LANCIZIO (Lanczycki or Łęczycki), Mikołaj. - Jesuit, writer on asceticism, b. at Nieswiesz (Lithuania) on 10 Dec. 1574, d. at Kowno (Lithuania) on 30 March 1653. The reading of apologetic works and constant study led him in 1590 to conversion and, after he had also converted his father, to entering the Society of Jesus (1592).
He completed his studies at the Roman College, becoming particularly attached to St. Thomas. A priest (1601), he was in the same College prefect of spiritual matters and confessor, sought out also by a great number of bishops, prelates and Roman families; at the same time he was assigned as assistant to Fr. N. Orlandino in the search for documents for the history of the Order. In 1606, sent to Poland, he was professor of Hebrew, Sacred Scripture and theology at Wilno; then rector at Kalisch and Cracow, and afterwards provincial of Poland and Lithuania. Nor did he ever cease from the direct ministries for souls in those regions, which were greatly in need of them.
He distinguished himself not only in the chair, in governance and in apologetics against Protestant preachers, but also in profound and sure theological doctrine, joined to a gentle unction and discretion, with which he wrote many ascetic opuscules, which met with great success. Fr. J. Bolland published the complete series of 21 of them: Opuscula spiritualia (2 vols., Antwerp 1650); repeatedly republished in whole or in part and also translated. Cf., for example, J. Martino, Collectanea Lanciciana (Paris 1877) and the edition, not yet complete, begun at Cracow in 1883. Some principal opuscules: De meditationibus rerum divinarum recte peragendi; De condicione boni superioris (most recent ed., Turin 1901); De efficacia S.mae Eucharistiae ad profectum spiritualem in virtutibus; De praxi divinae praesentiae; De praestantia Instituti S. J.