of Brest (c.
1595-1648), was a polemicist, whose campaign against the Union of Brest
led him to trouble with the Polish authorities, who suspected him of be-
ing a spy for Moscow. He was tortured and executed by Polish (Roman
Catholic) soldiers.5 Finally, the Roman Catholic saint Andrzej Bobola was a
Jesuit missionary (1591-1657) and an equally passionate advocate of church

Reform. The Kyivan Metropolitanate, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the
Union of Brest, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press 1998.
2 
For an evaluation of the consequences of the Union of Best, see, for example: Bert Groen,
Wil van den Bercken (eds.), Four Hundred Years: Union of Brest (1596-1996): A Critical Re-
evaluation, Leuven, Peeters 1998.
3 
B. Skinner, The Western Front, p. 88-94.
4 
A biography in: E. A. Vernikovskaya, “Иосафат Кунцевич (1580-1632), Полоцкий
архиепископ греко-католической церкви” [Josafat Kuntsevych (1580-1632), Archbishop
of Polotsk of the Greek Catholic Church], in: Славянский альманах [Slavonic Anthology],
Moscow 2001, p. 20-41.
5 
A short biography in: I. G. Moroz, “Афанасий” [Afanasiy], in: Православная Энцикло­
педия [Orthodox Encyclopedia]. I have consulted the electronic version of the article, http://
www.pravenc.ru/text/76850.html, viewed September 30, 2019.

14
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

unity, which in the seventeenth-century Roman Catholic terms typically de-

noted the conversion of the Orthodox into the Roman Catholic Church.
During the Cossack uprising, he suffered torture and death in the hands of
the (Orthodox) Cossacks.6
My research was sparked by an interest in seeing whether the confes-
sional controversies from which these saints emerged continue to inform
their reception today, or more precisely, whether their contemporary liturgi-
cal cult transmits ideas that could be perceived as anti-ecumenical. The idea
of ecumenism in relation to early modern confessional questions is, of course,
anachronistic, as such a frame of thought is of a much later time. Yet if one
perceives “the restoration and manifestation of Christian unity in faith, life,
and mission” as the ultimate goal for contemporary inter-Christian relations,
as it has been promoted by the modern ecumenical movement since the ear-
ly twentieth century,7 it is worth exploring whether the past antagonisms, in
the shape of controversial saints, may potentially hinder the perspectives of
Christian reconciliation.
In this article, I will turn to contemporary liturgical services, dedicat-
ed to these three saints, with an aim to analyse what kind of representations
they provide of the three saints in light of inter-confessional relations. My
analysis focuses on the following questions: How does the hymnographical ser-
vice present and interpret the saint’s actions with respect to his own Church or to
the “opposing” side? What kind of challenges may these representations cause for
the contemporary ecumenical cause? While acknowledging the primary func-
tion of liturgical texts as spiritual, as vehicles of prayer and spiritual edifi-
cation, I would like to argue that, if taken literally and reflected against the
historical context of the saint, these liturgical services may actually induce
rather than prevent hostility between the Churches.
The liturgical worship has played an important role in the construc-
tion of the past in different contexts. As Sean Griffin argues in his fascinating
investigation into early Russian liturgy, the liturgical rites can be perceived
as “a public technology for creating and controlling cultural memory”.8
Medieval clerical writers “created versions of the past that bound people

6 
An extensive biography in: Ks. Jan Popłatek T.J., Błogosławiony Andrzej Bobola Towarzystwa
Jezusowego: Życie – męczeństwo – kult [The Blessed Andrzej Bobola of the Society of Jesus:
Life – martyrdom – cult], Kraków 1936.
7 
Ola Tjørhom, “The Early Stages: Pre-1910”, in: Geoffrey Wainwright, Paul McPartlan
(eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Ecumenical Studies, https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/
view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199600847.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199600847-e-1,
viewed February 18, 2020.
8 
Sean Griffin, The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus, Cambridge, MA, Cambridge
University Press 2019, p. 21.

15
Maria Takala-Roszczenko

together in imagined communities”, thus cultivating a sense of a common

identity.9 In the liturgical commemoration of the saints, the past actualizes,
or as Erin Kathleen Rowe points out,
The liturgy brings the past into the present through an ongoing
celebration of a cycle of events. […] Thus, the celebration of a
specific saints’ feast days renders the distant past deeply relevant
and immediately present […].10
Following this frame of thought, my approach to the liturgical services con-
siders the texts as actively constructing the community or the confession
they represent. Thus, their function is not limited to interpretations of the
past, but they continue to shape identities and ideas of a community even
contemporarily.
It is, of course, relevant to ask whether these three saints, Josafat
Kuntsevych, Afanasiy Filippovych and Andrzej Bobola, are the most repre-
sentative for the analysis of the ecumenical challenges arising from histor-
ically charged cults. The seventeenth century alone produced a number of
martyrs on confessional grounds.11 Yet what is special about the three saints
featured in this article is that, as historical figures, they were voluntarily ac-
tive in the inter-Christian confrontations of their time. It is hardly surprising
that, as we shall see, their veneration has in many ways outgrown the religious
context and become used for political and national goals. Correspondingly,
the tensions surrounding them continue to fuel the “mutually opposed
memories of the winners and losers, the victims and perpetrators”, which,
as Assmann notes, can be particularly tenacious when they become upheld
by politicized forms of remembering.12 One example of such politicized re-
membrance can be seen in the national commemoration of Saint Andrzej
Bobola as the patron of Poland, which will be discussed later in this article.
While the theological perception of sainthood, especially in the Eastern
Orthodox tradition, is based on the idea that it is God that grants glory to
holy men and women, who are then officially “recognized” (canonized) by
the Church,13 there are likely to be different motives behind each process of

9 
Ibidem, p. 26.
10 
Erin Kathleen Rowe, Saint and Nation: Santiago, Teresa of Avila, and plural identities in
early modern Spain, State College, PA, Pennsylvania State University Press 2011, p. 4.
11 
In Britain, for example, the Protestant Reformation and the Roman Catholic Counter-
Reformation enriched the cult of saints with, for example, the Forty Martyrs of England
and Wales.
12 
Jan Assmann, Religion and Cultural Memory, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press
2006, p. 7.
13 
In the Roman Catholic Church, the canonization procedures have evolved under papal
authority from the early thirteenth century on. The process was codified as a nine-step pro-

16
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

“making saints”, or as Robert H. Greene puts it, “human beings make saints,
and for very human reasons.”14 The timing of the canonization often reveals
motivations that are related to wider social circumstances. In the case of the
three saints featured in this article, their canonization coincided with certain
critical periods in the history of the Russian Empire and Poland. Yet from
the perspective of the Church and its faithful, their sainthood is made no
less valid by the historical or political constellations, but they are venerated
as holy intercessors before God, in liturgy and in private prayer. Thus, this
article addresses a delicate issue where the deconstructive approach to litur-
gical content may seem at odds with the recognition of the lived experiences
of the sacred among the faithful. Yet it is exactly this dichotomy that may
create tension or obstacles to mutual understanding in ecumenical relations,
and thus deserves exploration.

