"Peripheral Eparchy". A New Publication on Medieval Religious Life, Przemyśl, Przemyśl Land and More

The achievements of Polish historiography have recently been enriched by a work that is not only highly innovative cognitively, because it introduces previously unknown documents into scholarly circulation, but also excellently written. The Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw has published an extensive, over 1,300-page monograph under the somewhat provocative title "Peryferyjna eparchia. Prawosławna diocezja przemyślska do roku 1596".

Its author is Dr. Jacek Krochmal, a former researcher at the State Archives in Przemyśl, and for 17 years deputy director of the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw. He is the author of a number of historical works on Przemyśl and the region concerning the city on the San River. His doctoral dissertation "Jews and Christians in Przemyśl in the years 1559-1772" was about the city defended in 1994 at the Catholic University of Lublin (of which he is a graduate). The dissertation was published by TPN, and its author received the Marcel Handelsman Award granted by the South-Eastern Scientific Institute. Jacek Krochmal is also the author of a fundamental dissertation on the seals and coat of arms of the city of Przemyśl (published by TPN in 1997).

The current publication, “Peryferyjna eparchia,” is, as it were, the crowning achievement of his scholarly achievements. As he himself recalls, he worked on it for over 30 years. It was created not only based on a thorough knowledge of the literature on the subject, but above all on the basis of a detailed analysis of archival documents, both those known and previously unknown to historians. He conducted research in as many as 9 Polish and Ukrainian archives, and even in the Vatican archives, and used handwritten materials available in leading scientific libraries.

The book, based on the collected documents and previous literature, is not just a monothematic description of the Przemyśl Orthodox diocese, but a profound analysis of the history of the borderland territory, where the influences of the Byzantine and Latin civilizations clashed since at least the 10th century. As a result, the administrative and pastoral structures of two dioceses were created in the aforementioned area - the Eastern Christian (later called Orthodox) and the Roman Catholic. Two denominations, but the same economic system and the same social structure resulted in a specific cultural heritage, unparalleled in the western part of Europe. There was no shortage of imitation, and even direct borrowing in the sphere of everyday life practices, customs, forms of piety, and even mutual conversions, most often caused by interdenominational marriages. Economic life required constant settlement, i.e. new hands to work. Thus, throughout the Middle Ages, new settlers arrived in the Przemyśl land: both Poles and Ruthenians (as Ukrainians were called at that time), but also Vlachs, Germans, Armenians, Czechs, and the earliest sources, already in the 12th century, mention a Jewish factory here.

In pursuit of unity

The author, writing about the history of the Przemyśl eastern eparchy, tried to place it against the background of regional, but also universal history. He presented the territory, characterized the population, verified the Orthodox parish network, monasteries, including the main centers of religious life, the issue of recognizing sacraments, and above all, initiated and spontaneous striving for unity. In this context, his analysis is extremely valuable cognitively not so much of separatist processes, but above all of striving for unity. For this purpose, he referred to the case of the Union of Florence of 1439, initiated in Rome and Constantinople, as well as later provincial initiatives within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the form of the Brest Synods, which ultimately resulted in the unity of a significant part of the Orthodox Church with the Holy See in 1596. It is true that the latter did not bring about the unification of the Orthodox Przemyśl diocese with the Catholic Church, because this happened only almost 100 years later – after the takeover of the Przemyśl diocese by Bishop Innocenty Winnicki.

Jacek Krochmal's work brings knowledge about many facts known, but reinterpreted by the author, but also many previously completely unknown. The new monograph is therefore of a fundamental nature and from today it will be impossible to write about the history, territory and society of Przemyśl and the former Przemyśl land from the 10th to the end of the 16th century, without a thorough knowledge of it.

The book promotion took place at the State Archives in Przemyśl on April 11 this year.

Stanislaw Stepien