Andrzej Towiański

Towiański was born in Antoszwińce, a village near Vilnius, which after the partitions of Poland belonged to the Russian Empire.

He was the charismatic leader of the Towiańskiite sect, known also as Koło Sprawy Bożej [pl] (the Circle of God's Cause).

In 1839 he experienced a vision in which the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary urged him to act as a messenger of the Apocalypse.

[1] Among those influenced by his thinking were the Polish Romantic poets Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, and Seweryn Goszczyński.

[2] His extraordinary influence on Mickiewicz, a leader of the Polish emigre community, was divisive, and some members of the community accused him of being a Russian agent.