Sources and method

My analysis focuses on three sets of liturgical texts which are used in con-
temporary practice on the yearly commemoration of the saint: the Church
Slavonic service for Saint Josafat (12 November), published in 1937 by the
Basilian Fathers in Zhovkva for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church,15 the
Church Slavonic service for Saint Afanasiy (5 September), included in the

cedure by the Code of Canon Law in 1917, involving pre-judicial phase of at least 50 years,
the summoning of witnesses for a court of inquiry, initiated by the local bishop, the judg-
ment of the candidate’s orthodoxy on the basis of his or her writings, after which the process
was handed over to Rome. After thorough investigation, the candidate could be declared
“venerable”. Before the next stage, beatification, a miracle performed through the candidate’s
intercession was required. The case then lay dormant until another miracle, after which the
Pope issued a bull of canonization. In 1983, this procedure was considerably revised by Pope
John Paul II, resulting in a simpler three-phase process. See: Richard Gribble, “Saints in the
Christian Tradition: Unraveling the Canonization Process”, in: Studies in Christian-Jewish
Relations 6 (1/2011), p. 12-16, https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/scjr, viewed February 19,
2020. In the Orthodox Church, the recognition of saints has been a considerably less sys-
tematized process. The Russian Orthodox procedure is often initiated locally, sometimes on
the basis of experienced miracles or the discovery of incorruptible relics. The liturgical cult
is initiated by serving memorial services (panikhida). An investigation into the life, possible
miracles, and possibly also the state of the relics takes place under church authorities. A vita
is written and a liturgical service composed. A council of bishops proclaims the inclusion
of the saint into the liturgical commemorations. The actual veneration typically begins with
the ceremonial translation of the relics. See: S. Griffin, The Liturgical Past, p. 233; Robert
H. Greene, Bodies like bright stars: saints and relics in Orthodox Russia, DeKalb, IL, Northern
Illinois University Press 2010, p. 77.
14 
R.H. Greene, Bodies like bright stars, p. 74.
15 
Вечірня і утреня та інші богослуження на всі неділі і свята цілого року [Vespers and
Matins and other services for all Sundays and feasts of the whole year], Zhovkva: Vydavnytstvo
i drukarnya oo. Vasyliyan 1937, p. 843-853.

17
Maria Takala-Roszczenko

Mineya (Menaion) published by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2003,16

and the Polish service for Saint Andrzej (16 May), published in the 2014
edition of the Breviary, which is based on a 1986 edition, approved by the
Conference of the Polish Bishops.17
Composing a liturgical service is a significant part of the construc-
tion of the saint’s cult and thus any research on liturgy should be at least
aware of the past evolution of the respective textual tradition. In this case,
when the focus is on the contemporary reception of these services in light
of ecumenical relations, the use of contemporary sources is justifiable. Yet
the conditions in which they originated are not without meaning. The old-
est of the three is the service for Saint Josafat, which can be identified as a
slightly modified version of the earliest hymnographical cycle in his hon-
our, published in 1738 at the Holy Dormition monastery in Uněv (Univ),
Galicia.18 The most significant change in the 1937 edition is the reduction
of the Canon to the heirmoi only.19 Saint Josafat’s service thus reflects the
sentiments of the time when the Greek Catholic confession was still being
constructed – it is a valuable evidence of how the saint, or his opponents,
were perceived only a century after his death.
We have little knowledge of the earliest forms of Orthodox hymnog-
raphy dedicated to Saint Afanasiy. According to Moroz, a troparion and a
kontakion for the saint were composed in 1819 by Archimandrite Markian.20
According to Aleksander Naumow, new propers and a full liturgical service
for Saint Afanasiy was composed by a clergyman of the Polish Orthodox
Church, Konstanty(n) Znosko (1865-1943), and published in 1929.21 In

16 
Минея. Сентябрь [Menaion for September]. Moscow: Izdatel’skiy Sovet Russkoy
Pravoslavnoy Tserkvi 2003, p. 158-172.
17 
Liturgia godzin zakonów franciszkańskich w Polsce III [The Liturgy of the Hours of the
Franciscan Order], Wrocław 2014, p. 1104-1109.
Вослѣдованiя праздники Прeсвятой тайни Евхаристiи, Состраданiя Богородица и
18 

Блаженнаго священномученика Iосафата от святаго Собора Замойскаго преподаннимъ

[The Office of the Feast of the Most Holy Sacrament of Eucharist, the Compassion of the
Mother of God, and the Blessed Hieromartyr Iosafat], Uněv 1738.
19 
The reduction was most likely due to the suppression of the Matins in general in the
Latinized Greek Catholic liturgical practice of the early twentieth century. As Galadza re-
lates, “by [Metropolitan Andrei] Sheptytsky’s day [1865-1944] even clerical families, not
to mention the faithful at large, were beginning to avoid the only Byzantine office where
the Resurrection narratives are consistently proclaimed.” Peter Galadza, The Theology and
Liturgical Work of Andrei Sheptytsky (1865-1944), Orientalia Christiana Analecta 272,
Roma, Ottawa, Pontificio Istituto Orientale and Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Instute of
Eastern Christian Studies 2004, p. 445.
20 
I. Moroz, “Афанасий”.
21 
The original Polish publication has not been available for this research, yet by compar-
ing the existing service in the Russian Menaion with the examples presented by Aleksander

18
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

their emphasis on the rightful presence of the Orthodox faith in the Polish
lands and the hardships the Orthodox had to suffer, Znosko’s liturgical
compositions reflect the charged atmosphere of interwar Poland, where the
post-Russian Orthodox Church became a target of hostility and discrim-
ination by the Roman Catholic-oriented Polish State.22 The rise of Polish
nationalism towards the outbreak of the Second World War is likely to be
reflected in the service for Saint Andrzej Bobola as well, although it remains
unclear whether the current office was composed for the canonization in
1938, or later.
One of the challenges of comparing the services for Eastern Rite saints
with a Roman Catholic one is the lack of symmetry between them in terms
of sheer quantity. For example, whereas the service for Saint Afanasiy con-
sists of 81 stanzas of hymnography, and Saint Josafat’s service 40 stanzas,23
the Latin Rite service for Saint Andrzej Bobola features only 18 stanzas clas-
sifiable more or less as hymnography: two hymns constituting eleven verses
in total, three antiphons, and four responsories. The source material thus
concretely reflects the general difference in the extent and function of hym-
nography in the two liturgical Rites, Byzantine and Latin; nevertheless, the
unbalanced range is not necessarily an obstacle for comparison, if we focus
on the content of the texts instead of their number.
My analysis of the hymnography is based on liturgical typology.
Although the hymnography is certainly informed by the historical figures
behind the three saints, their images are to a great extent “liturgical crea-
tions”,24 employing standard hymnographical devices, common tropes, to
emphasize the different aspects of righteousness, perseverance, and martyr-
dom. I have first extracted from the text corpus the imagery that appears as
relevant for the topic of this article, which I have then grouped thematically
into larger topics, three of which I will focus on: depictions of the martyr
in relation with the true faith, with church unity, and as a good shepherd. The
analysis will reveal parallelisms between the three services, as well as some

Naumow in his analysis of Znosko’s works, it is possible to conclude they are identical. See:
A. Naumow, Wiara i historia [Faith and history], Kraków, Instytut Filologii Słowiańskiej
Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego 1996, p. 185, 187-188.
22 
A. Naumow, Wiara i historia, p. 192; Mirosława Papierzyńska-Turek, Między tradycją a
rzeczywistością. Państwo wobec prawosławia 1918-1939 [Between tradition and reality. The
State and Orthodoxy 1918-1939], Warszawa, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe 1989, p.
5-11.
23 
The numbers include the Eastern Rite hymnographical genres of stichera, troparia, ka-
thisma troparia, kontakion, and heirmoi, for example, for the Small and Great Vespers and
Matins; in Saint Josafat’s service, Great Vespers and Matins.
24 
See: S. Griffin, The Liturgical Past, p. 117.

19
Maria Takala-Roszczenko

individual emphases, which I will explain in light of the historical context of

each of the three martyrs and their services and discuss their implications for
today’s ecumenical coexistence.

