Fr Adolf Trusewicz CM (1919-2001) – a priest from the Congregation of the Mission (priest 1945), born in Stare Troki (Senieji Trakai), after World War II, he did not exercise the right of “expatriation” to = post-Yalta Poland and, with the consent of his superiors, remained on his native land to serve the local Catholics – mostly Poles – as a priest in the difficult realities of militant atheism, that characterised the Soviet Union. Due to illness, he was forced to leave Lithuania in 1995 and live in Krakow under the care of his religious confreres. From the pages of these memoirs emerges a living Church with many everyday problems with which Catholic priests were confronted. This is also a document showing the determination of Poles, attached to their native land, Catholic and national traditions, and caring about the preservation of their own identity. This is also a picture of many priests and their exceptional dedication to God and people who, risking their own safety, health and life, brought hope, support, help and a good word to everyone, irrespective of their political or religious views

The article refers to the duty of paying regular visits at the Holy See, “imposed on diocesan bishops by the Council of Trent,” on the example of the Wrocław dio-cese in the 17th and 18th centuries. Pursuant to the Romanus Pontifex bull by Pope Sixtus V of 20 December 1585, bishops of Wrocław (as well as all the other bish-ops from this part of Europe) were obliged to regularly visit the Holy See, going to Rome every four years to submit a written report on the condition of their dioces-es. Vatican sources contain 14 written reports from Wrocław from the period of 1603-1777. These reports lead to the conclusion that bishops of Wrocław treated the duty in a rather formalistic manner. The interval of four years required by the bull of Pope Sixtus V was rarely observed; often, there was just one visit through-out the governance of a given bishop. They also failed to pay visits in person, but were represented by special procurators approved by Rome, usually canons or trustees who also wrote the reports. Because, until 1740, there were no specific regulations or templates for writing the reports, their scope and contents signifi-cantly differed. The longest and the most abundant in contents were the ones drafted by bishops Sebastian von Rostock (1667), Friedrich von Hessen (1678), and Franz Ludwig (1708). In the report, the focus is on the static description of the diocese (seat of the diocese with the cathedral, chapter, and bishop’s residence, diocesan institutions, administrative structure of the diocese, convents on the premises), but the confession and political conditions in which the Catholic Church in Silesia had to proceed with its pastoral duties are rarely analysed. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was always pointed out that the Church was unable to oper-ate successfully, principally due to the aggressive behaviour of the Protestants, and the hostile attitude of rulers of particular Silesian duchies. There was much less information about the clergy and the faithful. Attention must be drawn to measures indicated by some bishops of Wrocław, aimed at eliminating the shortages and intensifying the religious life in Silesia.

The main topic of this article is the theme of Mary in Kazania Świętokrzyskie – the oldest known monument of the Polish language. Undoubtedly, 13th century theologians attached high importance and a significant role to the Virgin Mary in Christianity. The collection of sermons was an opportunity to present a universe in which the Mother of God is a key figure, which would reflect the intellectual trends of the time. However, for some reason or reasons, it did not happen. In the collection, the narrative about the Mother of God seems to be minimized. In this article an image of Blessed Virgin Mary was depicted in two collections of sermons chronologically close to the Holy Cross. Owing to this comparison, as was mentioned by other clergymen and the author of the Holy Cross Sermons, we can notice that the narrative about the Mother of Jesus in the latter is sparse, limited in content and quantity, and closed within dogmas.

Towards the end of the 18th century the authorities of the Austrian invaders of Poland made the decision to pull down the St Stephen Parish Church in Krakow and then to transfer the parish to the Church of the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance “na Piasku”. For over a hundred years two church communities coexisted under one roof and ran their own separate activities. At first the cooperation went well. With time, it became weaker and after several years, it turned into an open conflict. The issue involved church and lay institutions as well as the general public. Numerous attempts undertaken for years in order to resolve the dispute were not effective.

