The Oxford Movement and Polish Ultramontanes: An Unusual Example of Nineteenth-Century Interchurch Inspiration*

precis:

This essay presents an outcome of the Oxford Movement that its founders did not anticipate. In 1838 Jan Koźmian, one of the leaders of spiritual renewal among Poles and a future member of the (Catholic) Resurrectionists Congregation, visited England for a year, looking carefully at its contemporary religious movements. He took much inspiration from the Oxford Movement, which affected his personal religious views and resulted in establishing the Catholic journal Przegląd Poznański, which greatly resembled Tractarian writings. In one of his texts he described the Oxford Movement and possible lessons that Polish society should learn from it. This example of a nineteenth-century Catholic movement that was inspired by a contemporary Anglican movement was not a common phenomenon.