Church in the Moscow region (of the historic archdiocese of Mogilev). Later in the same tour, d'Herbigny also consecrated Aleksander Frison and Boļeslavs Sloskāns and appointed them to similar roles, in Odessa and Mogilev respectively. He also consecrated Antoni Malecki and appointed him to a similar role in Leningrad. Further missions to the Soviet Union, and further appointments, followed. At the end of 1932, d'Herbigny was seriously compromised by the scandal created by Alexander Deubner, Russian priest and nephew of Clara Zetkin, the famous Communist and one of Moscow's international agents. D'Herbigny had hired him as a translator, and this unbalanced priest was even officially the co-author of the last book that he had just published. Having left precipitously in November 1932 for Berlin, for reasons that were not very honourable, Deubner was denounced as a Soviet spy. Downfall and isolation Within little more than a decade, all those appointed in secret by Bishop d'Herbigny had been imprisoned, exiled or executed, and the Vatican's policy of attempting to organise the church in Russia by means of clandestine appointments was abandoned. D'Herbigny was stripped of his powers and silenced, in circumstances which historians have not been able to clarify. French papal historian Yves Chiron gives a number of possible reasons: an internal settlement of affairs within the Jesuit order; jealousy of his privileged relations with Pius XI on the part of his Polish Jesuit superior general, Wlodimir Ledóchowski; an affair with a woman; Russian provocation in revenge for his antics; general failure of his policies and tactics. In 1937, d'Herbigny was forced to abdicate his episcopal dignities and forbidden from any public activity whatsoever. Episcopal title D'Herbigny was appointed titular bishop of Ilium by Pope Pius XI in 1926. Ilium is Latin for Troy; D'Herbigny's mission to the USSR has been likened to the story of the Trojan Horse. See also Edmund A. Walsh Notes References Alvarez, David, Spies in the Vatican: Espionage & Intrigue from Napoleon to the Holocaust, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence KA, 2002 Barthel, Manfred, The Jesuits: History and Legend of the Society of Jesus. William Morrow, New York NY, 1984 Chiron, Yves, Pie XI: 1857-1939, Perrin, Paris, 2004 Fouilloux, Etienne, Les Catholiques et l'Unité Chrétienne du XIXe au XXe Siècle, Le Centurion, Paris, 1982 of Mary of the Angels, Francis, "Pius XI's Politics: A Theodemocratic Pope", He Is Risen, 16, December 2003 Lesourd, Paul, Entre Rome