Kisielin, located in Volhynia, is described in the text. The historically confusing fate of the Kisielin heirs, including the Czapliccy-Szpanowskis, and the question of the Polish Brethren are mentioned. The question of the Kisielin church and the founding of the Carmelite visceral monastery is mentioned (Source: "Ziemia. Tygodnik Krajoznawczy Ilustrowany', Warsaw 1912, no. 16, pp. 11-14, after: Wielkopolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa).

A modernised reading of the text

Kisielin

"The string of tradition has snapped and we are left at the crossroads, alone, forging a new life from the remains of a scattered past and materials that are completely alien. Today - as well as three hundred years ago."

We are talking here about Kisielin in Volhynia, in the Vladimir district. It should not be confused with the Sloboda of the same name in the former Kyiv region, belonging to the Lukashevsky (alias Wepyrn) key, once owned by the historically famous voivode Kisiel - who, however, had nothing to do with Kisielin Volyn - and also the lord of Brusilov, now in the Chernihiv district at the confluence of Snow and Desna.

The earliest known holders of Kisielin were the Kierdeys (coat of arms - three Andegavian lilies). This was a family not of the highest origin, but numerous and soon divided into several branches. They were already known in the 14th century. Petrashko Lanovich Kierdevich received Mylsk in Volhynia, they began to be called the Kierdeys of Mylsk. He was the marshal of Svidrigaila and in 1451 received Kisielin, Tverdyn, Verbjans, Poltans and other estates from him.

The marshal's son was Vasko, and his grandson was Kierdej II, who also sat in Kisielin. Kierdej Vaskovich still appears at the end of the 15th century and is called the landowner of Lutsk. He left two sons; one of them probably died childless, and Piotr Kierdejowicz, who continued the family, also became the heir of Kisielin. He held the dignity of royal marshal, held several starosties and made his will in 1562. He died shortly afterwards, leaving two sons, of whom Olizar Kierdej Mylski, royal marshal, in 1570 owned 38 smokes, 9 gardeners, one mill wheel, an inn and a distillery in Kisielin, Tverdyn, Dmitrowieże and Żurawcz.

In 1558, he married Hanna Jurjewna Hołszańska (the Hołszańskis - descendants of Lithuanian princes from before the time of Gediminas), who in 1583 bequeathed her entire estate to her son Jur with an obligation to pay her two sisters 3,000 kopecks each. Both these Kierdejovichs of Mylsky are still mentioned at the end of 1585.

Their son, the aforementioned Jur, was, it seems, the last of this line. He died childless, having married Theodora Czaplic, also from the Kierdej family, but it is not known exactly whose daughter she was. Ivan Czaplic of Szpanow, Kyiv castellan, had a daughter Teodora, 1st voto by Jan Lok (Boniecki), 2nd voto by Kierdejowa-Mylska and 3rd voto by Jerzy Wiśniowiecki, the first Catholic in the family, also Kyiv castellan. However, there was also another Fedora Czaplicówna, daughter of - probably - Fedora Czaplic, whom some believe to be the wife of Yur Mylsky. It is impossible to resolve this genealogical ambiguity today.

All that is certain is that after the Kierdej-Mylski family, Kisielin passed to the Czaplic Szpanowskis. In 1612, the sons of Fedor Kadyanovich Czaplic shared the homeland property and - after their uncle, the aforementioned Jur Kierdej-Mylski - fell to them. How this Yur was their uncle has not been established (there is a lot of ambiguity in the genealogy of the Čaplice family, which has not yet been well researched).

One of Fedor Kadyanovich's sons, George Czaplic, received three parts of the town of Kisielin, Dmitrove and several more villages. The Czaplics grasped the Arian innovations and spread them persistently and energetically. Kadyan Czaplic, although leaning towards the religious novelties, died as a dysunite (of the Eastern rite). Even his son Fedor, a judge of Lutsk, did not abandon his eastern faith, but his older sons Martin and George already professed Arianism and were fervently in love with it.

