Archetti, Giovanni Andrea

Giovanni Archetti was born on September 11, 1731 in Brescia . In 1754 he received a doctorate in civil and canon law from the University of Rome . In September 1775 he was ordained bishop , appointed titular bishop of Chalcedon and the apostolic nuncio in Poland .

In 1776 he arrived in Warsaw , where he became one of the principled opponents of the great crown chancellor Andrzej Jerome Zamoyski and the reforms proposed to them. Archetti was one of the conservative leaders who succeeded in rejecting the Code of the Zamoysky Seym of the Commonwealth in 1780 .

During his stay in Warsaw, Archetti became a mediator in the dialogue between Pope Pius VI and the Russian Empress Catherine II . The Empress issued a decree in 1773 on the establishment of the Belarusian Catholic Diocese and on the appointment of the Bishop of Belarus with a residence in Mogilev , to which all Roman Catholics in Russia were subordinate (including in Moscow and St. Petersburg ). Then, by decree of January 28, 1782 , the Belarusian diocese was transformed into the Mogilev archdiocese . Since the creation of the archdiocese was not canonically approved by Rome, in 1783 Archetti was sent to St. Petersburg as an ambassador extraordinary with broad powers. Archetti's credentials also included discussions on a number of other issues. One of them was the question of the situation of Greek Catholics in the territories that had ceded to Russia after the first partition of Poland ; Greek Catholics were persecuted there, and their canonical structures were virtually destroyed. Another problem was the status of the Jesuits in Russia, the Jesuit order was dissolved by Clement XIV in 1773 , but they continued to exist in Russia.

A compromise was found following diplomatic negotiations. Rome approved the Mogilev archbishopric and agreed with the candidacy of Stanislav Bogush-Sestrentsevich for the role of the first archbishop of Mogilev (initially Pope Pius VI did not approve of his candidacy), and Catherine agreed to appoint the Basilian monk I. Lisovsky to the post of Greek Catholic archbishop of Polotsk . The Jesuits in Russia did not dissolve, but obeyed the diocesan clergy, preserving, nevertheless, their structure, led by the general vicar.

On December 19, 1783, Giovanni Archetti canonically approved the creation of the Mogilev Archdiocese; on February 22, 1784, Bogush-Sestrentsevich received Metropolitan Pallium in St. Petersburg's Church of St. Catherine .

In June 1784, Archetti returned to Rome, on September 20, 1784 he was elevated to the rank of cardinal priest with the title of the Church of Sant Eusebio and appointed apostolic legate in Bologna . A year later, was transferred to the place of Archbishop Ascoli Piceno . He took part in the conclave of 1799-1800 , ending with the choice of Pope Pius VII . On April 2, 1800 he was named cardinal bishop of the suburbic diocese of Sabina with the preservation of the archbishopric of Ascoli Piceno.

He died in 1805 .

• Catholic Encyclopedia . Ed. Franciscans. T.1. M.: 2002.
• V. Zadvorny, A. Yudin. History of the Catholic Church in Russia. Short essay. - M .: Edition of the College of Catholic Theology named after sv. Thomas Aquinas, 1995.

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