The Worship of Swedish Saints in Poland after the Council of Trent

Abstract

After the Council of Trent memorials of many saints worshipped in local churches or religious communities were omitted as a result of the unification of the liturgical books. In order to maintain their cult in particular provinces or convents, appropriate appendices to the breviary and the missal were prepared. A new book of forms entitled Officium Divinum of saints worshipped in the territory of Poland prepared by Stanisław Sokołowski, canon of Cracow, was issued in Cracow in 1596. In 1605 an appendix containing missal forms developed by Kacper of Kleczowo was printed. As a result of the influence of the Reformation in Scandinavia, religious battles, fighting the cult of saints and the destruction of their relics, King Sigismund III Vasa asked the Holy See to grant the permission to include the Swedish saints in the Polish appendix to the missal devoted to the saints (Proprium Poloniae). Having received the approval issued by the Congregation of Rites in 1616, individual dioceses made decisions to include these saints in their own liturgical calendar. In the seventeenth century missal and breviary forms were first issued as separate editions, and then they were printed together with the Proprium Poloniae. This appendix, which had not changed over the centuries, contained the memorials of the great saints of Scandinavia, inter alia Eric, Henry, Ansgar, Siegfried, Eschil, Botvid, Olaf, Bridget and her daughter Catherine of Sweden. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, some dioceses no longer posted Swedish patrons (e.g. Warmia) and the last common issue of Polish and Swedish saints was released in 1901. Saints from the period of the beginning of Christianity in Scandinavia are still present intercessors and may become patrons of the United Europe.