Paysages mouvants : le pèlerinage dans le monde catholique des Balkans au xviie s. Vision de l’Église et pratique communautaire dans l’organisation de l’espace sacré

Abstract

The aim of this text is to analyze Catholicism’s place in the confessional landscape of the Balkans during the seventeenth century. It attempts to reconstruct how Roman Catholicism - a universal and strongly centralized religion - attempts to survive within the dominant political and institutional framework of an expansive Ottoman Empire, which assigns a privileged place and role to Muslims, in a region where the majority population consists of Christian Orthodox believers attached to their traditions.Roman Catholicism acquires surprising characteristics within these complex realities and dynamics of the Balkans at the time. Although well-rooted in the region from the beginning of the church’s existence, during the seventeenth century, it experiences a period of crisis, which Rome tries to address. Efficient solutions presume, if not require, accurate knowledge of and adaptation to the local specificity, at the same time safeguarding the church’s universal characteristics. Seen as “missionary territory” by Rome, the difficult realities on the ground force church leaders to develop a flexible approach and openness to compromise, which is not the case elsewhere in the Catholic world. Analyzing the connections between official church discourse and the eyewitness reports of missionaries sent to the region, the text focuses particularly on pilgrimage and other devotional practices of the dispersed Catholic populations in different ‘micro-regions’ of the Balkans.