The Vita and the Cult

To understand the historical background on which contemporary venera-
tion is based, it is relevant to first look into the lives of the three martyrs, as
well as the development of their cult. While many of their characterizations
have most likely been influenced by hagiographical conventions, their histo-
ricity is supported by written documents of their own production, for exam-
ple, correspond-dence,25 memoirs and polemical writings, such as Afanasiy’s
Diariusz,26 and spiritual and practical compilations, such as Josafat’s guide-
books for the clergy.27
The three saints lived in relatively close proximity both in terms of
time and space. While it is not known whether the three were aware of each
other’s existence, it is possible that their paths crossed, for example, in the
1610s in Vilna, which was the centre of religious intelligentsia of the time
or in the Jesuit Academy (University), the Orthodox monastery of the Holy
Spirit, or the Greek Catholic monastery of the Holy Trinity.
It was in the Holy Trinity monastery of Vilna that Josafat Kuntsevych
was tonsured in 1604 at the age of twenty-four.28 He had been born in 1580
in an Orthodox family in the Volhynian city of Volodymyr (contemporary
northwestern Ukraine). Expected to continue in his merchant father’s trade,
he had proved to be more interested in spiritual matters, and in the years after
the conclusion of the Union of Brest (1596), he dedicated himself to liturgi-
cal practice in Vilna. Since Josafat received no formal theological education,
he is said to have acquired his knowledge from the divine services. His natural
talent became evident especially in preaching. He was ordained to the priest-
hood in 1609 and in 1613, he was granted the title of an archimandrite.29
Josafat’s years of activity at the Holy Trinity monastery coincided with
the years of the novitiate and education of Andrzej Bobola (born 1591), from

25 
For example, correspondence (three letters) between Josafat Kuntsevych and the Chancellor
of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Lev Sapieha, published in Polish in: Tadeusz Żychiewicz,
Jozafat Kuncewicz. Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: Calvarianum 1986, p. 156-184.
26 
Published, for example, in A. F. Korshunov, Афанасий Филиппович. Жизнь и творчество
[Afanasiy Filippovych. Life and works], Minsk 1956, p. 97-179.
27 
E. Vernikovskaya, “Иосафат Кунцевич”, p. 23.
28 
Ibidem, p. 25.
29 
Sofiya Senyk, “Духовный профиль Св. Иосафата Кунцевича” [The spiritual profile of St
Josafat Kuntsevych], Pro Hereditate Catholica, https://fsspx-fsipd.lv/ru/istoria-cerkvi/o-cvsh-
chmuch-iosafate, viewed September 19, 2019.

20
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

Polish nobility, who entered the Vilna Society of Jesus in 1611 and gave his
monastic vows two years later. Andrzej studied philosophy and theology at
the Jesuit Academy of Vilna. In 1622, he was ordained to the priesthood,
and after spending a year in Nieśwież, he returned to Vilna where he soon
became famous as a preacher at Saint Casimir’s church.30 Not far from there,
Afanasiy Filippovych was active in the centre of Orthodox Vilna, the Holy
Spirit monastery. Born in Brest (contemporary Belarus) in an Orthodox
family in c. 1595, Afanasiy had studied at the Confraternity school and con-
tinued there as a teacher until he gave his monastic vows in 1627.31
Josafat was the first of the three to be martyred. He had become as-
sistant (coadjutor) to the Greek Catholic archbishop of Polotsk in 1617 and
eventually succeeded him. As Vernikovskaya relates, there was a bitter com-
petition over the eparchy when in 1621 Meletiy Smotrytskyi was appointed
as the Orthodox hierarch of Polotsk. Josafat’s severe actions especially in
relation to the Orthodox population raised complaints, for example, from
the Chancellor Lev Sapieha in 1622. Eventually, the tensions between the
Orthodox faithful and the Greek Catholic hierarch escalated into a physical
attack on Josafat in Vitebsk on 12 November 1623. His body was thrown
into the river.32
In the 1630s, both Andrzej Bobola and Afanasiy Filippovych left
Vilna. Afanasiy became the deputy igumen of the Duboyskiy monastery near
Pińsk after being ordained into the priesthood in 1632. When in 1636 the
monastery was turned over to the Jesuits, Afanasiy reacted with a vision of
the seven fires of hell, where he saw the papal nuncio, King Zygmunt III,
and Chancellor Sapieha suffering for the persecution of the Orthodox. He
settled at the monastery of Kupjati, near Minsk. Between 1637-1638, he
travelled to Muscovy in search of alms from the Czar for the monastery
church, by whom he was richly endowed. His travel to Muscovy made him
suspected of pro-Muscovite aims in the eyes of the Polish authorities.33
In 1640, Afanasiy became the abbot of the monastery of Saint Simeon
the Stylite in Brest. In the following years, he campaigned actively against

30 
J. Popłatek, Błogosławiony Andrzej Bobola, p. 34-73.
31 
I. Moroz, “Афанасий”.
32 
E. Vernikovskaya, “Иосафат Кунцевич”, p. 32-34. See also: Kerstin S. Jobst, “Transnational
and Trans-Denominational Aspects of the Veneration of Josaphat Kuntsevych”, in: Journal of
Ukrainian Studies 37 (2012), p. 3.
33 
I. Moroz, “Афанасий”. See also Tomasz Hodana, “Moskiewskie wizje Atanazego
Filipowicza. O postrzeganiu Rosji przez prawosławnych mieszkańców Rzeczypospolitej w
dobie mohylańskiej” [The Muscovite visions of Afanasiy Filippovych. On the perception of
Russia by the Orthodox inhabitants of the Commonwealth in the Mohylan era], in: Acta
Universitatis Wratislaviensis 3112 (2009), p. 18-22.

21
Maria Takala-Roszczenko

the Union of Brest, which he saw as “accursed”. His campaign took him to
Warsaw, where in 1643, following the voice heard from the miracle-working
Kupjati icon of the Mother of God, he gave a fervent speech at the Sejm
about the oppression that the Orthodox Church had had to endure. He
was placed under guard by the Orthodox hierarchs present at the Sejm, but
Afanasiy, pretending to be a fool for Christ’s sake,34 escaped and walked
half-naked in the streets of Warsaw, crying out curses against the Union. He
was defrocked and sent to Kiev, where Metropolitan Peter Mohyla, howev-
er, returned him to Brest with the rights of an abbot. Driven by the voice
from the icon again, Afanasiy headed back to Warsaw, only to be arrested,
then sent to Mohyla, to live in the Kievan Caves monastery. Throughout his
years in captivity and in Kiev, Afanasiy wrote polemic testimonies against
the Union. After returning to Brest again, Afanasiy was suspected of con-
tacts with the rebelling Cossacks and was arrested. Refusing to renounce his
Orthodox faith, he was tortured and executed by the Polish authorities on 5
September 1648, possibly by being buried alive.35
Andrzej Bobola’s spiritual work and teaching positions took him,
among others, to Płock, Warsaw, and Pińsk, then back to Saint Casimir’s
church in Vilnius (1646-1652), and after that, again to Pińsk. His mission-
ary work was aimed at the local Catholic population and at the Orthodox,
or as Popłatek puts it, “schismatics, detached from unity with Rome”, whom
he wished to “guide back to the Catholic Church”, which was “the only
true Church whereas Orthodoxy was a mistake and a schism.”36 When the
rebelling Cossacks reached the region of Polesie, Andrzej was taken captive,
tortured with extreme brutality, and finally executed on 16 May 1657 in the
town of Janów Poleski.37
After their death, the cult of each saint was first locally established,
and over the centuries, they grew in significance – spiritual, political, and
national. In Saint Josafat’s case, the local cult was initiated immediately after
1623. Aleksander Naumow argues that the earliest hymnographical texts in
his honour can already be traced back to the late 1620s.38 A painting of the
archbishop was completed in Polotsk in 1624 and sent to Rome.39 At the

34 
A fool for Christ is a type of a saint in Orthodox Christianity. By acting insane, the fools
for Christ have questioned existing norms and often delivered prophecies.
35 
I. Moroz, “Афанасий”.
36 
J. Popłatek, Błogosławiony Andrzej Bobola, p. 130.
37 
Ibidem, p. 146.
38 
A. Naumow, Wiara i historia, p. 98.
39 
Mateusz Łepkowski sees it not as a devotional object but as an image of real likeness,
which could later be used as model for iconography. Mateusz Łepkowski, “Najwcześniejsze

