Polish Unitarians info uploaded to the website

[Jaga]

The representatives of Polish historians interested in the Polish reformation asked me to add the article about their activities as well as about polish Unitarian church which was created ....mainly by foreigners, but attracted many Polish nobles and was developed in Poland.

Since my father was an expert on Reformation history I also had a chance to visit many of the places related to Unitarian/Polish Brethren History - see the photo in the article:

www.polishsite.us/index.php/history-and-people/middle-ages-and-renaissance/469-polish-brethren-trail.html
Polish Brethren’ Trail

[pieter]

Jaga,

It is interesting, because these Polish Brethern are from the same time that Dutch Calvinism appeared during the 80 years war of the Dutch and Flemish against the Spanish occupiers. It is also interesting to read that this was another form of Calvinism than the Dutch, French, West-German and Scottish (Presbyterian) Calvinism. A link with Italy is mentioned. I did not know that there was Reformation in Italy. I knew about Jan Hus in Bohemia, Luther in Germany and Calvin in France and Switserland (Geneve).

My father who is very interested in Polish history and gave speeches at his Probus club about it, told me that in the past Protestantism was influential in high nobility circles and that Poland could have been protestant if not the low nobility, the kings and the largely farmer population stayed Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic church was strong in Poland and staged a Counter Reformation in Poland to press the Protestant (Calvinist, Methodist, Lutheranian) threat back. Poland should stay Roman Catholic, no Heresy!


Burning of a heretic women (Protestant) by the Spanish inquisition in the Netherlands in the 16th century


A french Huguenot woman

Pieter

[pieter]

In the Southern-Dutch town Maastricht 1559

[Jaga]

Mar 6, 2011 3:05:07 GMT -7 pieter said:

Jaga,

It is interesting, because these Polish Brethern are from the same time that Dutch Calvinism appeared during the 80 years war of the Dutch and Flemish against the Spanish occupiers.

My father who is very interested in Polish history and gave speeches at his Probus club about it, told me that in the past Protestantism was influential in high nobility circles and that Poland could have been protestant if not the low nobility, the kings and the largely farmer population stayed Roman Catholic. Burning of heretic women (Protestant) by the Spansish Inquisition in the Netherlands in the 16th century

Pieter

Pieter,

your father and my father would have lots to talk about! My father wrote a book entitled "Epizod Refromacyjny" about reformation in Poland. You are right, it was expanding mainly in highly educated high nobility circles.

Interesting pictures, thanks!

[pieter]

Mar 6, 2011 5:54:03 GMT -7 Jaga said:

Mar 6, 2011 3:05:07 GMT -7 pieter said:

Jaga,

It is interesting, because these Polish Brethern are from the same time that Dutch Calvinism appeared during the 80 years war of the Dutch and Flemish against the Spanish occupiers.

My father who is very interested in Polish history and gave speeches at his Probus club about it, told me that in the past Protestantism was influential in high nobility circles and that Poland could have been protestant if not the low nobility, the kings and the largely farmer population stayed Roman Catholic. Burning of heretic women (Protestant) by the Spansish Inquisition in the Netherlands in the 16th century

Pieter

Pieter,

your father and my father would have lots to talk about! My father wrote a book entitled "Epizod Refromacyjny" about reformation in Poland.

Jaga,

Yes, they would have. It was really amazing how deep my father went into Polish history, it was as if he was studying it. He read history books, the Dutch Winkler Prins encyclopedia and other sources about Poland and he had a lot of conversations with my Polish grandfather before he died, my Polish uncles from the Kotowicz, Pantoflinski, Kalinowski and other families and friends and colleages of my mothers Warsaw time (fiftees and sixtees). There were professors, economists and architects among them. He has more experiance and knowledge than me, because he visited Poland in the sixtees, seventees, eightees and ninetees.