Both of these Czaplics, Marcin and Jerzy, were sent to the Calvinist convention in 1612 as Arian deputies. Jerzy, who in time became lord of a part of Kisielin, and later of the whole town, zealously supported his confession there, and granted freedom to the townsmen and peasants of Kisielin who accepted it. It was he - and not, as Lubieniecki erroneously assumed, Jan Czaplic - who built a church and schools around it in Kisielin. This may have happened immediately after 1612, or perhaps even slightly earlier. Some more recent scholars of Arianism in Poland are inclined to speak highly of the schools of this denomination, attributing to them advantages which they probably did not possess. Meanwhile, already Lukaszewicz - who cannot be suspected of favouring Catholicism - claimed that learning in these schools was a subordinate thing, and that the main purpose remained the spread of the religion ('Schools', p. 72).

The Kisielin church was to be a brick church. The preachers here were successively Joachim Rupiowski and then Matthew Twardochleb. In 1614, Eustachy Głzel (wrongly sometimes called "Kisiel") became rector of the school, acting in this position for quite a long time. After 1638, when the school was organised along the lines of the Rakov school, Ludwig Hohlcisen became its head. Piotr Stegman, Teodor Simonides and Filip Cosmius - all foreigners - taught here; it is uncertain whether they knew Polish, so - as in other similar schools - Latin must have flourished here. Stanislaw Giejżanowski was also a professor.

Arian synods were held in Kisielin in 1638, 1639 and 1640. A few years later the church was closed and teaching was abolished. Soon after the Kisielin convention in 1638, Jerzy Czaplic, married to Izabela Grabowska, died. Their son, Aleksander, also a great supporter of Arianism and lord of Kisielin, married Anna Rupniewska. In 1648, he owned 35 Christian and 57 Jewish smokes in Kisielin and two villages; the following year, only 15 and 20; in 1651, only 33 Christian smokes; and between 1653 and 1655, none.

In later years, around 1660, Kisielin ceased to be their property - the Czaplics were forced by a tribunal ruling to sell the estate (there are some traces of this), or the estate was confiscated. From the instructions to the Volyn deputies at the 1662 sejm, we can guess that the property right in Kisielin was held by Stanislaw Kowalewski vel Kowalowski, a Kyiv hunter and deputy to several sejms; what kind of property it was, we do not know exactly. From the Sejm constitution of 1685, we learn that the church created from the former Arian congregation by the aforementioned Stanisław Kowalewski was approved by Sejm and Tribunal decrees.

However, Kisielin did not remain in Kowalewski's hands for very long. As early as 1665, we find the Gołuchowski family here. Abraham Gołuchowski, stolnik of Mielnica and chamberlain of Lithuania, married for the second time Maryanna (Maryna Anna) Gniewska h. The Gołuchowskis were related to the Czaplics and one account mentions that it was they who purchased Kisielin from the Czaplics - thus Maryanna brought the estate as dowry.

Together the Goluchowskis (according to others, Abraham himself) brought the Discalced Carmelites (antiquae observantiae) to Kisielin around 1691. Abraham died in 1695, leaving numerous offspring from his first marriage. His second wife, Maryanna, married around 1698 after his death. William-Eustace Grothus, castellan of Samogitia. She ceded all her estates - Španów, Šupki, Rzeczyca and Kisielin - to her second husband, receiving various bequests in return.

The castellan of Samogitia died in 1709. His children from his first wife (Konstancja Billewiczówna) - with Maryanna he had no offspring - gave their stepmother the property she had once contributed, and she relinquished the Grothus bequests to herself. In this way, she again became mistress of Kisielin, but ruled it for a short time, as she died in 1710.

Kisielin again received new owners - the Ledóchowskis.
Samuel Ledóchowski (b. c.1680), married to Aleksandra Gniewska - probably a relative of Castellanowa Grothusowa - had a son Jan (cf. Barącz on the Ledóchowski family), who married Teresa Gołuchowska, daughter of Abraham and his first wife Katarzyna Kopciówna. Teresa bequeathed Kisielin to him - whether bought, donated or inherited from Maryanna de domo Gniewska.