22
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

request of the Greek Catholic bishops, Pope Urban VIII initiated the inves-
tigation of his life in 1628, and on 16 May 1643, Josafat was beatified.40
His relics, which initially lay in Polotsk, were transferred several times in
the course of the century. Most dramatically, they were liberated to Biała
Podlaska in 1705, before the advancing army of Russian Emperor Peter I
invaded Polotsk.41 After the partitioning of Poland in the late eighteenth
century, the cult weakened outside Polotsk and Biała.42
In the nineteenth century, the reception of Josafat’s cult varied in
different territories. It was intertwined with the Polish national uprising
as an anti-Russian symbol, and correspondingly politicized as part of the
Polish question in the Russian Empire. According to Jobst, however, Saint
Josafat was regarded with surprisingly little interest by many Ruthenians
themselves, whether under Russians or Austrians. Yet it was in the interest
to Rome to emphasize his role as a symbol of the church union especially
after the Russian authorities had dissolved the Greek Catholic Church in the
Russian territory in 1839 and “returned” numbers of Greek Catholics by
forcible conversions to the Russian Orthodox Church.43 The canonization
of Saint Josafat took place in 1867. In 1917, the relics were transferred to
Vienna, to Saint Barbara’s Ukrainian Greek Catholic church, from where
they were moved in 1949 to the Vatican, where they currently lie in the altar
of Saint Basil in Saint Peter’s Basilica.44
The cult of Afanasiy was also initiated immediately after his death.
In 1658, the Muscovite Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich was informed about his
incorruptible relics, and in 1666, the relics were exposed in the monastery
of Saint Simeon and a vita was written. Early in the eighteenth century,
Afanasiy’s skull, thus recognized as a relic, was transferred to Saint Petersburg
under the orders of the Emperor Peter I.45 The relic as well as a number of

przedstawienia św. Jozafata Kuncewicza a problem vera effigies w kształtowaniu się ikono-
grafii świętych w okresie potrydenckim” [The earliest presentations of St Josafat Kuntsevych
and the problem of vera effigies in the development of the iconography of saints in the
post-Tridentine period], in: Fides, Ars, Scientia. Studia dedykowane pamięci Księdza Kanonika
Augustyna Mednisa, Tarnów: Muzeum Okręgowe w Tarnowie 2008, p. 304.
40 
A. Naumow, Wiara i historia, p. 97-98.
41 
Dorota Wereda, “Rozwój kultu Jozafata Kuncewicza w XVIII wieku” [The development of
the cult of Josafat Kuntsevych in the 18th century], in: Śladami unii brzeskiej [On the traces
of the Union of Brest]. Lublin-Supraśl, Wydawnictwo KUL 2010, p. 255-257.
42 
K. Jobst, “Transnational”, p. 7-9.
43 
Ibidem, p. 10-14.
44 
Ibidem, p. 16-17.
45 
I. Moroz, “Афанасий”.

23
Maria Takala-Roszczenko

documents related to Afanasiy were damaged in a fire in 1816, yet parts of

the relics were saved and placed in the Cathedral of Brest.46
It is not certain when the canonization of Saint Afanasiy took place.
It was common that local saints were venerated as special patrons of the
community where their shrines were located,47 where the cult could predate
the official recognition. Golubinskij estimates that Afanasiy’s sainthood was
proclaimed in the latter part of the nineteenth century, since a historical de-
scription from 1811 does not mention his commemoration, yet in 1893, a
church in Grodno was dedicated to the saint.48 A significant step in this pro-
cess constituted the testimonies to miraculous healings with Saint Afanasiy’s
intercession, the earliest of which were reported in 1853 and 1860.49 Up to
the First World War, Saint Afanasiy’s cult flourished locally in Brest and in
the monastery of Leśna in Podlasie (contemporary Poland) which received a
portion of his relics in 1894. Apart from the local importance, the canoniza-
tion of Saint Afanasiy can be viewed in the context of the “dramatic upsurge
in the number of saints” canonized during the last century of Romanov rule,
which Robert Greene associates with larger social changes, as providing tools
for easing the “economic, social, and political anxieties produced by Russia’s
transition to modernity.”50
After the death of Andrzej Bobola, his memory faded in times of po-
litical unrest, to be rekindled in 1702, when the head of the Jesuit Collegium
of Pińsk, Marcin Godebski, received a message from him in a dream. When
the body was exhumed, it was found to be untouched by decay.51 Despite
attempts at his swift beatification, it took place only in 1853. The local cult,
however, in the form of miracles, images and vitas, developed already in the
course of the eighteenth century.52 In 1807, with the consent of the Emperor
Alexander I, his relics were transferred from Pińsk to Polotsk.53 The local
veneration was interrupted after the First World War. With the aim to prove
the veneration of relics as based on fraud and superstition, the Bolsheviks
exhumed a number of saints’ remains all around Soviet Russia.54 Bobola’s

46 
E. Golubinskiy, История канонизации святых [The history of the canonization of the
saints], Moscow 1902, p. 218.
47 
R.H. Greene, Bodies like bright stars, p. 12.
48 
E. Golubinskiy, История канонизации, p. 218.
49 
A. Naumow, Wiara i historia, p. 187.
50 
R.H. Greene, Bodies like bright stars, p. 14.
51 
J. Popłatek, Błogosławiony Andrzej Bobola, p. 153-157.
52 
Ibidem, p. 169-215, 236.
53 
Ibidem, p. 220.
54 
R.H. Greene, Bodies like bright stars, p. 144-146.

24
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

relics were taken in 1922 to Moscow, to be exhibited at the Museum of

Social Hygiene of the Commissariat of Public Health.55 At the request of the
Pope, two American Jesuits were allowed to rescue the relics by transporting
them via Odessa and Constantinople to Brindisi and finally, in 1923, to
Rome.56 Saint Andrzej was canonized by Pope Pius XI at Easter 1938 and
triumphantly returned to Poland in the same year. As Kramarz relates, the
canonization was taken as an important gesture of encouragement by the
Poles who were alarmed by the pre-Second World War political situation.57
Currently, the relics of Saint Andrzej lie in a sanctuary in Warsaw.58

Hymnographical constructions
The historicity of the three saints is likely to have influenced the hymnog-
raphers in the creation of the liturgical services, although they contain few
references to concrete events in the lives of the saints. The services are rooted
in Christian textual traditions in general by employing typologies, tropes
and expressions familiar from the existing sources, which has been a stan­
dard technique of constructing new liturgical services.59 Yet in the context
of these historical figures, the common tropes may be seen as acquiring new,
historically charged and highly polemic meanings.
One of the most characteristic arguments, witnessed to some extent in
each of the three services, is the claim that the particular saint represents the
true faith, the only confession capable of leading to salvation (see Table 1).60
This is far from surprising considering the historical context of the saints. It
was in the Polish-Lithuanian lands that the Eastern and Western Churches
had collided time and time again since their Christianization in the tenth
century. Each considered themselves to be the sole true Church. In the late
sixteenth and seventeenth century, the propagation of the supremacy of the
Roman Catholic Church was invariably accompanied by the exclusion of
other confessions from the prospect of salvation (extra Ecclesiam nulla salus).

