The Pontificate of Pius IX began in 1846. In 1847 an Accomodamento”, a generous agreement, by which Russia allowed the Pope to fill vacant Episcopal Sees of the Latin rites both in Russia and the Polish and Lithuanian provinces of Russia. The new freedoms were short-live, as they were undermined by jealousies of the rival Orthodox Church, Polish political aspirations, and the tendency of imperial Russia, to act most brutally against any dissension. Pope Pius IX first tried to position himself in the middle, strongly opposing revolutionary and violent opposition against the Russian authorities, and, appealing to them for more Church freedom. After the failure of the Polish uprising in 1863, Pope Pius IX sided with the persecuted Poles, loudly protesting their persecutions, infuriating the T