diff --git a/loops/patch.py b/loops/patch.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d50e7d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/loops/patch.py
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+# loops.patch
+
+# monkey patches, activate with: <module module="loops.patch" />
+# in some .zcml file, e.g. application.zcml
+
+import zope.index.text.widcode
+from zope.index.text.widcode import _prog, _decode, _decoding
+
+def patched_decode(code):
+    """_prog pattern is now a string, but after updating from Python2
+       code is still a bytes array."""
+    get = _decoding.get
+    if isinstance(code, bytes):
+        # byte-wise conversion to str:
+        code = ''.join(chr(b) for b in code)
+    return [get(p) or _decode(p) for p in _prog.findall(code)]
+
+zope.index.text.widcode.decode = patched_decode
+print("loops.patch: monkey patch for 'zope.index.text.widcode.decode()' installed.")
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index ada7a00..bd6594f 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ dependencies = [
 	"zope.pluggableauth",
 	"zope.principalannotation",
 	"zope.principalregistry",
-	"zope.publisher",
+	"zope.publisher==5.2.1",
 	"zope.securitypolicy",
 	"zope.site",
 	"zope.thread",