My father not only knows a lot of Polish (Catholic) history, but also about the history of Polish jews, the Catholic-Jewish coexistance, Polish reformation, the Polish Commonwealth, partititions, and the role the German craftsmen (Buergher) played in Polish towns and cities. Part of his knowledge is the Reformation in Poland, which was in fact a very short period in Polish history. The longest time of Polish christianity the country, nation, tradition and culture was and is simply Roman Catholic. The Polish Reformation and Roman-Catholic counter reformation is an interesting aspect of Polish history though, because it determined Polish history in that time, in the past and in the present and the future. A Calvinist or Reformed Poland would have been a differant country, due to the role of Calvinism in Europe. Poland would have had strong ties with the Netherlands, Scotland, probably the Presbyterian Americans and French Huegenots. If Poland would have been Calvinist the French * Huguenots (Calvinists) would have found a refuge in Poland and influenced Poland like it influenced for instance cities like Amsterdam and Berlin. Many Dutch people have French names because their ancesters were French Huguenots who fled to the Netherlands in the 17th and 18th centuries. Berlin also attracted these people. Remember the first non-communist prime-minister of East-Germany, the CDU politician Lothar de Maizière, a German with Huguenot ancesters. He belongs to a noble family who, as Huguenots, had fled France for asylum in Prussia in the late 17th century. He is a son of the lawyer Clement de Maizière. His uncle Ulrich de Maizière was Inspector General of the (West) German Armed Forces and his cousin Thomas de Maizière is Federal Minister of Defense.

* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot / pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugenoci

Pieter

[pieter]

Reformation in Poland


Sigismund I the Old

In a situation analogous with that of other European countries, the progressive internal decay of the Polish Church created conditions favorable for the dissemination of the Reformation ideas and currents. For example, there was a chasm between the lower clergy and the nobility-based Church hierarchy, which was quite laicized and preoccupied with temporal issues, such as power and wealth, often corrupt. The middle nobility, which had already been exposed to the Hussite reformist persuasion, increasingly looked at the Church's many privileges with envy and hostility.


Martin Luther

The teachings of Martin Luther were accepted most readily in the regions with strong German connections: Silesia, Greater Poland, Pomerania and Prussia. In Gdańsk (Danzig) in 1525 a lower-class Lutheran social uprising took place, bloodily subdued by Sigismund I; after the reckoning he established a representation for the plebeian interests as a segment of the city government. Königsberg and the Duchy of Prussia under Albrecht Hohenzollern became a strong center of Protestant propaganda dissemination affecting all of northern Poland and Lithuania. Sigismund I quickly reacted against the "religious novelties", issuing his first related edict in 1520, banning any promotion of the Lutheran ideology, or even foreign trips to the Lutheran centers. Such attempted (poorly enforced) prohibitions continued until 1543.


Albrecht Hohenzollern


Wawel Castle Renaissance courtyard

Sigismund's son Sigismund II Augustus (Zygmunt II August), a monarch of a much more tolerant attitude, guaranteed the freedom of the Lutheran religion practice in all of Royal Prussia by 1559. Besides Lutheranism, which, within the Polish Crown, ultimately found substantial following mainly in the cities of Royal Prussia and western Greater Poland, the teachings of the persecuted Anabaptists and Unitarians, and in Greater Poland the Czech Brothers, were met, at least among szlachta, with a more sporadic response.

Calvinism on the other hand, in mid 16th century gained many followers among both the szlachta (Low Mobility) and the magnates (High Mobility), especially in Lesser Poland and Lithuania. The Calvinists, who led by Jan Łaski were working on unification of the Protestant churches, proposed the establishment of a Polish national church, under which all Christian denominations, including Eastern Orthodox, would be united. After 1555 Sigismund II, who accepted their ideas, sent an envoy to the pope, but the papacy rejected the various Calvinist postulates. Łaski and several other Calvinist scholars published in 1563 the Bible of Brest, a complete Polish Bible translation from the original languages, an undertaking financed by Mikołaj Radziwiłł the Black. After 1563–1565 (the abolishment of state enforcement of the Church jurisdiction) full religious tolerance became the norm. The Polish Catholic Church emerged from this critical period weakened, but not badly damaged (the bulk of the Church property was preserved), which facilitated the later success of Counter-Reformation.


