Original scientific paper
Croatian Jesuit missionaries and the attempts to form a Union with the Orthodox Church from the 16th to the 19th century
Mijo Korade
; Centre for Croatian studies, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Dejan Pernjak
orcid.org/0000-0003-3064-3368
Abstract
The authors offer an overview of the missionaries who have in different ways pursued the idea of forming a union of the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church from the Early Modern Period to the second half of the 19th century. The article is divided into four parts showing the activity of the apostolic visitators and Jesuit missionaries on the territory of Croatia, as well was as their missions to Hungary, Turkey, Albania, Russia, etc. In the first part an analysis of the activity of the pioneers who were in any way connected to the issue of the church union such as Tommaso Raggio, Giulio Mancinelli, Marin Temparica, Aleksandar Komulović and Stjepan Drenoczy is given. The following part deals with missionaries who wrote about the features of Orthodox practices, as well as their social and moral values. Marin de Bonis, Petar Sotić and the renowed Croatian linguist Bartol Kašić took part in such missions in occupied territory which were colloquially called Missio Turcica. A description of the activity of the most prominent missionaries who undertook more concrete steps toward the establishment of the church union such as Antun Ranzi, Ivan Gabelić, Mihael Lovinić, Juraj Mulih and Antun Kanižlić is given in the third part. The last part deals with some popular missionaries (Leopold Locatelli, Vincenzo Basile and Antonio Ayala) during the 18th and 19th century by focusing on their meetings and contact with the Orthodox population. Finally, the authors conclude that the two main aspects of such religious and cultural activities were instruction into fundamental religious truths and the bringing together of disunited Christians.
Keywords
missionaries; union; Orthodox faith; Uniates; visitators; Jesuits
Hrčak ID:
150053
URI
Publication date:
28.12.2015.
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