engleski

St Francis Xavier (1506-1552), Apostle of India and Japan, and the Construction of Sanctity in the Post-Tridentine Period

After the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church's campaign focused on the canonization of saints, who would exemplify doctrinal purity and heroic virtue more than the performance of miraculous deeds. The construction of sanctity became an increasingly elaborate and centralized process, and by controlling the type of saint venerated, the Church hoped to further control the spiritual activity of its faithful. After a hiatus of 65 years, papal canonization was resumed in 1588 and the Sacred Congregation of Rites and Ceremonies was founded. It was charged with the canonization of saints, who had to exhibit heroism embodied in Christ's Passion not only in the struggle against their own nature, but also in combats with the Devil and other adversaries of the Church, including heretics and infidels. The concept of heroic virtue was first applied in the process of the great Counter-Reformation figures, that is, Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, Filippo Neri and Francis Xavier, canonized in 1622. In this paper, the spreading of the cult of Saint Francis Xavier, the first Jesuit missionary, and the promotion of his heroic virtue through the Society of Jesus in the Croatian Kingdoms will be shown. His veneration flourished especially in the second half of the seventeenth century in the shrine near Zagreb, which remained an important pilgrimage destination until the dissolution of the Order. Different manifestations of popular piety towards Saint Francis Xavier will be presented, based on the reports of the manuscript Historia Collegii Societatis JESU, in monte Graeco Zagrabiae siti, 1628-1772, as well as hagiographic narratives, which had to be actively appropriated by the Jesuit students and members of Marian Congregations.

Francis Xavier; Jesuits; cult of saints; early modern Croatia

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