The legal situation of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland in the 19th century and the way it was able to function depended on the policies of Poland’s rulers in Berlin, Vienna and Moscow. Of the three Vatican’s relations with Moscow were probably most complicated and susceptible to dramatic downturns. One of them occurred in 1877 when diplomatic relations between Russia and the Holy See were formally broken off, and the Russian embassy at the Vatican, which had been there for sixty years, was closed down. It not take long, however, before Pope Leo XIII initiated unofficial talks with the Russians. In 1882 the negotiations were concluded with an accord which settled some of the basic demands of the Polish Church.
However, as it became clear that the Russian side could not be relied to observe the agreed terms, the Pope started a fresh round of behind-the-scenes negotiations. Their principal aim was to pave the way for Russia reopenin its embassy at the Vatican, in January 1887 a series of unofficial talks was opened in Vienna between the Russia’s Ambassador Alexij Lobanov and the Papal Nuncio Seraphin Vannutelli (and later his successor Luigi Galimberti) The Russians repeatedly rejected the idea of sending an permanent envoy to the Vatican The talks also covered other contentious issues such as the strict controls that had been imposed on correspondence between the Catholic
bishops in Russia and the Pope or attempts to introduce Russian into Catholic worship. In June 1882 Galimberti received from the Curia a list of grievances directly linked with continued repressive policies of the Russian authorities towards the Catholic Church. The angry reaction of the representatives of the Russian government and a series of press leaks on the state of the negotiations led to the suspension of all talks in October 1887. The inception and conduct of the Vienna negotiations was heavily influenced by the shifting currents of European politics. At that time France, Russia’s ally, was keen to seek the Pope’s moral support in an attempt to counterbalance the rival alliance of Germany, Austria and Italy. Under the impact of the political factor the stalled negotiations were unexpectedly brought to a satisfactory conclusion. In March 1888, responding, as it seems, to continued French pressure, Tsar Alexander III dispatched Alexander Izvolski to the Vatican to resume direct talks with the Papal Secretary of State. Izvolski extended his stay in Rome until, in 1894, he was appointed Russia’s resident minister at the Holy See.