# Catalogus personarum et officiorum Societatis Jesu in Alba-Russia ex anno 1784 in annum 1785



**Dati editoriali:** Mohiloviae (Mohilev or Mogilev), In Privilegiata a Sua Imperatoria Majestate Typographia Illustrissimi Archiepiscopi, [after 18 July 1785]

**Codice archivio:** 176

**Prezzo:** 4200.00 USD

**Stato commerciale:** Disponibile

**Link ufficiale:** https://www.govirarebooks.com/products/catalogus-societatis-jesu-alba-russia-1785

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## Descrizione accademica e analisi

8vo (164x98 mm). 15, [1] pp. Title within a double-rule typographical border, with a woodcut Jesuit emblem depicting the IHS monogram surrounded by rays. Ornamental woodcut headpieces and typographical decorations throughout. The text is arranged in hierarchical sections listing the government, colleges, houses, missions, and individual members of the Society of Jesus in White Russia. Unbound. Small tear to the inner margin of the title page with no loss, all in all very well preserved. An exceptionally rare, apparently unrecorded later impression of one of the earliest printed catalogues of the Jesuit community that survived the universal suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773. Issued after the death of Atanisław Czerniewicz (18 july 1785), this impression explicitly records the deliberate omission of two sections included in the first impression: the necrology of the Jesuits who had died since the suppression and the general alphabetical index of members. The present publication constitutes a remarkable contemporary document of one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of the Society of Jesus: its institutional survival in the Russian Empire between the universal suppression promulgated by Clement XIV in 1773 and the worldwide restoration effected by Pius VII in 1814. Following the First Partition of Poland in 1772, several Jesuit colleges and residences belonging to the former Polish-Lithuanian provinces came under the sovereignty of Catherine II of Russia. When Clement XIV issued the brief Dominus ac Redemptor on 21 July 1773, suppressing the Society throughout the Catholic world, the Russian empress refused to permit its promulgation within her dominions. Catherine valued the Jesuits principally for their educational activities and insisted that their institutions should continue functioning. Consequently, while the Society ceased to exist as an officially constituted religious order in most Catholic countries, its members in White Russia preserved their communities, educational establishments, internal government, and eventually their capacity to admit and train new members. The continuity of the Russian community was consolidated under Stanisław Czerniewicz (1728–1785), rector of the Jesuit college at Polock and, from 17 October 1782, vicar general of the surviving Society. The reopening of the novitiate in 1780 and the election of Czerniewicz represented decisive steps towards institutional renewal. In 1783, Pius VI gave oral approval to the continued existence of the Society in Russia, thereby strengthening the position of the community that would eventually provide the institutional nucleus for the general restoration of 1814. The present Catalogus belongs precisely to this formative period. Far from being merely an administrative directory, it offers a detailed contemporary record of the surviving Society at a moment when its continued existence depended upon an exceptional combination of imperial protection, ecclesiastical accommodation, and internal institutional continuity. The catalogue opens with the name of Czerniewicz, described as Praepositus Vicarius Generalis, and proceeds to identify his assistants and collaborators. Among them appears Gabriel Lenkiewicz (1722–1798), rector of the college at Polock and subsequently Czerniewicz’s successor in the government of the Society. The following section identifies Franciszek Kareu (1731–1802) as provincial superior and rector of the college at Orsza. Kareu would later become superior general of the Jesuits in Russia, receiving formal papal recognition under Pius VII. The principal sections describe the Jesuit establishments at Polock, Dünaburg, Mogilev, Mścisław, Orsza, and Vitebsk, together with their dependent missions. Individual entries identify rectors, professors, preachers, confessors, administrators, scholastics, novices, and lay brothers, often specifying their particular educational, religious, and domestic responsibilities. The range of subjects taught at the colleges is especially revealing, including theology, philosophy, rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, and other branches of the traditional Jesuit curriculum. The presence of scholastics and novices is of particular significance: it establishes that the Russian