The article presents issues concerning the interpretation of the prophecy of Isaiah (11, 1-3) in the works of religious art. One of these works is the altar in the post-Dominican church in Klimontów near Sandomierz. The town belonged to the Ossoliński family from the 15th century. In the first half of the 17th century, a Dominican church and monastery were built in Klimontów. In the altar, made around mid-17th century, there is a carved and gilded wood of Jesse. The image of the Tree of Jesse surrounds the main part of the altar. It presents the content of the passions (from the top: the Veil of St Veronica, Judgment on Jesus, crucifix). The author of the article discusses the meaning of individual parts of the altar. He emphasizes that the content of the Virgin Mary – which appears in other representations of the Tree of Jesse – has not been shown in it. In the altar the following idea was realized: announcement – fulfilment (an event from the New Testament is the fulfilment of what was announced in the Old Testament). In this case, the Tree of Jesse (the genealogy of Christ) foreshadows a Saviour from the lineage of David. He is the king who triumphs from the cross.

Dąbrówka and Ostałówka founded in the 14th century were once two private villages, the latter is now the hamlet of the former. Until today, both have not been discussed in literature, and their owners were for instance land judge of Zator and vice-voivode Piotr Strzała from Krakow, valet of Mikołaj Zebrzydowski – Hieronim Strzała, subprefect of Żywiec Stanisław Biegański, Krakow town councillor Jakub Reynekier or master of the pantry (stolnik) of Podolia Michał Wilkoński. Apart from a brief overview of the villages and their inhabitants in the 17th century, the author introduced the noble families who were the landowners of the local estates. The text is supplemented with a source edition of the foundation of the cows by Jan and Barbara née Strzała Paszkowski family. The document is a testimony to the severe plague of 1663 and the relationship of the Dąbrówka and Ostałówka owners with the local rural community and parish in Stryszów.

The State of Israel awarded the Greek Catholic Bishop Pavel Gojdič the title of Righteous Among the Nations in 2007. In the critical years 1939-1945, he publicly stood up for the persecuted Jews and saved many from death. The study focuses on the analysis of his personality and attitudes to the Slovak Jewish community. It reveals his way of thinking and the specific examples which show us how it was manifested in relation to the persecuted. The study also contains the attitude of the Slovak elites towards the bishop and his activities in Slovakia.

Determining the origins of a priest is an integral part of biographical and more broadly prosopographical research on the clergy, hence it is important to demonstrate the degree of reliability of the sources that are used in such research. The descent of Józef Tocki, a Catholic priest who worked in the town of Zduńska Wola near Łódź, Poland, in the years 1834-1862, was verified in the article. He was born in 1805 in Gdańsk Pomerania in the seaside village of Kolibki. He was the son of a teacher. The noble origin declared in the priest’s biography, however, was not reflected in the parish registers, describing his relatives as “honest”. Of his seven sisters, four lived to adulthood, two of whom married teachers, and the eldest married a nobleman. The border between partitions limited contacts of the family members. Having achieved professional stability as a parish priest, Józef Tocki had an influence on the fortunes of his younger sister, who became his housekeeper. Other sisters’ marriages maintained and probably raised the family’s position in terms of connections and wealth. Their brother’s priestly duties also affected the social advancement of the schoolteacher’s children.

This article is devoted to the problematics of patrocinia of churches in the archdeaconry of Wrocław known thanks to canonical visitations from 1579-1580, carried out in accordance with the ordinances of the Council of Trent in 1547 by the archdeacon of Wrocław, Teodor Lindanus. Before proceeding with the execution of the ordinance and the visitation of the diocese, an instruction was prepared, where very strong emphasis was placed on the issue of the invocation that a given object of Catholic religious worship had. This was of great importance in the face of the development of the Reformation and the rejection of the existing sacred rite, including the cult of saints. Hence, examining the origin and meaning of church invocations, one could see the features characteristic of the religiousness of the faithful of the Church in Silesia, having their roots in the Middle Ages. Among the 36 objects visited, as many as 46 different invocations were listed, which, combined into various dedicatory variants, indicated 153 examples of saints, divine mysteries and truths of faith.The analysis of individual invocations, and searches in earlier sources, allowed to indicate the continuity of the cult, as well as its evolution emphasised by the appear-ance of other titles for the same objects. Data on patrocinia in 26 cases is the first information about the invocation for the individual churches mentioned. On the basis of the research carried out, it can be assumed that the archdeacon of Wrocław was characterised by an openness to many trends, and manifestations of the religious culture of Europe and the Church at the time.