Poznań City Hall

Among the Calvinists, who also included the lower classes and their leaders, ministers of common background, disagreements soon developed, based on different views in the areas of religious and social doctrines. The official split took place in 1562, when two separate churches were officially established, the mainstream Calvinist, and the smaller, more reformist, known as the Polish Brethren or Arians. The adherents of the radical wing of the Polish Brethren promoted, often by way of personal example, the ideas of social justice. Many Arians (Piotr of Goniądz, Jan Niemojewski) were pacifists opposed to private property, serfdom, state authority and military service; through communal living some had implemented the ideas of shared usage of the land and other property. A major Polish Brethren congregation and center of activities was established in 1569 in Raków near Kielce, and lasted until 1638, when Counter-Reformation had it closed. The notable Sandomierz Agreement of 1570, an act of compromise and cooperation among several Polish Protestant denominations, excluded the Arians, whose more moderate, larger faction toward the end of the century gained the upper hand within the movement.

The act of the Warsaw Confederation, which took place during the convocation sejm of 1573, provided guarantees, at least for the nobility, of religious freedom and peace. It gave the Protestant denominations, including the Polish Brethren, formal rights for many decades to come. Uniquely in 16th century Europe, it turned the Commonwealth, in the words of Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius, a Catholic reformer, into a "safe haven for heretics".


Stanislaus Hosius by Marcello Bacciarelli

[pieter]

Jan Łaski



Jan Łaski, John Laski, Johannes Alasco, John a Lasco (1499 – January 8, 1560), was a Polish Protestant evangelical reformer. It is owing to his influential work in England (ca. 1543-1555), during the English Reformation, that his name is known to the English-speaking world in its Anglicised form John a Lasco.



Life

Jan Łaski was born in Łask, the son of Jaroslaw Łaski, the voivode of Sieradz Voivodship, and Susanna Bąk, the daughter of Zbigniew Bąk of Bąkowa Góra. His uncle, also Jan Łaski, was by turns royal secretary, Archbishop of Gniezno, Primate of Poland and Grand Chancellor of the Crown; he was also the uncle of King Sigismund I the Old. Both Jan Łaskis' coat-of-arms was Korab.

After his family's fall from political power and prestige, Łaski, a learned priest, went in 1523 to Basel, where he became a close friend of Erasmus and Zwingli. In 1542 he became pastor of a Protestant church at Emden and shortly after went to England, where in 1550 he was superintendent of the Strangers' Church of London and had some influence on ecclesiastical affairs in the reign of Edward VI.



Under Mary I's persecution, Łaski took a shipload of refugees from the Strangers' Church to Copenhagen, but they were denied refuge there because they would not accept the Augsburg Confession of Faith. They were resettled in Brandenburg.

Łaski was a correspondent of John Hooper, whom Łaski supported in the vestments controversy.

On the accession of Roman Catholic Queen Mary, he fled to the continent. In 1556 he was recalled to Poland, where he became secretary to King Sigismund II and was a leader in the Calvinist Reformation.

His contributions to the Reformed churches were the establishment of church government in theory and practice, a denial of any distinction between ministers and elders except in terms of who could teach and administer the sacraments, and an understanding of the eucharist that was more Zwinglian than Calvinist. Łaski tried to reorient the debate by focusing on the entire ceremony, participation in which "seals" Christians in communion with Christ.

He died in Pinczów, Poland.



Works

* Forma ac ratio (1555) -- A "Form and Rationale" for the liturgy of the Stranger churches in London. Possibly influenced the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, John Knox's Scottish order, the Middleburg ordinal, the 1563 German Palatinate order, and the "forms and prayers" in Pieter Dathenus' psalter, which was influential in Dutch Calvinist churches.
* Johannes a Lasco, Opera (Works), ed. Abraham Kuyper (Amsterdam: F. Muller, 1866).

[pieter]

Mar 6, 2011 5:54:03 GMT -7 Jaga said:

Mar 6, 2011 3:05:07 GMT -7 pieter said:

Jaga,

It is interesting, because these Polish Brethern are from the same time that Dutch Calvinism appeared during the 80 years war of the Dutch and Flemish against the Spanish occupiers.

My father who is very interested in Polish history and gave speeches at his Probus club about it, told me that in the past Protestantism was influential in high nobility circles and that Poland could have been protestant if not the low nobility, the kings and the largely farmer population stayed Roman Catholic. Burning of heretic women (Protestant) by the Spansish Inquisition in the Netherlands in the 16th century

Pieter

Pieter,

your father and my father would have lots to talk about! My father wrote a book entitled "Epizod Refromacyjny" about reformation in Poland. You are right, it was expanding mainly in highly educated high nobility circles.

