Rozwój struktur parafi alnych i dekanalnych metropolii mohylewskiej (1783-1918)
The Development of Parish and Deanery Structures of Mogilev Metropolis (1783-1918)

Summary/Abstract: The incorporation of eastern territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth together with the Latin dioceses and parishes of these areas into the Russian Empire eventuated in 1783 in the creation of the Mogilev metropolis - the biggest ecclesiastical province of the Catholic Church in the nineteenth century. Throughout the “long” nineteenth century, it evolved at all levels of the territorial organisation - from a parish to a diocese. These changes were determined by the political circumstances (for example, political borders, relations with the Holy See), internal transformations of the state (local governments, denomination policy regarding the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church), and the situation within the Church itself. The paper attempts to comprehensively characterise - quantitatively and spatially - the changes in the parish network in the Mogilev metropolis in the nineteenth century. Gathered source information, based on the cross-sectional sources including accounts and reports on the state of particular dioceses as well as the annual diocesan handbooks called Schematisms, served to assess the current body of scientific knowledge critically. The analysis is arranged in chronological and thematic order, and divided into three periods: 1772-1795, 1795-1847, 1847-1914. For each of them, the changes in the parishes network are described in the context of administrative units of the higher level: deaneries and dioceses (of Mogilev, Vilnius, Samogitia, Lutsk and Zhytomyr, Kamianets-Podilskyi, Minsk, Tiraspol). The analysis shows that the number of Catholic parishes that can be found in the subject literature was often assessed without an in-depth examination of the source information, which led to incorrect conclusions. After a period of dynamic development of the parish network lasting until the first decade of the nineteenth century, it can be assumed that the number of parishes stabilised, increasing only slightly, across the entire ecclesiastical province. Within 110 years (1804-1914), the number of parishes in the metropolis increased by only 46, which means the growth of 4.6 percent, and not 30.4% as it was described previously by B. Kumor. The conducted analysis indicates that the changes in the territorial organisation of the Catholic Church in the Mogilev metropolis were disproportionate, and it makes it possible to identify the areas of the lower and higher dynamics of changes. Thus, it lays a foundation for further, more detailed, comparative research which will determine the main elements influencing the dynamics and shape of the observed changes (such as, for instance, legal regulations, settlement, and migrations, dissolutions, affiliated churches and oratories, the role of the religious orders).

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