55 
The same museum hosted a number of saints’ relics, exhumed by the Bolsheviks, from all
over Russia. See: R.H. Greene, Bodies like bright stars, p. 150.
56 
J. Popłatek, Błogosławiony Andrzej Bobola, p. 250-252.
57 
Henryka Kramarz, “Św. Andrzej Bobola na łamach prasy polskiej w 1938 roku” [St
Andrzej Bobola in the Polish press in 1938], in: Rocznik Historii Prasy Polskiej [The Yearbook
of the History of the Polish Press] 14 (1-2/2011), p. 214.
58 
Anna Dziemska, “Andrzej Bobola, patron of unity and peace”, in: Jesuits in Europe (29 May
2017), https://jesuits.eu/news/375-andrzej-bobola-the-patron-of-unity-and-peace, vie­wed Fe­
bruary 20, 2020.
59 
See: S. Griffin, The Liturgical Past, p. 93-228.
60 
I have selected the most relevant and grouped the citations roughly on the basis of their
corresponding content. The grouping does not suggest they are seen as fully identical.

25
Maria Takala-Roszczenko

This view characterized the negotiations for the Union of Brest (1596), and it
was readily adopted by many Greek Catholic hierarchs, who used it in polem-
ics with the Orthodox side.61 In answer to the accusations of standing outside
the “saving Church”, the Orthodox polemicists frequently described their
community with concepts such as “pravovernyj” (those of “right faith”) as
opposed to “levo-“ or even “kryvovernyj” (those of “left” or “twisted” faith).62

Table 1: References to true faith (a selection)

Saint Afanasiy Saint Josafat Saint Andrzej

пострадав же за истину
Христову даже до крове,
having suffered for Christ’s
truth even to blood (Great
Vespers [further: GV],
doxa­sticon for Lord, I have
called)
светом истинныя веры syna, którego śmierć
люди наставил еси, you opromienia prawdziwej
have edified people with the wiary wspólnotę, a son
light of the true faith (GV, whose death illuminates
aposticha) the community of true faith
(Matins, hymn)
яко страдальца за веру
Христову украшеннаго,
as a sufferer for Christ’s faith
(Matins, canon 1st ode)
просветлен был Jestem kapłanem katol-
еси в деяниях … ickim, powiedział Andrzej
защищения истины … do Kozaków, urodziłem
побеждающий гонители się w katolickiej wierze i
Церкве истинныя w te wierze chcę umrzeć,
Христовы… возстал еси Albowiem prawdziwa wiara
противу врагов веры prowadzi do zbawienia.
Православныя, – Przyjmując moją wierę,
poznacie prawdziwego Boga
i ocalicie wasze dusze.

61 
See: Liliya Berezhnaya, “«True Faith» and Salvation”, in: Cahiers du Monde russe 58
(3/2017), p. 442-444.
62 
Peter Galadza, “Літургічне питання і розвиток богослужень напередодні Берестейської
унії аж до кінця XVII століття” [Liturgical questions and the development of the divine ser-
vices before the Union of Brest and up to the end of the 17th century], in: Берестейська унія
та внутрішне життя Церкви в XVII столітті. Матеріали Четвертих ”Берестейських
читань”. Львів, Луцьк, Київ, 2-6 жовтня 1995 [The Union of Brest and the inner life of the
Church in the seventeenth century. Materials of the Fourth “Brest Readings”. L’viv, Lutsk,
Kyiv, 2-6 October 1995], L’viv 1997, p. 7.

26
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

Saint Afanasiy Saint Josafat Saint Andrzej

you have been enlightened in I am a Catholic priest, said
your works … of defending Andrzej to the Cossacks, I
the truth … conquering the was born in the Catholic
persecutors of the true Church faith and in this faith I want
of Christ … you have stood to die, For the true faith leads
up against the enemies of to salvation. – By accepting
the Orthodox faith (GV, my faith, you will find the
aposticha) true God and save your souls.
(Office of readings,
responsory)
в вере Православней заблуждшихъ на путь
твердым стоянием … истинный наставилъ еси,
истинный нам путь к setting those who have been
Небеси указуеши, by lost on the true path (SV,
standing fast by the Orthodox aposticha)
faith … you have pointed for
us the true path to Heaven
(Small Vespers [further:
SV], aposticha)
твердым стоянием за
веру Православную
и безстрастным
исповеданием ея, standing
fast at the Orthodox faith
and dispassionately confessing
it (kathisma troparion)
настави нас верою
правоверную восхваляти
Господа, set us with the
orthodox faith to praise the
Lord (GV, Lity)
верно пожил еси, стоя
бодренно за святую
Православную веру …
заповедуя никомуже
нарушати Православныя
веры святыя, пострадав
за свидетелсьтво истины
даже до смерти, you have
lived faithfully, standing
courageously for the holy
Orthodox faith … prohibit-
ing anyone to disturb the holy
Orthodox faith, suffering, in
testimony to the truth, even
to death (troparion)

27
Maria Takala-Roszczenko

Saint Afanasiy Saint Josafat Saint Andrzej

неустанно обличая
хулители Православныя
веры и предрекая им
гнев Божий, претерпел
еси за сие злострадания,
tirelessly exposing the abusers
of the Orthodox faith and
foretelling them God’s wrath
(Matins, at Praises)
cтолп непоколебимый
веры Христовы и
истинный ревнитель
отеческих преданий
был … бодренно стоя за
святую Православную
веру, you were an unwa-
vering pillar of the faith of
Christ and a true zealot for
the tradition of the forefathers
… standing courageously by
the holy Orthodox faith (GV,
at Lord, I have called)
Ревнуя о вере Право­сла­
вней, возскорбел еси… яко
вера сия от неправоверных
попирается … все житие
твое земное предал еси
на защищение веры
праотеческия, Zealous for
the Orthodox faith, you have
become mournful … as this
faith is trampled upon by
the unorthodox … you have
given all your earthly life for
defending the faith of the
forefathers (GV, doxasticon
at Lity)

From the three services, it is the Orthodox Saint Afanasiy that is most em-
phatically described as serving the true faith. In the total of fifteen references,
which is more than for any other topic in any of the services, the saint is de-
scribed as having defended and suffered for “Christ’s truth”, “the true faith”
or “Christ’s faith”, which is the “holy Orthodox faith”. By standing fast by
Orthodoxy, he is described as “showing us the true path to Heaven”. It is
the “faith of the forefathers”, whose tradition the saint is described to have
defended against the attacks of the unorthodox, “nepravovernye”.

28
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

Historically, Saint Afanasiy’s protests against the discrimination of the

Orthodox Church after the Union of Brest were founded on the firm and
exclusive conception of Orthodoxy as the Church of Christ. The service,
written in the charged inter-Christian atmosphere of the 1920s Poland, elab-
orates on the history by using typical Byzantine tropes associated with ortho-
doxy in general.63 A similar kind of unwavering conviction is found in the
service for the Roman Catholic Saint Andrzej Bobola, in which the historical
encounter between the saint and his murderers is turned into a proclamation
of the Catholic confession as the true faith of God:
I am a Catholic priest, said Andrzej to the Cossacks, I was born in
the Catholic faith and in this faith I want to die, For the true faith
leads to salvation. – By accepting my faith, you will find the true
God and save your souls.64
Interestingly, the service for Saint Josafat uses other means of manifesting
the rightfulness of the Greek Catholic Church. Only once, in the aposticha,
does the hymnography resemble the above-depicted service of Saint Afanasiy
in its persistence on the true faith: Saint Josafat is described as “setting those
who have been lost on the true path”. The Greek Catholics were, in the
early eighteenth century when the service was most likely compiled, still
very much in a state of transition. There was no clear idea of what the Greek
Catholic Church was: to what extent should it follow exactly the Catholic
tradition, and to what extent preserve its Orthodox identity, supported by
their adherence to the Eastern Rite liturgical tradition.65 Perhaps for this rea-
son, and for the reason of constantly being condemned by the Orthodox as
“nepravoverny”, unorthodox, the hymnographer of Josafat’s service empha-
sized the trueness of their confession by reflecting it against the opponents.
This becomes particularly visible in the references to church unity, which can
be seen as the main topic of emphasis in Saint Josafat’s service, shared with
Saint Andrzej, but missing completely in the service for Saint Afanasiy (see
Table 2).

