Kyryliuk A. Roman Catholic monasteries of Lutsk-Zhytomyr Dioceses in the late XVIII – first half of the XIX century

The process of forming a network of Roman Catholic monasteries in Volyn was observed in the work. The studied material allowed to assert that at the end of the XVIII century there were 53 Roman Catholic monasteries within the Lutsk-Zhytomyr Dioceses (48 of them were male and 5 were female). They were mostly located in the cities and towns of the western and southern districts of the Volyn province what was caused by population density and the location of the residences of magnates who dominated among the founders of monastic centres. Most monasteries appeared in the XVII century – 28, a little less in the XVIII century – 16. The Dominicans and the Carmelites had a numerical advantage – 13 and 12 monasteries, respectively; there were slightly fewer Bernardine monasteries (8), Franciscans (6), and the Trinitarian order (5). Other monastic orders (Capuchins, Augustinians, Piarists, Reformates, Bridgettines, Charities). The basis of the life of the monastery was a spiritual activity which involved maintaining parishes at the monastery churches or work in parishes where there was a lack of priests. At the early XIX century, out of 53 monasteries of the Lutsk-Zhytomyr Dioceses, 36 monasteries had parishes. During the first half of the XIX century there was a numerical increase in the number of parishioners of monastic parishes. The places of pilgrimage for the faithful became the Lutsk Dominican Monastery and the Berdychiv Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites where there were miraculous icons of the Mother of God crowned in the XVIII century. Religious brotherhoods and rosaries functioned at the monastic churches; the last ones were inherent predominantly Dominican monasteries which had intensified the participation of the flock in the Dioceses` spiritual life and were a form of monks' contacts with the outside world because of the statutes of many orders provided for strict asceticism. It was concluded that the Volyn Catholic centres played an important role in the spread of school education until the early 1830s. The monasteries maintained both parish and district schools the educational process of which was based on the educational traditions established by the Commission of National Education in the last third of the XVIII century. In 1803, a meeting of the Roman Catholic clergy took place in Lutsk and obliged the monasteries to maintain primary schools or allocate funds for their functioning. The studied sources gave reasons to claim that the schools functioned at 33 Roman Catholic monasteries of the Lutsk-Zhytomyr Dioceses during the first three decades of the XIX century. It is noted that the monasteries had hospitals as the institutions that were a manifestation of the charitable activities of the monks. The brothers of the monasteries cared for the sick, the elderly and orphans. The monasteries of Bonifratris and Charities specialized in the maintenance of hospitals what was their main obedience. The thematic and genre repertoire of monastic libraries was analysed in the dissertation. The library was found to be an integral part of every monastery. The functions of the library were not reduced only to educational. Just part of the literature in these book collections was intended to ensure the educational process, the content of the rest of the books provided for the satisfaction of intellectual needs of the monks. Libraries are considered an integral part of monastic culture. The monastery farm was a component of the traditional economic culture of Volyn. The material support of the monasteries was clarified in the work; the main industries that developed in the monastery farms were shown. It was concluded that in their estates the monks used both the free labour of the local people and the labour of dependent peasants the size of whose serfdom was recorded in inventories and visitations. The legal acts of the Russian Empire which outlined the field of functioning of the Roman Catholic Church in the state were analysed in the dissertation. The main stages of the legal regulation of the functioning of Roman Catholic monasteries which mostly coincided with the years of rule of Russian monarchs were given off. It was concluded that the Russian legislation was aimed at developing such a form of government of all denominations which had developed concerning to the Orthodox Church fully subordinated to the state together with all its institutions. As a result of such a legal policy, the centuries-old traditions of the internal life of Roman Catholic monasteries were gradually destroyed. Catholic monks were severely persecuted during the reign of Emperor Nicholas I who used the November Uprising of 1830 as an excuse to issue decrees to liquidate some Roman Catholic monasteries, close district schools at all monasteries, and confiscation property of Roman Catholic monasteries to the treasury and transfer of the clergy to the state pension with the division of monasteries into ordinary and extraordinary.