STS CONSTANTINE CYRIL AND METHODIUS AS PATRONS OF THE KINGDOM OF POLAND

Abstract

In 1436 Zbigniew Oleśnicki (1423–1455), Bishop of Kraków, mentioned that Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, were the patrons of the Polish kingdom. This event remains highly mysterious, as because the bishop was rather famous for his activities in the field of strengthening the role of the Roman Catholic Church, and nothing is known of his other manifestations of sympathy for the Orthodox Church, its patrons and saints. 108 Intriguing in this context are the plans for the introduction of ecclesiastical union which were supposedly presented by Gregory Tsamblak, an envoy of Władysław Jagiełło, King of Poland, at the Council of Constance in 1418, as well as a number of his foundations of orthodox frescoes in the Catholic churches of Lesser Poland. A separate issue is the memory of the “Solun Brothers” in nineteenth-century Krakow, evidenced by a painting by Jan Matejko in 1885 and his contribution to the painting decoration of the Greek Orthodox Church in the former Catholic Church of St. Norbert in Krakow.