Church History, Volume 2 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
History
Church History, Volume 2 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
1228 in Culm, and so laid the foundation of
the establishment of the order in Prussia. With the appearance
of this order began a sixty years’ bloody conflict directed to
the overthrow of Prussian paganism, which can be said to have
been effected only in A.D. 1283, when the greater part of the
Prussians had been slain after innumerable conflicts with the
order and with crusaders from Germany, Poland, Bohemia, etc.
Among the crowds of preachers of the gospel, mostly Dominicans,
besides Bishop Christian and the noble papal legate William,
bishop of Modena, the Polish Dominican Hyacinth, who died
in A.D. 1257, a vigorous preacher of faith and repentance,
deserves special mention. So early as A.D. 1243, William of
Modena had sketched an ecclesiastical organization for the
country, which divided Prussia into four dioceses, which were
placed in A.D. 1255 under the metropolitanate of Riga.
§ 93.14. The introduction of Christianity into =Lithuania= was
longest delayed. After Ringold had founded in A.D. 1230 a Grand
Duchy of Lithuania, his son Mindowe endeavoured to enlarge his
dominions by conquest. The army of the Prussian-Livonian Order,
however, so humbled him that he sued for peace and was compelled
to receive baptism in A.D. 1252. But no sooner had he in some
measure regained strength than he threw off the hypocritical
mask, and in A.D. 1260 appeared as the foe of his Christian
neighbours. His son Wolstinik, who had remained true to the
Christian faith, dying in A.D. 1266, reigned too short a time
to secure an influence over his people. With him every trace
of Christianity disappeared from Lithuania. Christians were
again tolerated in his territories by the Grand Duke Gedimin
(A.D. 1315-1340). Romish Dominicans and Russian priests vied
with one another under his successor Olgerd in endeavours to
convert the inhabitants. Olgerd himself was baptized according
to the Greek rite, but apostatised. His son Jagello, born
of a Christian mother, and married to the young Polish queen
Hedwig, whose hand and crown seemed not too dearly purchased by
submitting to baptism and undertaking to introduce Christianity
among his people, made at last an end to heathenism in Lithuania
in A.D. 1386. His subjects, each of whom received a woollen coat
as a christening gift, flocked in crowds to receive baptism. The
bishop’s residence was fixed at Wilna.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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