“EX PAGANIS CHRISTIANOS ESSE PATRAVIT”: WHOM DID WI-CHING, THE BISHOP OF NITRA, GO TO CHRISTIANIZE?

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the problem of determination of geographical frames of the missionary activity of Wiching, the Bishop of Nitra, after his ordination in Rome by the Pope John VIII in 880. Based on the cross-analysis of the hagiographical texts, epistolary sources and other narratives of the late 9^th – the first half of the 10^th century, as well as some individual archaeological evidences, the author tries to reconstruct the nature of the church-political relations between the state of the Great Moravian prince Sviatopluk and the neighboring gentes in the last quarter of the 9^th century and to determine, who was that “neophita gens” (mentioned in the letter of the Bavarian episcopate to the Pope John IX) to whom, by the will of Sviatopluk and the Pope John VIII, the newly ordained Bishop Wiching went on a mission. Despite the fact that the population of the territories, newly conquered or incorporated by the Great Moravian prince, was not always pagan or neophyte, Sviatop­luk’s expansionist policy of the outlined period was mainly accompanied by Christianization or evangelistic missions conducted by the clergy from the Moravian archdiocese of Methodius and his suffragans. To achieve this goal the Great Moravian ruler, with the direct support of the papacy, initiated the process of institutio­nalization of church and religious centers, whose task was to convert the population of the newly conquered ter­ri­tories. Among such ecclesiastical structures the Diocese of Nitra, headed by Wiching, the suffragan of the Arch­bishop Methodius, was founded. The author comes to conclusion, that the mission of the last one in the first years after receiving the episcopal rank in Rome in 880 was directed to the lands of the Tysa basin, conquered by Sviatopluk around 881/882 and perfectly fit into the context of the expansionist policy of the Greater Moravian ruler.

Keywords: The Diocese of Nitra, the Bavarian episcopate, Wiching, “neophita gens”, the Bulgarians, the Tysa River basin.