Michel d'Herbigny
Michel-Joseph Bourguignon d'Herbigny (French:
Early life
D'Herbigny was born in Lille, in northern France. He entered the Jesuit order at the age of seventeen, and studied in Paris, and in Trier in Germany. He was ordained priest on 23 August 1910.[1] In 1911 his thesis on the Russian religious philosopher Vladimir Solovyov was published as Vladimir Soloviev: A Russian Newman, and was awarded a prize by the Académie Française. Because of this, he was noticed and investigated by the Sodalitium Pianum. Having become known as the leading Jesuit Russian scholar, d'Herbigny was assigned to a teaching post in Rome in 1921.[2] He was appointed president of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in 1922.[3] He was appointed president of the Pontifical Commission for Russia in 1926.
Secret mission to the USSR
By 1926 the level of religious persecution in the Soviet Union was such that the entire leadership of the Catholic Church in that country had effectively been eliminated by exile or imprisonment.
D'Herbigny was selected as the man to lead this attempt, and on 26 March 1926, en route to Moscow under the pretext of an Easter pastoral visit to western European Catholics resident in the Soviet capital, he received episcopal ordination in secret and behind closed doors from Eugenio Pacelli (the future
In Moscow, d'Herbigny conferred the episcopal dignity on
At the end of 1932, d'Herbigny was seriously compromised by the scandal created by Alexander Deubner, Russian priest and nephew of Clara Zetkin, the famous Communist and one of Moscow's international agents. D'Herbigny had hired him as a translator, and the priest was officially the co-author of the last book that he had just published.[11][12] Having left precipitously in November 1932 for Berlin, for reasons that were not very honourable, Deubner was denounced as a Soviet spy.
Downfall and isolation
Within little more than a decade, all those appointed in secret by Bishop d'Herbigny had been imprisoned, exiled or executed, and the Vatican's policy of attempting to organise an underground Church hierarchy in Russia by means of clandestine consecrations was temporarily abandoned. D'Herbigny was stripped of his powers and silenced, in circumstances which historians have not been able to explain or clarify.[13] French papal biographer Yves Chiron gives a number of possible reasons: an internal settlement of affairs within the Jesuit order; jealousy of his influence over Pius XI on the part of his Polish Jesuit superior general, Wlodimir Ledóchowski; an affair with a woman; Russian provocation in revenge for his antics; general failure of his policies and tactics.[14]
In 1937, d'Herbigny was forced to abdicate his titular see and forbidden from all public activity whatsoever.[14]
Episcopal title
D'Herbigny was appointed titular bishop of Ilium by Pope Pius XI in 1926. Ilium is Latin for Troy; D'Herbigny's mission to the USSR has been likened to the story of the Trojan Horse.[15]
See also
Notes
- Catholic Hierarchy
- ^ Charles Frazee (1992) Review of Tretjakewitsch, Léon, "Bishop Michel D'Herbigny SJ and Russia: A Pre-Ecumenical Approach to Christian Unity", Russian Review, 51: 592-3.
- ^ Hansjakob Stehle (1981) The Eastern Politics of the Vatican, 1917-1979. Ohio University Press. p. 81
- ^ Gustave Chaix d'Est-Ange, Dictionnaire des familles françaises anciennes ou notables à la fin du 19th century, tome 6, page 197, Bourguignon d'Herbigny
- ^ Stehle, p.84
- ^ Christopher Lawrence Zugger (2001) The Forgotten: Catholics of the Soviet Empire from Lenin Through Stalin. Syracuse University Press. p. 229
- ^ Manfred Barthel (1984) The Jesuits: History and Legend of the Society of Jesus. William Morrow. p. 257
- ISBN 9781315408859.
- ^ Pyshkovych, Rev. Fr. Manuil. "Die Apostolische Nachfolge". apostolische-nachfolge.de.
- ISBN 978-3-88309-615-5.
- ^ Dokumen website, The Living Christ: The Theological Legacy of Georges Florovsky, page 77
- ^ Archive website, The Occult Establishment by James Webb
- ^ Stehle, p. 177
- ^ a b Chiron 2004, p. 191.
- ^ Stehle, p. 87
References
- Alvarez, David, Spies in the Vatican: Espionage & Intrigue from Napoleon to the Holocaust, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence KA, 2002 ISBN 0-7006-1214-9
- Barthel, Manfred, The Jesuits: History and Legend of the Society of Jesus. William Morrow, New York NY, 1984 ISBN 0-688-02861-6
- Chiron, Yves (2004). Pie XI: 1857-1939 (in French). Paris: Perrin. ISBN 2-262-01846-4.
- Fouilloux, Etienne, Les Catholiques et l'Unité Chrétienne du XIXe au XXe Siècle, Le Centurion, Paris, 1982 ISBN 2-227-31037-5
- of Mary of the Angels, Francis, "Pius XI's Politics: A Theodemocratic Pope", He Is Risen, 16, December 2003
- Lesourd, Paul, Entre Rome et Moscou: Le Jésuite Clandestin, Mgr d'Herbigny, P. Lethielleux, Paris, 1976 ISBN 978-2-249-60107-1
- McVay, Athanasius and Lubomyr Y. Luciuk, "The Holy See and the Holodomor: Documents from the Vatican Secret Archives on the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine," Kashtan Press, Kingston, Ontario, 2011
- Mitchell, David, The Jesuits: A History, Macdonald Futura, London, 1980 ISBN 0-354-04369-2
- O'Grady, Desmond, The Turned Card: Christianity Before and After the Wall, Loyola Press, Kaukauna WI, 1997 ISBN 0-8294-0938-6
- Reichelt, Stefan G.: Michel d'Herbigny SJ In: Nikolaj A. Berdjaev in Deutschland 1920-1950. Eine rezeptionshistorische Studie. Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 1999, 147-149, ISBN 3-933240-88-3
- Stehle, Hansjakob, The Eastern Politics of the Vatican, 1917-1979, Ohio University Press, Athens OH, 1981 ISBN 0-8214-0564-0
- Tretjakewitsch, Léon, Bishop Michel d'Herbigny SJ and Russia: A Pre-Ecumenical Approach to Christian Unity, Augustinus Verlag, Würzburg, 1990 ISBN 3-7613-0162-6
- Weigel, George, The Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism, Oxford University Press US, Cary NC, 2003 ISBN 0-19-516664-7
- Weise, Christian (2011). "Herbigny, Michel-Joseph Bourguignon d'". In Bautz, Traugott (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). Vol. 32. Nordhausen: Bautz. cols. 667–679. ISBN 978-3-88309-615-5.
- Wenger, Antoine, Catholiques en Russie d'Après les Archives du KGB: 1920-1960, Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 1998 ISBN 2-220-04236-7
- Wenger, Antoine, Rome et Moscou: 1900-1950, Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 1987 ISBN 978-2-220-02623-7
- Zugger, Christopher Lawrence, The Forgotten: Catholics of the Soviet Empire from Lenin Through Stalin, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse NY, 2001 ISBN 0-8156-0679-6