Authors

Discussion

The cults of saints originated in previous epochs with distinctive values nowadays are a part of not only religious but also secular culture and memory. No wonder that despite apparent ecclesiastic conservativeness such cults constantly survive adaptation. However, at some point the legacy of the former adaptations became a potential or actual problem.

An example of such a problem is the cult of a Saint Child Gabriel of Białystok in the Russian, Belarusian and especially Polish Orthodox Churches. The image of "Orthodox Simon of Trent", the alleged victim of Jewish ritual murder from the late 17th century, passed the way from mysterious local miraculous relics to the symbol of "Jewish crimes" popularised by 19th-century Russian ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds and revived by WWII Nazi propaganda. While the Catholic church halted the cult of St Simon in 1965, St Gabriel is still venerated, despite all the critics. The Orthodox churches try to reject Antisemitic elements and reshape the cult with antisectarian and child abuse motifs. The saint became the ecclesiastic patron of children and also an informal secular identity symbol of the Orthodox religious minority in Poland. This complicated multilayer issue is a potential source of controversies and cultural wars. The paper will examine contemporary attempts to accommodate the cult to the new values and needs.