Bractwa kościelne w Przyrowie (XVII-XIX w.)

Abstract

In the life of the Church religious brotherhoods played an important role. They appeared at the beginning of the fourth century. They acted with the approval of the Church authorities. They owned their organisation and statuses regulating their activity. Every brotherhood had a particular goal of action and the ways of its realization. The members of brotherhoods took care of deepening religious life. In Poland, especially after the Councils of Trent, there was the rebirth of brotherhoods. New catechesis brotherhoods of religious-social and ascetic-cultural nature arose. Holy Mary and saints were taken as the patrons. On the premises of St. Dorothea parish in Przyrów in 17th – 19th century, there were five different brotherhoods. They worked at temples – in parish, hospital and monastery. At the parish church there was the brotherhood of the Holy Scapular Mary, probably at hospital chapel there was the Brotherhood of Divine Mercy. At the St Ann monastery, where were Bernardines of St Ann, the Brotherhood of St. Francis’s belt and the Brotherhood of St. Antony. The ample archival material concerning the Brotherhood of the Holy Scapular Mary allows to present its activity in details. It is emerge from this material that the members of brotherhood were strongly involved in religious life of parish, they took care of sacral sights. They were some kind of elite in parish. Unfortunately, the documentation concerning the rest of brotherhoods is very poor, but there were evidences that such brotherhood acted in St. Dorothea parish in Przyrów.