Michel-Joseph Bourguignon d'Herbigny (; 8 May 1880 – 23 December 1957) was a French Jesuit scholar and

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...

. He was president of the

Pontifical Oriental Institute The Pontifical Oriental Institute, also known as the Orientale, is a Catholic institution of higher education located in Rome and focusing on Eastern Christianity. The plan of creating a school of higher learning for Eastern Christianity had been ...

in Rome, and of the Pontifical Commission for Russia. He was secretly consecrated a bishop and was instrumental in a failed attempt to establish a clandestine hierarchy for the Catholic Church in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

during the religious persecutions of the 1920s.

Early life

D'Herbigny was born in

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...

, 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. 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 ''Sodalitium Pianum'' is Latin for "the fellowship of Pius," referring to Pope Pius V; the sedeprivationist organization with the same name refers to Pope Pius X. In reaction to the movement within the Roman Catholic Church known as Modernism, P ...

. Having become known as the leading Jesuit Russian scholar, d'Herbigny was assigned to a teaching post in Rome in 1921. He was appointed president of the

in 1922. 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. Pope Pius XI took the decision to attempt the establishment of a provisional hierarchy without the knowledge, still less the approval, of the Soviet government. The Pope's plans were set down in the

rescript In legal terminology, a rescript is a document that is issued not on the initiative of the author, but in response (it literally means 'written back') to a specific demand made by its addressee. It does not apply to more general legislation. Over ...

''Plenitudine Potestatis'' and the

decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used ...

''Quo aptius'', and involved the establishment of

Apostolic Administrator An Apostolic administration in the Catholic Church is administrated by a prelate appointed by the pope to serve as the ordinary for a specific area. Either the area is not yet a diocese (a stable 'pre-diocesan', usually missionary apostolic adm ...

s in metropolitan centres, to replace the diocesan structures that had existed in Tsarist times. 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 Pope Pius XII), the

Papal Nuncio An apostolic nuncio ( la, nuntius apostolicus; also known as a papal nuncio or simply as a nuncio) is an ecclesiastical diplomat, serving as an envoy or a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a state or to an international org ...

in Berlin. In Moscow, d'Herbigny conferred episcopal orders on

Pie Eugène Neveu A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts (pecan pie), brown sugar (sugar pie), sweete ...

, A.A., until then the pastor of the Catholic community in the mining town of

Makiivka Makiivka ( uk, Макіївка, Makíyivka, ; russian: Макеевка, Makeyevka, ), formerly Dmytriivsk, is an industrial city in Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine. Located from the capital Donetsk, the two cities are practically a conurbati ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, and installed him as pastor of the church of St. Louis des Français in Moscow, with the clandestine role of

for the Catholic Church in the Moscow region (of the historic archdiocese of Mogilev). Later in the same tour, d'Herbigny also consecrated Aleksander Frison and Boļeslavs Sloskāns and appointed them to similar roles, in Odessa and

Mogilev Mogilev (russian: Могилёв, Mogilyov, ; yi, מאָלעוו, Molev, ) or Mahilyow ( be, Магілёў, Mahilioŭ, ) is a city in eastern Belarus, on the Dnieper River, about from the border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and from the bor ...

respectively. He also consecrated Antoni Malecki and appointed him to a similar role in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. Further missions to the Soviet Union, and further appointments, followed. At the end of 1932, d'Herbigny was seriously compromised by the scandal created by Alexander Deubner, Russian priest and nephew of

Clara Zetkin Clara Zetkin (; ; ''née'' Eißner ; 5 July 1857 – 20 June 1933) was a German Marxist theorist, communist activist, and advocate for women's rights. Until 1917, she was active in the Social Democratic Party of Germany. She then joined the ...

, the famous Communist and one of Moscow's international agents. D'Herbigny had hired him as a translator, and this unbalanced priest was even officially the co-author of the last book that he had just published. 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 the church in Russia by means of clandestine appointments was abandoned. D'Herbigny was stripped of his powers and silenced, in circumstances which historians have not been able to clarify. French papal historian Yves Chiron gives a number of possible reasons: an internal settlement of affairs within the Jesuit order; jealousy of his privileged relations with 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. In 1937, d'Herbigny was forced to abdicate his episcopal dignities and forbidden from any public activity whatsoever.

Episcopal title

D'Herbigny was appointed

titular bishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox ...

of Ilium by Pope Pius XI in 1926. ''Ilium'' is Latin for

Troy Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in present-day Turkey, south-west of Ç ...

; D'Herbigny's mission to the USSR has been likened to the story of the

Trojan Horse The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, ...

.Stehle, p. 87

Notes

References

* Alvarez, David, ''Spies in the Vatican: Espionage & Intrigue from Napoleon to the Holocaust'', University Press of Kansas, Lawrence KA, 2002 * Barthel, Manfred, ''The Jesuits: History and Legend of the Society of Jesus''. William Morrow, New York NY, 1984 * Chiron, Yves, ''Pie XI: 1857-1939'', Perrin, Paris, 2004 * Fouilloux, Etienne, ''Les Catholiques et l'Unité Chrétienne du XIXe au XXe Siècle'', Le Centurion, Paris, 1982
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 * 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 * O'Grady, Desmond, ''The Turned Card: Christianity Before and After the Wall'', Loyola Press, Kaukauna WI, 1997 * Reichelt, Stefan G.: Michel d'Herbigny S.J. In: Nikolaj A. Berdjaev in Deutschland 1920-1950. Eine rezeptionshistorische Studie. Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 1999, 147-149, * Stehle, Hansjakob, ''The Eastern Politics of the Vatican, 1917-1979'', Ohio University Press, Athens OH, 1981 * Tretjakewitsch, Léon, ''Bishop Michel d'Herbigny SJ and Russia: A Pre-Ecumenical Approach to Christian Unity'', Augustinus Verlag, Würzburg, 1990 * Weigel, George, ''The Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism'', Oxford University Press US, Cary NC, 2003 * * Wenger, Antoine, ''Catholiques en Russie d'Après les Archives du KGB: 1920-1960'', Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 1998 * Wenger, Antoine, ''Rome et Moscou: 1900-1950'', Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 1987 * Zugger, Christopher Lawrence, ''The Forgotten: Catholics of the Soviet Empire from Lenin Through Stalin'', Syracuse University Press, Syracuse NY, 2001 {{DEFAULTSORT:Herbigny, Michel d' French Jesuits Roman Catholic bishops in the Soviet Union 1880 births 1957 deaths French Roman Catholic titular bishops

Early life

Secret mission to the USSR

Downfall and isolation

Episcopal title

See also

Notes

References