Stanisław Adam Sapieha, a Galician magnate and politician was one of the Catholic activists who were concerned about the Greek Catholic Church organizations in Galicia endangered by the Orthodox propaganda spread by some Russophile-minded Greek Catholic clergy. A significant issue was to strengthen the local episcopate and provide sound education in the seminary. Sapieha was not really confident to what extent the Holy See was aware of the situation, and so on his own initiative he observed the events taking place in the Orthodox and Greek Catholics proceedings in order to properly show those relations to the Holy See, where he was well known for his concern for the affairs of the Greek Catholics in Galicia. Sapieha repeatedly provided information for different Roman dicasteries. The following publication presents the letters between Sapieha and Cardinal Mieczysław Ledóchowski, then employed in the Roman Curia, who as the archbishop of Gniezno and Poznań, just like after settling in Rome in 1876, was vividly interested in the Greek Catholics in the Kingdom of Poland after the liquidation of the Union there in 1875. Ledóchowski, soon after the election of Pope Leo XIII (interested in ending the Kulturkampf in Prussia), was not welcomed by the Pope, because the Archbishop of Gniezno and Poznań was one of the major obstacles to an agreement between Bismarck and the Pope. He was very careful about the problems presented by Sapieha. From the correspondence published here it can be concluded that Cardinal Ledóchowski was not at that time a good mediator in the cases which Sapieha was involved with.
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