The estate remained in the Ledóchowski family for several generations. Jan's son, Józef, an ensign of Łomża, owned Kisielin, and his son, Dymitr, a stolnik of Wlodzimierz (†1789), was also heir to Kisielin. Dmitri left no offspring; the estate passed to his son-in-law Ignacy, son of Janusz (married to Bentkowska), a brigadier of the national cavalry.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Ignacy endowed the parish school in Kisielin quite richly, but as he owned more substantial estates in Podolia (Strzelniki in the Yampol district) and was president of the Podolia chief court by election of the nobility, he did not care for Kisielin. Around 1820, he sold the estate.

The next owner was an ex-monk of Lublin, then chamberlain Wojciech Piotrowski, known from Helenius's Memoirs of bygone years (vol. I, p. 235) and from Sz. Konopacki's memoirs (vol. I, p. 119). Wojciech Piotrowski - Chamberlain of Krzemieniec, later of Dubiensk - was of peasant origin, which he did not conceal. He worked his way up to office, and became the owner of a town and several villages. Having no children, he decided to bequeath his estate to his namesake, Eligie Piotrowski, a well-known Volyn citizen, but he took the wrong path to do so (as Helenius describes in more detail). The will was overturned.

The chamberlain died in 1826 (cf. Kozieradzki's Memoirs, manuscript). Lawyer Tarkowski, on behalf of the chamberlain's wife, Tekla née Górska, managed the case in such a way that Mrs Piotrowska was stripped of everything and was forced to leave Kisielin around 1840, remaining without funds.

Kisielin changed hands again - it became the property of the Modzelewski family h. Pawęta. From this family, Wiktoria Modzelewska married Emil Olizar-Wołczkiewicz h. Radwan (son of Narcyz, senator-castellan of the Congress Kingdom, and Żmijewska), bringing Kisielin into her husband's household. It now belongs to Jan Olizar, son of Emil, a prominent member of the Duma, a well-known citizen and activist in the community. It has already been mentioned above that visceral Carmelites were founded at the Kisielin church at the end of the 17th century. At first, the church and monastery were wooden (cf. X. I. Chodynicki, Wiadomość o fundacji zakonu karmelitańskiego, Lviv 1846), so they were probably not converted from a brick church. It was not until 1720 that the Carmelites themselves, with contributions, built themselves a temple and premises. They ran a parish here and a school, where they taught as long as circumstances allowed.

The monastery's equipment was very modest. When the suppression took place in 1839, there was a parish church dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was not very spacious. After the abolition of the monastery, the church continued to function as a parish church.
In 1858, the parish numbered 916 worshippers and had four chapels: in Witoniż, Dorosin, Voronchyn and Babin (there used to be an Arian congregation founded by Babinski; there was a school where P. Stoinski preached). All these chapels still existed some 30 years later; today (i.e. according to the end of the 19th century) only the chapel in Voronchyn remains.

Number of worshippers in Kisielno parish according to successive censuses:
- 1872 r. - 1 826
- 1890. - 2,062
- 1892 - 1 250
- 1897 - 1 388
- 1900 - 1 854
- 1907. - 2 091
- 1910. - 2 123

To the parish of Kisielin belonged, besides Kisielin itself, the following villages:
- Żurawice and Tverdyn - once the property of Olizar Kierdej,
- Majdan Leżąchowicki, Moczótki,
- Świnarzyn - former seat of the Broński princes,
- Czemijów and Kupieczów - once the property of the Vladimir rulers (in Czemijów in 1728. the famous Metropolitan Leon Kishka, formerly Bishop of Vladimir, died in Chemiyovo),
- Sierkizów, Nyry, Novy Dvor, Dażwa (Dażwa), where the Sukhodolskis founded an Arian church; here preachers included. Grzegorz Stoiński and Paweł Ryniewiecki,
- Ośmiechowicze and Majdan Ośmiechowicki, Łowiszcze, Sieniawka, Wołosówka, Voronczyn - the famous residence of the poet-general Ludwik Krupiński,
- Studynie, Witoniż - the seat of the Witoniżski family,
- Babin, Jasienówka, Szczurzyń Trysteń - the seat of the Voronicze dukes, to which Voronychyn also belonged,
- Dorosin, Karvatka, Nemir,
- Berezolupy Wielkie and Male, Futory Berezołupskie - former estate of the Siemaszko and later Sapieha families,
- Majdan Marynówka, Wiczyny, Dmitrówka and Sołotwin - also once owned by the bishops of Vladimir.