ABSTRACT
Two major heresies fractured the unity of Polish Roman Catholicism during the period of the partitions. The first grew up in the 1830s as Polish nationalists came to blows with the Roman Church hierarchy over the thorny 'Polish question'. During that time, Rome's recognition of the Polish partitions inspired nationalist partisans like Poland's great Romantic poet, Adam Mickiewicz, to create a Romantic, radical Polish nationalist tradition, still distinctly Christian but, after the fashion of French liberal Catholic Hugues-Felicite-Robert de Lamennais (1782-1854), decidedly anticlerical. Called Polish messianism, Mickiewicz's heretical religious nationalism endowed the Polish nation with the mission of a chosen people whose tribulations and sufferings would redeem Poland and earn its resurrection. The resurrected Poland would herald the moral regeneration of the Universe and thus become the 'Christ of Nations' (DeChantal, 1974, pp.6, 9; Brock, 1960, pp.148, 157; Losskii, 1936, pp.20-1; Gardner, 1941, p.326).