63 
However, a browse of possible sources in Byzantine hymnography, such as the commemo-
ration of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, or the Seventh Ecumenical
Council, or of the Sunday of Orthodoxy, has not revealed direct connections with Saint
Afanasiy’s service.
64 
Liturgia godzin zakonów franciszkańskich, p. 1108.
65 
See: Maria Takala-Roszczenko, The ‘Latin’ within the ‘Greek’: The Feast of the Holy Eucharist
in the Context of Ruthenian Eastern Rite Liturgical Evolution in the 16th-18th Centuries,
Joensuu, University of Eastern Finland 2013, p. 90-120.

29
Maria Takala-Roszczenko

Table 2: References to Church unity

Saint Josafat Saint Andrzej

прелесть попалилъ еси раздоротоврныхъ
… вѣру оуяснилъ еси соединениемъ,
you have burnt away the charm of those who
create discord… you have clarified the faith
by unity (Matins, kathisma troparion)
ясно проповѣдавъ соединение, погасилъ
еси распролюбныхъ распаленная
раздорствием сердца, мученическую
твоею кровию, clearly preaching for unity,
you have extinguished the hearts, inflamed by
discord, of those who love quarrel, with mar-
tyr’s blood (kontakion)
радуйся, имже тма распролюбивыхъ пом­
рачися, радуйя, имже свѣтъ взыде со­еди­
нения, rejoice, by whom the darkness of those
who love discord has become darker yet, re-
joice, by whom the light of unity arises (oikos)
къ соединению наставилъ еси люди, you
have set people to unity (GV, sticheron at
Lord, I have called)
къ соединению церкве православныя
кафолическия привелъ, you have led the
Orthodox Catholic Church to unity (GV,
aposticha)
неубоявся мучителей злочестивыхъ
суровства, но мужески со дерзновениемъ
проповѣдуя соединение вљры, not being
afraid of the sternness of the impious persecu-
tors, but steadfastly, with audacity, preaching
the unity of faith (aposticha)
пострадав за соединение, having suffered oddał życie za jedność Kościoła, gave his
for unity (GV, sticheron at Lord, I have life for the unity of the Church (I Vespers,
called) antiphon)
Величаемъ тя… яже за соединение Bo Andrzej oddał swe życie za zjednoczenie
претерпѣлъ еси, We magnify thee … Kościoła, For Andrzej gave his life for the
who have suffered for the sake of unity uniting of the Church (Matins, hymn)
(megalynarion)
радуйся непоколебимый соединения
столпе, rejoice, o unwavering pillar of unity
(oikos)
нынѣ молися, даровати церквам
соединение и миръ, pray now that [God]
gives the Churches unity and peace (refrain
for stichera 1–6 at Lord, I have called)

30
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

Saint Josafat Saint Andrzej

яко истинный пастырь и наслѣдникъ by do jednego Pasterza zwiedzionych
Христовъ, вопия непресталъ еси: przywieść na powrót i w jednej wierze
Отче соблюди всѣхъ во имя твое, да zachować, to bring back the misguided to the
будутъ едино вси, и нынѣ всеблаженне one Shepherd and to keep them in one faith
Иосафате, молися даровати церквамъ (Matins, hymn)
соединение, и всѣмъ въ соединении
сущимъ, спастися намъ, as a true shepherd
and follower of Christ, you have not ceased
to cry: Father, keep them all through Your
name, that they may be one66, and now,
all-blessed Josafat, pray [to God to] give the
Churches unity, and to us all who are in
unity, salvation (aposticha)

In Saint Josafat’s service, the image of the Greek Catholic confession is con-
structed by means of contrasting it with those who stand in opposition to
church unity. The hymnographer uses strong antitheses to distinguish those
who are in razdor, discord, from those who are in soedinenie, unity. These,
in turn, are further polarized by association with good and evil, light and
darkness, for example: “the souls darkened by the evilness of the enemy, you
have enlightened with the light of your words” (the aposticha),67 “Rejoice, by
whom the darkness of those who love discord has become darker yet. Rejoice,
by whom the light of unity arises” (oikos)68. The hymnographer proves highly
inventive in using initial rhyme and coining new expressions. The recurrent
use of the prefix raz- or ras-, which has a connotation of breaking, dividing,
or tearing apart, intensifies the poetic effect: razdorotvornye (creators of dis-
cord), rasproljubnye or rasproljubivye (those who love quarrel), and, of course,
raskol (schism, dissent, division). In the kontakion for the saint, the effect is
further strengthened by the repetition of similar sounds: “Jasno propovedav
soedinenie, pogasil esi rasprolyubnyh raspalennaya razdorstviem serdtsa muchen-
icheskoyu kroviyu” (“Clearly preaching for unity, you have extinguished the
hearts, inflamed by discord, of those who love quarrel, with martyr’s blood”).69
As opposed to the wicked lovers of discord, Saint Josafat is described
as the embodiment of the church union, which is emphasized by the repe-
tition of the word soedinenie, more than thirty times, in different combina-

66 
Citation from Jn 17.11.
67 
“Душы омраченныя злобою врага, свѣтлостïю словесъ […] просвѣтилъ еси”, in:
Вечірня і утреня, p. 847.
68 
“Pадуйся, имже тма распролюбивыхъ помрачися, радуйя, имже свѣтъ взыде
соединения”, in: Ibidem, p. 851.
69 
“Ясно проповѣдавъ соединение, погасилъ еси распролюбныхъ распаленная
раздорствием сердца, мученическую твоею кровию”, in: Ibidem.

31
Maria Takala-Roszczenko

tions. Josafat “sets people to unity”, “leads the Orthodox Catholic Church
to unity”, “suffers for unity”, “clarifies the faith by unity”, and is the “unwa-
vering pillar of unity”. He is addressed as an intercessor for “unity and peace”
and for the salvation of “us all who are in unity”.
The cause of the church union is also manifested in the service for
Saint Andrzej, who is described as “giving his life for the unity (or union) of
the Church”. Characteristically, the service also reflects the Roman Catholic
ecclesiological understanding by implying that the church union means in
essence the return of other churches to the Catholic sphere: “to bring back
the misguided to the one Shepherd and to keep them in one faith.”70
Because all three martyrs were also members of the clergy, and Saint
Josafat an archbishop, they are recurrently likened to Christ’s parable of the
Good Shepherd, which of course likens them to Christ himself, following
the liturgical typology of imitatio Christi (see Table 3).

Table 3: References to the Good Shepherd

Saint Afanasiy Saint Josafat Saint Andrzej

верное стадо твое в яко оубо добрый Jako dobry pasterz karmisz
истине укрепляя, strength- пастырь положилъ еси prawdą słów owczarnię
ening your loyal flock in душу твою за овцы, от Pana, As a good shepherd you
truth (Matins, the Praises) распролюбныхъ враговъ feed the Lord’s flock [of sheep]
оубиенъ еси, a good shep- with the truth of the words
herd who has given his soul (Office of Readings, hymn)
[life] for his sheep and be-
come slain by quarrel-loving
enemies (GV, troparion)
образ подражателен быв Низложь враговъ
верному стаду твоему, you раздоротворыхъ
were an image for imitation возношения, яко пастырь
for your loyal flock (GV, добрый, depose the offer-
doxasticon at Lord, I have ings of the discord-creating
called) enemies, like a good shep-
herd (Matins, kathisma
troparion)
божественная оучения
запечатлѣвъ кровию от
раздоротворныхъ овецъ,
you have sealed the divine
teachings with your blood,
away from the discord-creat-
ing sheep (GV, Lity)

