Abstract

The Jesuits settled in Malbork in 1618. The Polish-Swedish war and the Swedish occupation of the town and castle of Malbork (1626–1636) had deprived the Jesuits of their place of worship. The congregation made arduous attempts to fnd a new residen-ce in Malbork and discovered a suitable location in St. Mary’s Chapel by St. Mary’s Gate. In 1654, Krzysztof Stanisław Janikowski, a Polish nobleman and skilled fraud-ster, provided the Jesuits with a forged property deed that had been allegedly issued by King Sigismund I the Old in 1508. Based on that document, King Władysław IV Vasa issued a royal decree ordering the return of the chapel and the adjacent property to the congregation. The forgery was discovered in 1647, and after a fve-year-long trial, the royal committee deprived the Jesuits of the property granted by King Władysław IV Vasa, including St. Mary’s Chapel. However, due to Kukliński’s assiduous efforts, King John II Casimir Vasa, an ex-Jesuit and protector of the Society of Jesus, granted St. Mary’s Church, St. Ann’s Chapel and other property in the royal Malbork fortress to the Jesuits in 1652. The privilege was subsequently endorsed by King John III Sobieski and King Augustus II the Strong.