Христиан қасиеттері мен әулиелер культін зерттеушілер қауымы

Group studying hagiography and the cult of saints in Christianity

The Bollandist Society (Societas Bollandistarum; ) are an association of scholars, philologists, and historians (originally all Jesuits, but now including non Jesuits) who since the early seventeenth century have studied hagiography and the cult of the saints in Christianity. Their most important publication has been the Acta Sanctorum (The Lives of the Saints). They are named after the Flemish Jesuit Jean Bollandus (1596–1665).

The idea of the Acta Sanctorum was first conceived by the Dutch Jesuit Heribert Rosweyde (1569–1629), who was a lecturer at the Jesuit college of Douai. Rosweyde used his leisure time to collect information about the lives of the saints. His principal work, the 1615 Vitae Patrum, became the foundation of the Acta Sanctorum. Rosweyde contracted a contagious disease while ministering to a dying man, and died himself on October 5, 1629, at the age of sixty. Father Jean Bollandus was prefect of studies in the Jesuit college of Mechelen. Upon the death of Rosweyde, Bollandus was asked to review Rosweyde's papers. Bollandus then continued the work from Antwerp. Underestimating the magnitude of the undertaking, Bollandus initially thought he could finish the work on his own, but after a few years he had to admit that the undertaking was beyond his individual strength. He was then assigned an assistant, Godfrey Henschenius (1601–81). The first two volumes of the Acta, by Bollandus and Henschenius, were published in Antwerp in 1643. Unlike Rosweyde and Bollandus, Henschenius was allowed to devote himself exclusively to the writing of the Acta. He solved many problems relating to chronology, geography and the philological interpretation of the sources. February, March, and April (that is, the collected hagiographies of saints whose feast days occur in each month) took up three volumes each, May covered eight, and June seven volumes. By the time of his death, 24 volumes had appeared; moreover, Henschenius left many notes and commentaries for the following volumes. It can therefore be said that the Acta owe their final form to Henschenius. By the time of the death of Father Papebrochius in 1714, the first six months of the year were practically completed.

After the re establishment of the Society of Jesus in Belgium, a new Society of Bollandists was formed in the second quarter of the nineteenth century under the patronage of the Belgian government. The first volume of the new series appeared in 1845. A collection of 61 volumes was published in Paris between 1863 and 1867. By the end of the 19th century the work was re oriented, bringing it more in line with the new philological methods. In 1882, a quarterly review on critical hagiography was established under the title of Analecta Bollandiana, which still exists today and publishes supplements to the Acta. The Bollandists' studies led to the texts of the Missale Romanum, the Liturgia Horarum and the Martyrologium referring to Mary of Magdala. These studies were positively cited in Pope Francis' elevation of the saint's feast day to the status of a liturgical Feast. The Bollandist Society is the only institution dedicated exclusively to the critical study of hagiography. "There is a lot of ‘fake news’" about saints, said Bollandist Marc Lindeijer, S. J. "We can spend a lifetime correcting Wikipedia." Nonetheless, legends of the saints provide important information for historians and linguistic scholars. Patrick J. Geary says that the tales serve as "a window into the world of people of that time and place.

The Bollandist Society has an important role in The Deptford Trilogy by Canadian novelist Robertson Davies. The series' protagonist, though not a Catholic, takes a deep interest in saints and their lives, and his scholarly efforts are welcomed by the Bollandists.