70 
Liturgia godzin zakonów franciszkańskich, p. 1108.

32
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

Saint Afanasiy Saint Josafat Saint Andrzej

яко пастырь преиз­ яко пастирь добрый къ
рядный… стадо во истине страданию мужески
наставил еси, like a good оуготовився и за соеди­
shepherd, you have set the нение церкве Божия,
flock to truth (SV, aposticha) многи скорби подялъ еси
терпѣливно от злочес­
тивыхъ людей, as a good
shepherd you have pre-
pared yourself steadfastly
for suffering, and for the
sake of the unity of God’s
Church, you have patiently
accepted many sorrows from
impious people (Matins,
doxasticon at Praises)
союзом веры связал молися о вљрою
еси врученное ти стадо творящихъ твою
словесное, и ныне охра­ всечестную память …
ня­вши нас от ветров избавитися напастей стаду
тлетворных учений, you твоему, и всему миру, от
have tied together with the всякихъ иноплеменник,
bond of faith the verbal flock pray … that your flock, and
that has been given to you, the whole world, is preserved
and thus protect us from the from all attacks of all kinds
winds of pernicious teachings of other nations (GV, doxas-
(Matins, canon 5th ode, ticon at Lord, I have called)
2nd troparion)

Saint Andrzej is praised in a hymn for being “a good shepherd who feeds
the Lord’s flock with the truth of the words.”71 Characteristically, both Saint
Afanasiy and Saint Josafat are depicted as good shepherds with their indi-
vidual emphases. In Saint Afanasiy’s service, it is the reference to faith that
accompanies his image as a good shepherd who “sets the flock to truth” and
strengthens his “loyal flock in truth”. He “ties together with the bond of faith
the verbal flock that has been given him, and thus protects us from the winds
of pernicious teachings.”72
For Saint Josafat, it is unity, in the face of the opponents, that perme-
ates his image as a shepherd: “As a good shepherd you have prepared yourself
steadfastly for suffering, and for the sake of the unity of God’s Church, you
have patiently accepted many sorrows from impious people.”73 He is the
“good shepherd who has given his soul [life] for his sheep and become slain

71 
Liturgia godzin zakonów franciszkańskich, p. 1105.
72 
Минея, p. 166.
73 
Вечірня і утреня, p. 853.

33
Maria Takala-Roszczenko

by quarrel-loving enemies.”74 In his case, it is the treachery on the part of the

once united Eastern Rite Orthodox flock that intensifies the psychological
tension: they become “impious enemies”, zlochestivyya vrazi, the “sheep that
create discord”, razdorotvornye ovtsy, who attack the shepherd although a
while ago they belonged to the same flock. The Orthodox are thus defamil-
iarized into enemies by their refusal to follow Josafat to the union and by
their murderous act in Vitebsk in 1623.

Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

The potential challenges that arise from the liturgical services discussed above
may be illustrated with a simple example of daily ecumenism. Let us imagine
an ecumenical gathering hosted by some Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Greek
Catholic parish, for example, somewhere in Poland, Belarus, or Ukraine. The
gathering would include a divine service in the respective church, conducted
by the local clergy, while the representatives of other Churches would partic-
ipate among the congregation. Incidentally, the liturgical commemoration
would fall on the feast of one of the three saints discussed in this article.
Would there be any conflict in the minds of the gathered people upon hear-
ing, provided that their words were understood, the content of the hymns?
What kind of response could be expected to the hymns sung in praise of
a saint whose reception, provided that the historical context was familiar,
would be so entirely different in the participant’s own tradition? Would it not
make the idea of mutual respect and unity seem entirely false?
The imagined gathering, however (un)realistic, reveals the complexity
of ecumenical relations in the region where the Churches have made martyrs
of people slain by fellow Christians. If we consider liturgical services as me-
dia for propagating collective identities, as suggested earlier by Griffin,75 the
yearly re-enacted commemoration of the particular saint can be seen as con-
tinuously shaping the community. The process is part of the communication
that is “transmitted vertically through the generations”, according to Aleida
Assmann’s definition of tradition.76 This tradition informs the contemporary
of the past confrontations, those irreconcilable memories,77 which thus con-
tinue to define the communities’ views of each other.
The liturgical services thus have the potential of reinforcing identities
that are problematic in light of ecumenical aspirations. For example, from
the ecclesiological point of view, the liturgical texts that manifest concepts

74 
Ibidem, p. 848.
75 
S. Griffin, The Liturgical Past, p. 26.
76 
J. Assmann, Religion and Cultural Memory, p. 8.
77 
Ibidem, p. 7.

34
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

of church unity as the incorporation or the return of one Church into the
structure of another, function opposite to the recognition of ecumenical co-
existence as a process in which all sides make compromises. It must be em-
phasised that although references to unity or true faith are common tropes
in Christian liturgical expression in general, with the historical burden of
the more or less voluntary conversions in the region in the past, the hym-
nographical references to единство or jedność (unity), соединение or zjed-
noczenie (becoming united), истинная вера or prawdziwa wiara (true faith)
are easy to understand as tension-loaded.
Apart from ecclesiological views, the cult of these three saints high-
lights the complex intertwining of ethnic, national, and political definers
in confessional identities in the territory of the earlier Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth. As political borders have shifted, the positions of the reli-
gious communities in the state have waxed and waned. In the course of his-
tory, the oppressed have frequently become oppressors, and vice versa. These
developments have invariably affected the reception of the saints, and their
cult has been used for strengthening identities also beyond religion.
As Jobst notes, Saint Josafat’s cult, for example, has provided “a re-
source for different religious, cultural, political, and ethno-national agents”
over the centuries especially because of its inclusiveness and yet exclusiveness:
on one hand, it has fostered cohabitation between the Roman and Greek
Catholics (Greek Catholics), but excluded the Orthodox, on the other. His
cult has been characterized by its “successful use (…) as an anti-Orthodox,
anti-Russian, and (after the revolutions of 1917) anti-Soviet symbol”.78
Saint Afanasiy, in turn, has served as a symbol of uncompromising
defence of Orthodoxy against the advances of the Roman Church, and it is
in this light that he is commemorated by the Orthodox in Belarus, Poland,
Ukraine, and Russia.79 The development of his cult has also been seen as
a reaction to the recognition given by the Roman Catholic Church to the
Greek Catholics who had suffered for their faith.80 In popular historiogra-
phy, Afanasiy has been perceived as “pro-Muscovite”. Hodana notes how his
figure and actions have frequently been overinterpreted both in terms of reli-
gious and political congeniality: because of his visit to Muscovy, for example,
during the Soviet period he was presented as the Ruthenians’ “spokesman of
the unity and amity with the Russian brother nation”.81

78 
K. Jobst, “Transnational”, p. 2.
79 
T. Hodana, “Moskiewskie wizje”, p. 16.
80 
A. Bobryk, “Wpływ Atanazego Brzeskiego na postawy prawosławnych wobec ruch unijne-
go” [The influence of Afanasiy of Brest on the attitudes of the Orthodox towards the union
movement], in: Szkice Podlaskie [Podlachian Sketches] 11 (5-14/2003), p. 12-14.
81 
T. Hodana, “Moskiewskie wizje”, p. 16.

