Josafat Kuntsevych and “Marvelous Conversion” of the Patriarch Nikon: The Story of one Legend
The hagiographic works of the late 17th — first half of the 18th century related to the figure of the first martyr of the Uniate Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Josaphat Kuntsevych (1580–1623), describe the “miraculous conversion” of the Patriarch of Moscow Nikon (1605–1681) to Catholicism. This event is associated with Nikon’s profanation of the image of Josaphat, and the subsequent repentance of the Patriarch and his appeal to the intercession of Kuntsevych. The conversion of Nikon, according to the Uniate hagiographers, became the main reason for the subsequent disgrace and detronization of the Patriarch. The description of this “miracle” created around 1672 (Korona złota nad głową zranioną b.m. Iozaphata Kuncewicza, Wilno 1673) is overgrown later with various details and circumstances that are born of rumors and speculations, but also reflect a certain historical reality, albeit in a somewhat distorted form. The article analyzes the latest known version of the “miracle” (S. P. Ważyński, Kazanie na uroczystość Bł. Jozafata Kuncewicza, Wilno 1762) and discusses the stages of different plot lines formation. Assumptions are made about which real events could influenced the folding of the legend, and why this legend is especially actualized in the Uniate hagiography of Kuntsevych in the middle of the eighteenth century.