Święci rodziny dominikańskiej w oratorstwie Fabiana Birkowskiego

Abstract

In the times of Fabian Birkowski, OP, the notion of the Dominican Family comprised three forms of community life. They were represented by the preaching friars, cloistered nuns, and lay Dominicans. There were numerous saints and blessed who used to be members of those orders and the memory of them was perpetuated in, among others, the religious oratory of the 17th century. Among the preachers of those days, Father Fabian holds a prominent place as an author of Latin oratories and sermons de sanctis delivered in the Polish language. The fact that a large portion of the speeches dedicated to saints, which he included in the collection Orationes ecclesiasticae, dealt with Dominican saints indicates Birkowski’s particularly strong spiritual bond with members of the monastic community that he himself belong to. The aim of the article is to attempt to make a typology of Birkowski’s texts dedicated to saints of the Dominican Family, to give their general characteristics, as well as to demonstrate literary proofs of the spiritual relationship which linked Birkowski and representatives of his own monastic family.