Ivan Gagarin

Prince Ivan Sergeyevich Gagarin SJ (Иван Сергеевич Гагарин; 1 August 1814 – 19 July 1882) was a Russian Jesuit, known also as Jean-Xavier after his conversion from Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism. As a member of the hereditary Russian nobility, he was of the Gagarin family, which traces its origin to the medieval rulers of Starodub-on-the-Klyazma. He was the founding editor of Études. He was the son of the Russian state-councillor, Prince Sergey Gagarin, and Varvara Pushkina. He entered the service of the state at an early age, and was first named attaché to his uncle, Prince Gregory Gagarin, at Munich, on whose death, in 1837, he acted as secretary to the legation at Vienna. He was afterwards transferred to the Russian embassy at Paris, where his services were requisitioned in a similar capacity. He frequented the salon of his near relation, Madame Sophie Swetchine, and was on terms of familiar intercourse with Father de Ravignan, Lacordaire's successor in the pulpit of Notre-Dame de Paris. His conversion to Catholicism took place in 1842. On 19 April of that year Gagarin made his profession of faith, and was received into the Catholic Church by Ravignan. According to Russian law, this put an end to his diplomatic career, and he forfeited all rights to his inheritance.