Muzealne zbiory w służbie misji ad gentes

Abstract

The church from the beginning of its missionary work tried to substantiate it. Among other things, missionaries kept in their archives artifacts which proved the culture of peoples or nations they evangelized. Not only did they try to preserve local culture but also supported its development. The treasures of culture they collected and kept, in time proliferated and created impressive collections, the cataloguing and exhibiting of which served missionary education. The paper commences with showing the contribution of the church to the preservation of culture of evangelized nations, then it elaborates on the animation and educational role of missionary exhibitions and closes with formal and educational aims which should be accomplished by museums and missionary collections.