RESURREZIONISTI. – Religious congregation begun in Paris in 1836 by Bogdan Janski, Pietro Semenenko, and Girolamo Kajsiewicz, who at that time were engaged in religious and social activity among Polish émigrés.
At first, under the influence of their surroundings, all three had almost lost their faith: Janski was even among the governing members of the philosophical-social school of the Saint-Simonians. Dissatisfied with his search for “truth,” he abandoned the sect and, at the urging of the poet Adamo Mickiewicz, founded the new religious society with the other two, with the aim of sustaining the endangered faith of the émigrés and reforming, through them, the entire nation. Janski, an indefatigable lay apostle, died prematurely in Rome in 1840; Semenenko and Kajsiewicz, on the other hand, completed their theological studies in Rome and, after being ordained priests, developed Janski’s work by taking their first religious vows in the catacombs of S. Sebastiano on Easter Day 1842, whence the name R.
Fr. Semenenko, theologian, philosopher, orator, and writer, defined the spirit and purpose of the Congregation as the Christianization of emerging radical socialism through a vigorous organization of parish life and through the education of youth, inculcating the necessity of recognizing the Christian postulates of social justice. The Congregation carried out this work especially among émigrés in the United States and Canada, organizing a flourishing Catholic life. The foundation of the Pontifical Polish College in Rome was the work of the Congregation.
Pius IX issued the decree of praise in 1860 and entrusted the missions in Bulgaria to the R.; the Congregation therefore also admits members of the Eastern rite. On 10 March 1888 the Congregation was approved, and its constitutions in 1902. Today the R. work in various countries of Europe and America and number 49 houses with 586 religious.