Development of the Parish Network of the Latin Church in the Chełm Province From the Beginning of the 17th Century

The Chełm province, similar to the remaining Ruthenian territories that were part of the Polish Republic, was aland where two great Christian Churches coexisted: the Latin and the Orthodox ones. Polish settler expansion in the Chełm province was accompanied from the middle of the 14th century by afast development of territorial structures of the Latin Church. Formally the beginnings of the Chełm Bishopric go back to 1359 but one can speak about actual functioning of the diocese only from 1417 when it was taken over by Jan Biskupiec. At the first stage of development of the Church territorial organization the existing system of stronghold centers was used. All the parishes of the district type founded by the King were in towns (Chełm, Hrubieszów, Krasnystaw, Luboml, Ratno, Szczebrzeszyn), which stresses their relation to the town-foundation process. Besides the King's patronage, the Church's, or more precisely the Bishop's, property participated in development and consolidation of the parish network. The Church's fund activity was based on the Chełm Bishops' property. The pastoral institutions in Łyszcz, Skierbieszów, Kumów, Sawin and probably in Dobryniów were founded at the expense of the Diocese's Ordinaries – mainly Jan Biskupiec. The King's and the Bishops' fund movement (dying out as soon as the first half of the 14th century) was outdistanced by parish projects carried out owing to powers and means of the noblemen's property. The nobility did not fail to use the parish organization for economic stimulation of their neighborhood and for improving administration of their lands. This aim was the guiding principle of the 29 noblemen's funds set up until the middle of the thirties of the 17th century. Altogether 43 parish funds were established in the Chełm province up to 1635. Not all of them were permanent in their character: afew of them vanished completely (3), some churches were translated to new parishes (5), apart of them were reduced to the role of succursal chapels (2). The peak of the fund movement falls on the first half of the 15th century. 50% of all the founding projects were carried out then and all the categories of property participated in it. The proportions of particular types of patronage in the fund movement were not even: noblemen's funds comprised 67%, the King's – 21%, and the Church's – 12%, which probably corresponded to the ownership structure in the Chełm province. The erected parish churches show aclose correlation to the territories that had been settled for along time. The parish network was afunction and emanated from colonization. Most new churches were founded in the southwest and central parts of the province. The parishes of that region also took pride in being the oldest ones. On the other hand, there was aclear deficiency in development of Church institutions in Polesie Lubelskie and the north-east territories of the Chełm province situated on the right bank of the River Bug, that were backward as far as colonization is concerned. The average parish district comprised 244 km2, that is acircle whose radius was nearly 9 km. The mean area was very high due to the fact that there were only four functioning churches in the Luboml-Ratno region. In the Chełm region there was amodest average number of pastorate institutions, nevertheless in the thirties of the 17th century the parish network comprised the whole Chełm ecumene