Background
Thaddeus Brzozowski was born in Konigsberg, East Prussia, (Kaliningrad, Russia) on October 21, 1749, of parents of Polish descent.
Thaddeus Brzozowski was born in Konigsberg, East Prussia, (Kaliningrad, Russia) on October 21, 1749, of parents of Polish descent.
Brzozowski studied Rhetoric, Greek, French and classical literature in Slutsk (Belarus) and Philosophy and Mathematics in Nesviz. He continued his Theological studies in Vilnius, Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire (Vilnius, Lithuania), where he was ordained priest in 1775.
On the 2nd of September 1805 Brzozowski was appointed General of the Jesuits in succession to Gabriel Gruber. In 1801 Pius VII. had given the Jesuits liberty to reconstitute themselves in north Russia, and in 1812 Brzozowski secured the recognition of the Jesuit college of Polotsk as a university, though he could not obtain permission to go to Spain to agitate for the recognition of the Spanish Jesuits. In 1814 Pius VII. , in accordance with the bull Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum, gave to Brzozowski among others full authority to receive those who desired to enter the society. The Russian government, however, soon began to be alarmed at the growth of the Jesuits, and on the 20th of December 1815 published an edict expelling them from St Petersburg. Brzozowski, having vainly requested to be allowed to retire to Rome, died on the 5th of February 1820. He is interesting mainly from the fact that he was general of the Society at the time of its restoration throughout Europe.
Brzozowski entered the Jesuit order in 1765.