Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński (1 November 1822 in Voiutyn, now Ukraine – 17 September 1895 in Kraków) was a professor of the Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy, Archbishop of Warsaw in 1862-1883 (exiled by Tsar Alexander II to Yaroslavl for 20 years), and founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary.

Five years later in 1838 his mother was exiled to Siberia for a nationalist conspiracy (in which she tried to work to improve the social and economic conditions of the farmers), as a result he only got to see her again as a university student.

In Paris he spent time living with Polish exiles, and knew Adam Mickiewicz and was a friend of Juliusz Słowacki.

[3] In 1848 he participated in the Polish uprising against Prussian rule in Poznań (then capital city of the semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Posen).

Every day brings us all sorts of new evidence that Father Feliński does not care for the country at all, that his heart is divided between Petersburg and Rome, and that he wants to make the clergy apathetic about the fate of the Fatherland, to turn it into an ultramontane caste that would have nothing in common with the nation.

He reformed the programmes of study at the Ecclesiastical Academy of Warsaw and in diocesan seminaries, to give impetus to spiritual and intellectual development of the clergy.

He encouraged priests to proclaim the gospel openly, to catechize their parishioners, to begin parochial schools and to take care that they raise a new virtuous generation.

[3] He looked after the poor and orphans, and started an orphanage in Warsaw that he put in the care of the Sisters of the Family of Mary.

In March 1863 Feliński wrote to Tsar Alexander II demanding that the Congress Kingdom of Poland be granted political autonomy and be restored to its pre-partition boundaries (including the territories that are now part of Lithuania, Belarus and the western Ukraine).

The Tsar answered this letter by arresting Feliński and sending him into exile in the town of Yaroslavl on the Upper Volga (about 300 km to the NE of Moscow; where there were almost no Catholics).

The question of time and circumstances is only a question of prudence, and only from that perspective can it be resolved....The only area, then, in which it is permissible to judge the justice or injustice of an armed uprising aimed at regaining independence is the means of conducting the struggle, and in this regard our historians and publicists have not only the right, but the obligation to enlighten the national consciousness, so as to warn patriots against adventures that would be ruinous for the national soul.

[4]His concerns were especially reflected in other conservative Catholic voices that opposed the 1830 insurrection and 1863 rebellion on grounds of the left-wing political radicalism that many of the rebels were associated with, including atheistic ideologies.

[6] He called on people to place their trust in the governance of Providence in world affairs: Whoever manages to always see the finger of Providence in the course of historical events, and trusting in the justice of God, does not doubt that every nation will ultimately receive that which it has earned by its behavior, will recoil with disgust at the thought of committing a crime, even if that would be the only means of fighting an even greater injustice.

During his exile he organized works of mercy to help his fellow prisoners (especially the priests among them), and collected enough funds (despite police restrictions) to construct a Catholic church that would become a new parish.

[3] In 1883, following negotiations between the Holy See and Russia, he was released from exile and moved to Dzwiniaczka in southeastern Galicia (now Дзвинячка in Ukraine) among Ukrainian and Polish crop farmers.

[4]This followed from the views of other Catholic conservatives at the time who believed that God would never grant Poland independence until it repented of its sins.

In the view of contemporary Catholic conservatives, in whom Feliński had an important voice, the independence movement, whether it be based on the communist or liberal ideologies that had been adopted by many Polish nationalists, was doomed to failure because of this.

If independence would become a condition necessary for fulfilling the task that has been laid upon us, then Providence itself would so manage the course of events that state existence would again be returned to us, so that we may sufficiently mature in spirit.