Dokumenty papierowe i pergaminowe z lat 1571–1903 pochodzące z archiwum klasztornego oo. Bernardynów we Lwowie, przechowywane w Archiwum Prowincji oo.
Paper and parchment documents (1571–1903) of the Bernardine Fathers monastery in Lviv stored in the Provincial Archive of Bernardine Monks in Cracow

Summary/Abstract: Order of Friars Minor, called Observants, was established in Poland on the basis of indigenous structures, thanks to action of st. John Kapistran, Italian Franciscan, acting in Cracow in 1453. Polish Observants, called Bernardines from the first convents in Cracow, Warsaw, Lviv, and Poznań, were they received a summon from st. Bernardine from Siena, the famous preacher and refomer of the Order of St. Francis of Assisi, had a provincial organization. First Bernardines’ monasteries, founded since 1453 have been subordinated by the general of the order from the Austro-Czech-Polish province. It was until 1517 when the Franciscans-Observants have organized the native province, covering the territorial lands of the Polish state. The power has been centralized in the person of provincial, elected every three years at the provincial chapter. In his jurisdiction were all abbots and convents within the teritory of the province. The guardians, also elected by the chapter and approved for the period of three years by the provincial, led the administration of each monastery. The set of activities taken by the monastic officials – the provincial and the guardian – entailed the necessity of establishing the chancelleries, both in the provinces as well as in every single convent. Because the provincial took one of the subordinated orders, called the provincial house, as his residence, the sets of acts arising from the activities of both offices were kept independantly in one place, of what an example was the Bernardine monastery in Lviv. According to the Potsdam agreements about the repatriation of the Polish population from the lands granted to the Soviet Ukraine, Bernardines have left the convent in Lviv in 1946. Starting from 1943, the archives of the order as well as Russian and Galician provinces were moved as far as possible, from Lviv to the Provincial Archive of Bernardine Monks in Cracow. In the Provincial Archive of Bernardine Monks in Cracow were preserved 17 paper and (loose) parchment documents, referring to the history of Bernardines order in Lviv. Due to the socio-political changes that have occured in last two decades in the Eastern Europe, the interests have increased in the matter of East, its spiritual culture and influence of Christianity on shaping and developing of Eastern culture, in what the Lviv convent has also participated. Motivated by these considerations Fr. Aleksander Krzysztof Sitnik, OFM has decided to collect and publish, not only in the original language, but also translated into Polish and Ukrainian, all 17 Lviv documents from the years 1571–1903.

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