Pavlin Demski or Paulin Demski was a seventeenth-century Catholic missionary whose activities focused on converting

Eastern Orthodox Christians Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millenni ...

Eastern Catholicism The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also known as the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Eastern Rite Catholicism, or simply the Eastern Churches, are 23 Eastern Christian autonomous (''sui iuris'') particular churches of ...

. In the middle of the seventeenth century, he was the central Catholic

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

Montenegro , image_flag = Flag of Montenegro.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Montenegro.svg , coa_size = 80 , national_motto = , national_anthem = () , image_map = Europe-Mont ...

. Demski was suitable person for propagation of the Eastern Catholicism also because he was from the territory whose people were already converted, so that this conversion could be used as an example.

Missionary activities

Together with some other missionaries, Demski was sent by the

Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (CEP; ) was a congregation of the Roman Curia of the Catholic Church in Rome, responsible for missionary work and related activities. It is also known by its former title, the Sacred Congregatio ...

to convert Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism.

Roman Curia The Roman Curia () comprises the administrative institutions of the Holy See and the central body through which the affairs of the Catholic Church are conducted. The Roman Curia is the institution of which the Roman Pontiff ordinarily makes use ...

appointed Demski as a teacher in schools which were planned to be opened on the territories populated by the Serbs. The Roman Curia carefully planned this mission and establishment of the Latin language schools planned to educate children of the pre-Ottoman Serb noble families as young Catholic priests. The first of such schools was planned to be opened in

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, where Demski first headed to. Since Demski was afraid to travel to Peć while

Serbian Patriarch This is a list of heads of the Serbian Orthodox Church, since the establishment of the church as an Autocephaly, autocephalous archbishopric in 1219 to today's patriarchate. The list includes all the archbishops and patriarchs that led the Se ...

was in

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, in December 1649 he stopped his journey in

Kotor Kotor (Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: Котор, ), historically known as Cattaro (from Italian language, Italian: ), is a town in Coastal Montenegro, Coastal region of Montenegro. It is located in a secluded part of the Bay of Kotor. The city has ...

where he opened the first such school. Based on the proposal of Frano Bolica and contrary to the objections of the local clergy, Roman Curia allowed Demski to hold services in the Church of Saint Luka in Kotor. In the autumn of 1654 Demski and his companions were attacked by the Ottomans while they were travelling from Kotor to Montenegrin hinterland. Demski died at the beginning of 1656.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Demski, Pavlin 1656 deaths Members of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples