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 SEJNY

688

SELEUCIANS

Evangelists and Apostles at Caste! Gandolfo, and at a later date, when Overbeck's strength was no longer equal to the task, Seitz, with the aid of his gifted son, Ludwig Seitz, completed Overbeck's frescoes in the cathedral at Diakovar by filling the gaps with com- positions of his own. With the help of his son, Seitz painted a cj'cle of pictures of saints, for Herder of Freiburg. Besides some secular compositions, as the genre pictures of the life of the common people at Rome, he treated pre-eminently scenes and persons of the Old and New Testaments. His pictures of the "Adoration of the Shepherds", "Christ as the Friend of Children", "Awakening of the Young Man of Naim", "Tribute Money", "Jacob and Esau", and "The Finding of Moses", are entirely in the spirit of Overbeck. A "Mater Amabilis" aroused much ad- miration; an enthroned ISIadonna went to England. The "St. Anthony, and St. Benedict", as engraved by the Capuchin Bernardo da Monaco, had a wide popularity. Good pictures also are: "Translation of St. Catherine to Sinai by angels", and especially a round picture of "Rest during the Flight to Egj-pt". In this three angels worship Christ, who lies with out- stretched arms on the lap of the mother, while at some distance is Joseph ^\'ith the beast of burden. In the Trinita de' Monti at Rome he painted in fresco the return of the prodigal son and Christ with heart aflame.

R.VCZTN9KJ, Histoire de I'art moderne en Allemagne, II, III (Paris, 1840); Forster, Gesch. der deutschen Kunst (5 vols., Leipzig, 1860).

G. GlETMANN.

Sejny (August6wo) Diocese of (Sejnensis, or AuGUSTOviENSis), a diocese in the northwestern part of Russian Poland near the border of East Prussia, German Poland. Its territory formerly belonged to the Diocese of Vilna, but upon the first partition of Poland it fell to Germany. Consequentlj^ a separate ecclesiastical jurisdiction was desired, and so Pius VI, on 27 March, 1798, carved out the new diocese and e.stablished its see at the Camaldolese monastery of Wigry, a village about ten miles east of the present city of Suwalki. This monastery of Camaldoli was founded under the patronage of King Jagiello in 1418, and the Church of Our Lady, which became the cathe- dral, is now the parish church of Wigry. The first bishop of the diocese was the celebrated preacher Michael Francis Karpowicz (b. 1744; d. 1805). His successor was John Clement Golaszewski (b. 1748; d. 1820), who enlarged the Wigry cathedral. After the third partition of Poland this territory was ceded to Rassia, and in 1818 the Church throughout the Polish kingdom was reorganized. By a Bull of Pius VII Warsaw was made the metropolitan see and the see of Wigry was changed to Augustowo, a city founded in 1561 by King Sigrfiund Augustus, after whom it was named, which is still the largest place in tliat section (population 65,000). The new catherlral and chapter there were inaugurated on December 8, 1819. The next bishop, Ignatius Czyzewski, the first to rule the newly named diocese, did not remain at August6wo, but changed his place of residence in 1823 to Sejny, a town founded in 1.522 by King Sigmund I, and "which is about twenty miles east of Suwalki, the capital of the district. The succeeding bishop, Nicholas John Manugicwicz, established the diocesan seminary in 1830, and for many years resided sometimes at Au- gust/)\yo and then at Sejny. His successor was Stanis- laus Choromartski, afterwards Archbishop of Warsaw. The next bishop, Straflz.\'fiski, made the old Domini- can church at Sejny his catherlral and entered it as bishop, 4 February, 1837. He was in frequent col- lision with the Russian authorities, and on his death in 1847 the see was kept vacant bv the Pussian Govern- ment until 1863. Constantine Lubiertski was then made bishop, and on his death in I860 at Nowgrodzie was succeeded by Bishop Wierzbowski. His suc-

cessor was Anthony Baranowski, and the present bishop (1911) is Anthony Kara^. Sejny has the cathe- dral church, chapter and consistory, the diocesan sem- inary and the hospital of St. Simon managed by the Sisters of Charity. The diocese is divided into eleven deaneries and has a Cathohc population of 692,250. There are 119 parish churches and 20 subordinate ones, besides 100 chapels and 3 convents. The dio- cese has 352 secular priests, 4 regulars, 86 seminarians, 24 lay religious, besides 8 nuns and 26 Sisters of Charity. Owing to the Russian regulations against receiving novices and postulants, the regular clergy and monastic institutions are dying out.

Battandier. Annnaire Pontificale (Paris, 1911); Slownik Geo- groficzny, X (Warsaw, 1900). ANDREW J. ShIPMAN.

Sekanais (or more properlj^ Tshe-'k^h-ne, "Peoplie on the Rocks", i. e., the Rocky Mountains), a D^n6 tribe whose habitat is on both sides of the Rockies, from 52° to 57° 30' N. lat. By language they are an eastern tribe, and it is not much more than 130 years since a portion of their congeners, having come into possession of fire-arms through the Canadian fur traders, made such reckless use of the same that the westernmost bands had to cross the mountains to get out of their reach. These quondam aggressors originally roamed along the Athabasca and Beaver Rivers, and they are to-day known under the name of Beavers, claiming now the valley of the Peace be- tween Fort Dunvegan and a point some distance from L. Athabasca. Another split in the Sekanais ranks, which was due to an insignificant incident, brought into existence still another tribe, whose members were ultimately admitted into the Blackfeet Confederacy under the name of Sarcees. The Sekanais proper are not to-day more than 450; the Beavers, perhaps 550, and the Sarcees, 190. By natural disposition as much as from necessity the Sekanais are invet- erate nomads. They have no fixed abodes, and therefore no villages, or even chiefs in the strict sense of the word. The best related among the fathers of families are their only headmen, and their role is restricted to directing the movements of their respective bands. Yet the Sekanais are scrupulously honest and moral, though theirs is the only D^nc tribe in which polyandry is known to have existed in pre-missionary times. Superstitious and naive to a degree, they received the Gospel without ques- tioning; but their habitat and environment, with their consequent nomadic habits, have conspired to make the establishment of permanent mis- sions among them difficult. However, most of them are to-day under the influence of the Catholic priest. Even the Beavers, who are less religiously inclined, have steadfastly resisted the advances of the Protestant ministers.

MoRicE, The Western Denen; their Manners and Customs (To- ronto, 1890); Idem, Notes on the Western Dinfs (Toronto, 1892); Idem, History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia (To- ronto, 1904); Idem, The Great Dini Race (Vienna, in cour.se of pub- liration); Petitot, Monographie des Dini-Dindjii (Paris, 187,5).

A. G. MoRicE.

Seleucians, a Gnostic sect who are said to have flourished in (ialatia. They derived their name from Seleucus, who with a certain Hermias is said to have propounded and taught their peculiar heresies. According to Philastrus (Liber Diversarum Haeres- eon, LV) the teaching of these heresies was based on the crudest form of Dualism. While they maintained that God was incorporeal, they asserted that matter was coeternal with Him. They exceeded the usual dualistic tenets in attributing evil to God as well as to matter. In their system the souls of men were not created by God, but were formed from earthly com- ponents — fire and air — by angels. Christ, t hey .said, did not sit at the right hand of the Father in Heaven because (Psalm xviii, 6) "He hath set his tabernacle in the sun" must be interpreted to mean that Christ