community was not simply preserving the last surviving members of the pre-suppression Society, but had resumed the formation of new generations of Jesuits. The concluding statistical table, entitled Index Collegiorum, Domorum, & Missionum, ac Numerus Sociorum Provinciae Albae Russiae, records a total of 172 members: 95 priests, 29 scholastics, and 48 coadjutors. The largest concentration was at Polock, with 71 members, reflecting the city’s central position in the administrative, intellectual, and educational life of the surviving Society. The present copy contains two notices printed towards the end of the volume, which explicitly distinguish it from an earlier impression of the same catalogue. On page 15, the printer or compiler refers to the prima impressio of the catalogue, in which the names of the Jesuits who had died in White Russia between the suppression of 1773 and the end of 1784 were included. The notice records that these deceased members numbered 63 and adds the death of Stanisław Czerniewicz on 18 July 1785, at the age of 57. This reference supplies an unequivocal terminus post quem for the present impression, which cannot have been printed before that date. A further notice on the final page states that the first impression also contained a general alphabetical index of members, specifying their places of origin, dates of admission, and grades within the Society. This index has likewise been omitted from the present impression. These statements are of considerable importance for establishing the publication’s editorial history. The omissions are not the result of an imperfect or mutilated copy: they are expressly acknowledged by the text itself as deliberate differences from the preceding impression. Comparison with the earlier version preserved in the Jesuit Digital Archive of the Ignatianum in Kraków (https://jac.ignatianum.edu.pl/files/original/5c9dac5f5be000b918ceddf08564aa46.pdf) confirms the existence of a more extensive form of the catalogue containing the supplementary sections absent from the present copy. The precise date of the first impression remains to be established. Although the retrospective notice associates it with 1784, its necrology extended to the end of that year, so the actual printing could have been don in late 1784 or early 1785. The present impression, by contrast, can securely be assigned to the period after 18 July 1785, and most probably to the latter part of that year. No other copy of this particular later impression has yet been identified in the sources examined. The significance of the Catalogus extends well beyond its rarity as a provincial Jesuit directory. Printed under the privilege of the Russian imperial authorities, in the archiepiscopal printing house at Mohilev, it provides direct evidence of the continued public and institutional existence of an order officially suppressed throughout most of the Catholic world. Its administrative details document the practical means by which that continuity was preserved: the appointment of superiors, the maintenance of colleges, the training of novices, the organization of missions, and the transmission of intellectual and religious responsibilities from one generation to another. The revised impression acquires additional historical resonance through its reference to Czerniewicz’s death, which marked the conclusion of the first phase of the Society's renewed institutional government in Russia. In this respect, the volume stands at the intersection of two closely connected histories: the survival of the old Society of Jesus and the emergence of the institutional framework from which its universal restoration would eventually proceed.

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## Bibliografia di riferimento

Inglot, Marek, La Compagnia di Gesù nell'Impero Russo (1772–1820) e la sua parte nella restaurazione generale della Compagnia, Rome, Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1997. Grzebień, Ludwik (ed.), Encyklopedia wiedzy o jezuitach na ziemiach Polski i Litwy, 1564–1995, Kraków, WAM, 1996. Jovaiša, Liudas, “Abipus kordono: Baltarusijos jėzuitų ir Lietuvos buvusių jėzuitų ryšiai po 1773 m.”, Lietuvių katalikų mokslo akademijos metraštis, 48 (2025), pp. 7-41, especially p. 10, n. 3 (recording the Mohilev Catalogus for 1784–1785, without distinguishing impressions). Jezuickie Archiwum Cyfrowe, Akademia Ignatianum, Kraków, Catalogus personarum Societatis Iesu in Alba Russia, 1775–1797, manuscript collection 1757-I; see also the digitized earlier impression of the present catalogue. Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Russia, vol. 32 (registers concerning the Jesuits of White Russia); Nuova Compagnia, historical inventories and records relating to the surviving Society in Russia.

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