The Polish Rulers and the Catholic Missionaries from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Black Sea Region (1625–1721)

Abstract

The paper examines the key elements characterizing the Polish rulers’ policy towards the Polish-Lithuanian Catholic missionaries in the Orient through three vital events of its history: the establishment and development of the Dominican mission in the Crimea (1625–1659), the plans of John II Casimir Vasa and Louise Marie Gonzaga to found the network of Jesuit stations in three Oriental capitals in the 1650s, and the invigoration of the Polish Jesuits’ activity in Persia connected with John III Sobieski’s attempts to win the support of the Safavids for an anti-Ottoman alliance in the last quarter of the 17th century. These episodes show that the Polish-Lithuanian missionaries from the Dominican order in the Crimea received limited diplomatic and financial assistance from Poland-Lithuania. The two remaining reveal how Polish rulers were able to support the missionaries, who alongside their missionary work were supposed to perform some diplomatic tasks. Between 1653 and 1654, the royal couple invested considerable funds to send particular members of the Societatis Iesu to the Oriental capitals. The following few years proved, however, that Poland-Lithuania could not provide sufficient diplomatic support to ensure the longevity of this project, especially after the outbreak of the mid-seventeenth-century wars on its territory. The increased activity of the Polish Jesuits in Persia was also observed during the war of the Holy League with the Ottoman empire, strictly connected with John III Sobieski’s hopes to win the shah for the anti-Ottoman coalition. The death of the royal patron, followed by the outbreak of the Great Northern War, combined with hostility from the Gregorian Armenians and the increasingly influential Shiʾi clergy, proved to have tragic consequences for the Polish Jesuits’ missionary project in Persia.