35
Maria Takala-Roszczenko

In the contemporary Polish Orthodox Church, his patronage of the

Diocese of Lublin and Chełm seems far from coincidental. Apart from the
fact that the monastery of Leśna, which held part of his relics up to 1915,
was once located in the same region (Podlasie), it is this region that suf-
fered most in the revendication of property led by the Polish State in the
1920-30s, during which hundreds of Orthodox churches were transformed
into Roman Catholic churches or destroyed entirely.82 It is not difficult to
see how a saint such as Afanasiy may be perceived as the “defender of the
oppressed Church” also outside his own historical context. Yet it is exactly
because of the historical load of oppression that the cult itself may foster
anti-ecumenical, especially anti-Catholic, sentiments.
While the cults of Saint Josafat and Saint Afanasiy are, in many ways,
burdened by the historical fates of the Eastern Rite Church minorities in the
territory of the old Commonwealth, the cult of Saint Andrzej Bobola could
be seen as manifesting the opposite: the brutal death of Saint Andrzej has
indeed been transformed into a triumph of the Roman Catholic Church and
of the Polish nation.
The canonization process itself, argues Fr Jacek Bolewski SJ, was inter-
twined with the key moments of Polish national arising. The beatification of
the saint in 1853 took place in the context of the Crimean War that raised
hopes of a change in the political status of the partitioned Poland. Saint
Andrzej’s protection was recognized in the fight for Polish independence
in 1918 and especially in the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, when the Polish
troops defeated the Soviet Army on Vistula River.83 In light of the national
role attributed to the saint, it is not surprising that the public discourse on
Saint Andrzej on the eve of his canonization in 1938 presented him “not
only as a saint, but also a statesman”.84 As Kramarz describes, the return of
his relics from Vatican to Poland provided a moral boost for the country in
fear of the totalitarian forces threatening the Poles from Soviet Russia. He
was addressed as a “patron of strong faith and unity”, an intercessor for the
coming “days of trial”.85
The national emphasis reached a new level with the declaration of
Saint Andrzej as one of the three patrons of Poland in 2002. Yet the pa-

82 
1938. Jak burzono cerkwie [1938. How the churches were torn down]. Białystok, Fundacja
im. Księcia Konstantego Ostrogskiego 2018.
83 
Piotr Chmielinski, “Nowy Patron Polski” [The new patron of Poland], in: Niedziela
[Sunday] 20 (2002), https://www.niedziela.pl/artykul/6347/nd/Nowy-Patron-Polski,
viewed October 9, 2019.
84 
H. Kramarz, “Św. Andrzej Bobola”, p. 218.
85 
Ibidem, p. 218-219.

36
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

triotic tones behind his cult revealed considerable tensions in inter-church

relations in Poland, especially with respect to the Polish Orthodox minority.
The patronage of Saint Andrzej was met by a member of the Polish Sejm,
Eugeniusz Czykwin, with an article titled “Not our patron”, published in
the leading Orthodox periodical, Przegląd Prawosławny. Czykwin objected
to the depiction of Bobola as an “apostle of Church unity” in view of the
mission he had conducted as among the Orthodox – a mission that aimed
at converting the “schismatics” to Catholicism. “The decision of the Polish
[Catholic] Church to recognize Andrzej Bobola as the patron of Poland will
surely intensify distrust in the Belorussian, Ukrainian and Russian societies
and a sense of threat, feelings of reluctance toward the Catholic Church, and
stoward Poland as well”, he warned.86
Based on a survey of Roman Catholic newspaper articles discussing
Saint Andrzej’s patronage, it is possible to argue that such sentiments are not
baseless. One article, for example, describes the patronage of Saint Andrzej
as a reminder of the missionary calling of the Church and as particularly
significant “today, in times of difficult ecumenism, when there are problems
in Russia in recognizing the Catholic Church. […] It is necessary”, argues
the author, “to understand that Christ needs to be preached everywhere and
that the Church with Saint Peter, the Church with the Pope, is the Church
that has its root in the Apostles, the disciples of Jesus Christ.”87 In such
comments, it is possible to hear echoes of the seventeenth-century Roman
Catholic mission to evangelize the Rus, regardless of the fact that they had al-
ready confessed Christian, Orthodox, faith. Analogous tones are discernible
even in some academic works related to Saint Andrzej, where, for instance,
the term “schismatic” is nonchalantly used as a synonym for “Orthodox”.88
The past continues to shadow contemporary inter-church relations in
these troubled lands. The tensions, manifested, among others, in the cult of
the three saints discussed above, await to be recognized and reconciled, in
the quest of what the late Fr Robert Taft SJ called a “healing of memories
[that] will require us to put aside our myths and confront our common past

86 
Eugeniusz Czykwin, “Nie nasz patron” [Not our patron], in: Przegląd Prawosławny
[The Orthodox Overview] 6 (204/2002), http://przegladprawoslawny.pl/articles.php?id_
n=130&id=8, viewed September 20, 2019.
87 
Ks. Ireneusz Skubiś, “Patron trudnych czasów” [The patron for difficult times], in:
Niedziela [Sunday] 22 (2002), https://www.niedziela.pl/numer/2002/22, viewed October
9, 2019.
88 
See, for example: Grzegorz Wejman, “Sytuacja polityczno-społeczno-religijna XVII wieku
w czasie życia i działalności św. Andrzeja Boboli” [The political, social, and religious situation
in the 17th century during the life and activity of St Andrzej Bobola], in: Studia Bobolanum
30 (1/2019), p. 87-99.

37
Maria Takala-Roszczenko

with historical objectivity and truth, own up to our responsibilities, seek

forgiveness, and turn the page to move on to a hopefully better future.”89
Reconciliation is the only way to genuine Christian coexistence between
Churches that have shed blood against each other. Difficult as it may seem,
it is encouraging to see that some churches have, at least in official relations,
overcome their past antagonisms, as Taft relates,
Today in Great Britain, Anglicans and Catholics venerate together
the martyrs from each side – Catholics martyred by Anglicans and
Anglicans by Catholics – who were sacrificed for their Anglicanism
or Catholicism in the horrors of their mutual past. Now that is
real, adult ecumenism! Until hearts and minds are changed, none
of our other ecumenical efforts will amount to anything of sub-
stance for the unity of the Churches.90

Conclusion
In this article, I have examined the role of liturgical worship, especially of
the hymnographical service, for the cult of three saints that may be seen as
symbols of the troubled coexistence of Christians in the Polish-Lithuanian
lands in the early modern era. Hymnographical analysis may not be the most
obvious tool for researching contemporary ecumenical relations, yet in this
case, it reveals a number of factors at the very core of the cult that may po-
tentially hinder aspirations toward harmony between the Orthodox, Greek
Catholic, and Roman Catholic Churches.
One such factor could be the presentation of true faith as the exclu-
sive property of a particular Church, a perception constructed by manifest-
ing that salvation may only be attained in that Church (“I was born in the
Catholic faith and in this faith I want to die, For the true faith leads to sal-
vation”), or by contrasting the trueness of one’s own faith with the falseness
of another (“conquering the persecutors of the true Church of Christ … you
have stood up against the enemies of the Orthodox faith”, “to bring back
the misguided to the one Shepherd and to keep them in one faith”). Church
unity also becomes a tool of dichotomizing: those not willing to accept unity
in certain terms are denounced as advocates of discord and quarrel (“clearly
preaching for unity, you have extinguished the hearts, inflamed by discord,
of those who love quarrel, with martyr’s blood”).

89 
Robert F. Taft, SJ, “Perceptions and Realities in Orthodox-Catholic Relations Today:
Reflections on the Past, Prospects for the Future”, in: George E. Demacopoulos, Aristotle
Papanikolaou (eds.), Orthodox Constructions of the West, New York, Fordham University Press
2013, p. 20.
90 
Ibidem, p. 44.

38
 Contemporary Ecumenical Challenges

It may be asked, of course, how relevant the hymnographical services

are to the construction and the use of the cult especially in their political or
national role. It is not likely that the liturgical texts are familiar, even under-
standable, to wider masses of people who nevertheless recognize the saints
as representatives of their own community or heritage. Secondly, should one
take the liturgical texts literally? As noted earlier, the hymnographical refer-
ences to unity or true faith could be also interpreted in purely spiritual terms,
without historical connotations.
Yet as long as the political and national representations of the saint go
back to his liturgical veneration (without which he would not be recogniz-
able as a saint), it is hardly without meaning what is chanted on his com-
memoration. Worship cultivates the community’s perception of themselves.
If the worship manifests ideas of exclusiveness in terms of, roughly put, “mo-
nopolizing” salvation, true faith, or the concept of unity, it may be difficult
to find genuine respect and love for the other side in ecumenical relations.

39