Romos katalikų dvasininkas: luomo apibrėžtis ir tapatybės konstravimas imperinės valdžios retorikoje ir praktikoje. (Žemaičių (Telšių) ir V ilniaus vyskupijos XIX a. paskutiniaisiais dešimtmečiais – XX a. pradžioje)

• Authors: Vilma Žaltauskaitė

Abstracts

EN

The geography and chronology of the research cover the dioceses of Samogitia (Telšiai) and vilnius which were organized within the administrative boundaries of the so called Northwestern region and had about 1,000 Roman Catholic priests involved in the activities of pastoral care. However, the investigation is aimed at the confessional institutional structure influential of the society rather than a group of people. Chronological framework of the research from the late 18th to the early 20th century covers a period marked by significant changes in both secular and ecclesiastical spheres – in december 1882 an agreement between the Apostolic Throne and Russia was signed and the last decade of the 19th century saw the publication of the new editions of the Law on the Spiritual Issues of Infidels and Laws about Estates. The decree on religious tolerance issued on April 17, 1905 and providing background for the qualitatively new conditions for the church/churches in the Russian Empire is considered the finishing point of the investigation. In the Russian Empire the legal status of Roman Catholic clergy assigned to liturgical service through the laying on of hands ritual was defined by the Laws about Estates (Законы о Состоянiяхъ), laws regulating the role of the Catholic Church - institution and community – in the country and other legal acts related to social relations in the Empire including items relevant to the confessants and clergymen of the religion in question. The legal status of the Catholic Church and Catholic clergy in the so called Northwestern region was defined not only by the items and paragraphs of the abovementioned laws, but also by the peculiar attitude of the secular authorities towards the Catholic clergy viewing it as a social group in the region that in the rhetoric of the secular leadership was referred to as “the Russian land from everlasting”. The investigation interconnected the legal definition of the estate of the Roman Catholic clergy and the construction of its identity in the so called Northwestern region, hence the latter is analysed with regard to the attitude of the secular authorities towards the estate under consideration in the concrete socio-cultural context. The view that laws reflect the attitude of the leadership towards the subject defined in them – in this case the estate, and that laws help shape values and standards for the assessment of your own and other people’s opinion relevant to the construction of identity was observed in the formulation of the said objective of research. A number of aspects are applicable in the research of identity yet the author opted for the analysis of the attitude of the authorities/bureaucracy towards the estate in question. Analysis of historiography suggested that in Lithuanian, Russian and Western historiographies the situation of the Roman Catholic clergy in the Russian Empire was mostly studied as an aspect of other issues related to the national and confessional policy of the Empire rather than a separate object of research. Much less investigation has been made into the situation of the Roman Catholic clergy as a separate estate. In the recent works of Russian researchers focusing on the social structure of the Empire the Roman Catholic clergy as a separate estate is for the most part eliminated from the field of investigation. Historiographies in the English language have also adopted such attitude. Paul W. Werth’s research is an exception. The general national, confessional and social policy of the leadership in the so called Northwestern region was accountable for the treatment of the estate of the Roman Catholic clergy in the region. The employment of the term general policy does not a priori presuppose that it was single and unanimous from the point of view of both rhetoric and political practice. The author considered it important to supplement the overview of historiography with both - concrete studies of the situation of the Roman Catholic clergy as a separate estate and works reconstructing and analysing a broader political context especially those which assess the confessional policy of the authorities and analyse it with regard to the Roman Catholic clergy.

• Publisher: Lietuvos istorijos institutas
• Journal: Lietuvos istorijos metraštis
• Year: 2011
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 69-80

Dates

published

2011

Contributors

author

Vilma Žaltauskaitė

• Lietuvos istorijos institutas

Identifiers

Biblioteka Nauki

57628898