Lietuvių žemės dominikonų ir pranciškonų misijų į rytus kontekste XIII a

LTŠiame straipsnyje aptariama dominikonų ir pranciškonų misionieriškos veiklos sklaida XIII a. ir nagrinėjamos tuometinės jos apraiškos lietuvių žemėse. Tyrimo metu paaiškėjo, kad jau pirmosios pranciškonų ir dominikonų kartos atstovai pasiekė Rytų Baltijos regiono kraštus taip įgyvendindami savo ordinų įkūrėjų šv. Pranciškaus ir šv. Dominyko ketinimus evangelizuoti visą pasaulį ir konkrečiai Baltijos jūros regioną. Lietuvos karaliaus Mindaugo laikus (1251- 1263) galime laikyti tokių misijų intensyviausiu laikotarpiu. Po Mindaugo žūties regime misionieriškos veiklos nuosmukį. Tokio pobūdžio veikla suaktyvėjo nuo XIII a. 9-ojo dešimtmečio ir, skirtingai nei ankstesniu laikotarpiu, iniciatyvos ėmėsi pranciškonai, o dominikonai susidomėjo Juodosios jūros ir Artimųjų Rytų kraštais.

ENThis paper deals with Franciscan and Dominican missions that affected the Lithuanian lands in the thirteenth century. By tracing the rise of the two Orders it is attempted to set the Lithuanian missionary field in the wider context of Catholic missions to the East. By doing this it is possible to see that, in the period under consideration, Franciscan and Dominican missionary activity reached its peak in the middle of the thirteenth century, when Lithuania was ruled by its first and last Christian king Mindaugas (1251-1263). It becomes dear that the first Franciscan friars reached Lithuania mainly from Livonia, while the Dominican friars arrived in Lithuania from two different points of departure: Poland and Livonia. This period may be regarded as the time of bright hopes, which were dashed before long. The demise of the Lithuanian Catholic kingdom (1263) also meant the temporary standstill in the missionary activities directed towards Lithuania.Nevertheless, the case of the Franciscan missionaries named Conrad and Voislaus, who were martyred in Prussia in c. 1283, and the case of a German priest named Conrad, who was martyred by Lithuanians in 1287, allows us to view their activities as part of the same missionary zeal that can be observed during the general ship of Bonagratia OFM (1279-1283). In our opinion, these incidents can be viewed as the newly taken attempts by the Franciscan friars to reach the lands of the Lithuanians. The attempts of this kind were taken on a more regular basis in the 14th century. On the other hand, we observe that after 1260s the Domincan friars concentrated their activities further south in the lands of Southern Rus' and such a "division of labour" between Franciscans and Dominicans remained in force more or less up to the early 16th century when the first Dominican monastery was established in Vilnius (1501).