Based on a detailed excerption of manuscript and printed sources, we map the strategies of spreading and worshiping the cult of the Jesuit patron St. Francis Xavier in expressions of local piety. On the example of the Tertianship House in Telč, we observe the forms of reverence, how the cult of St. Francis Xavier was accented within the Order (Xavierian festivities – e.g. ceremonies connected with his feast or the anniversary of his canonization, and theatre plays), as well as how it was promoted outside the Order’s community (e.g. the establishment of the pilgrimage site in Knínice near Telč, Stations of the Cross, special devotions, pious peregrinations, granting indulgences). Using the ‘miraculous looks’ recorded in the Jesuit annual reports and in the history of the Jesuit Province, we present a reflection on St. Francis Xavier as a holy doctor and protector not only in the times of plague.
On the basis of a thorough excerption of the Jesuits’ documentary resources, the author illustrates basic features of the superior’s role as regards his career as a member of a monastic institution as well as the hierarchy of his regular ranking.