Interesting pictures, thanks!

Jaga,

I wish I could read your fathers book.

Pieter

[pieter]

Warsaw Confederation


Original act of the Warsaw Confederation

The Warsaw Confederation (January 28, 1573), an important development in the history of Poland and Lithuania, is considered the formal beginning of religious freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in fact is the first such document in Europe. While it did not prevent all conflict based on religion, it did make the Commonwealth a much safer and more tolerant place than most of contemporaneous Europe, especially during the subsequent Thirty Years' War.

History

Religious tolerance in Poland had had a long tradition (e.g. Statute of Kalisz) and had been de facto policy in the reign of the recently deceased King Zygmunt II. However, the articles signed by the Confederation gave official sanction to earlier custom. In that sense, they may be considered either the beginning or the peak of Polish tolerance.

Following the childless death of the last king of the Jagiellon dynasty, Polish and Lithuanian nobles (szlachta) gathered at Warsaw to prevent any separatists from acting and to maintain the existing legal order. For that the citizens had to unconditionally abide the decisions made by the body; and the confederation was a potent declaration that the two former states are still closely linked.

In January the nobles signed a document in which representatives of all the major religions pledged each other mutual support and tolerance. A new political system was arising, aided by the confederation which contributed to its stability. Religious tolerance was an important factor in a multiethnic and multi-religious state, as the territories of the Commonwealth were inhabited by many generations of people from different ethnic backgrounds (Poles, Lithuanians, Ruthenian, Germans and Jews) and of different denominations (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish and even Muslim).

This act was not imposed by a government or by consequences of war, but rather resulted from the actions of members of Polish-Lithuanian society. It was also influenced by the 1572 French St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, which prompted the Polish-Lithuanian nobility to see that no monarch would ever be able to carry out such an act in Poland.


St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre

The people most involved in preparing the articles were Mikołaj Sienicki (leader of the "execution movement"), Jan Firlej and Jan Zborowski. Their effort was opposed by many dignitaties of the Roman Catholic Church.

They were opposed by most of the Catholic priests: Franciszek Krasiński was the only bishop that signed them (Szymon Starowolski claimed he did so under the "threat of the sword"), and the future legal acts containing the articles of the Confederation were signed by bishops with the stipulation: "excepto articulo confoederationis." Another bishop, Wawrzyniec Goslicki, was excommunicated for signing the acts of the Sejm of 1587.

The articles of the Warsaw Confederation were later incorporated into the Henrician Articles, and thus became constitutional provisions alongside the Pacta conventa also instituted in 1573.

Importance

The late 16th century Poland stood between the Orthodox Muscovy in the East, the Muslim Ottoman Empire to the South, and Western Europe, torn between Reformation and Counter-Reformation, to the North and West, Its religious tolerance made it a welcome refuge for those escaping religious persecution elsewhere; in the words of Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius it became “a place of shelter for heretics”. The confederation legalized the previously unwritten customs of religious tolerance.

There is debate as to whether the religious freedom was intended only for the nobility or also for the peasants and others; most historians favour the latter interpretation.

Quotes

* “Certainly, the wording and substance of the declaration of the Confederation of Warsaw of 28 January 1573 were extraordinary with regards to prevailing conditions elsewhere in Europe; and they governed the principles of religious life in the Republic for over two hundred years.” - Norman Davies

[pieter]

Polish Brethren

Polish Brethren (also called Antitrinitarians, Arians, or Socinians, Polish: arianie, bracia polscy, socynianie) was the name of a Protestant Polish church from the 16th century.



History

The Ecclesia Minor or Minor Reformed Church of Poland, better known today as the Polish Brethren, was started on January 22, 1556, when Piotr of Goniądz (Peter Gonesius), a Polish student spoke out against the doctrine of the Trinity during the general synod of the Reformed(Calvinist) churches of Poland held in the village of Secemin.


Piotr of Goniądz

1565, Split with the Calvinists

A theological debate called by the Polish king Sigismund II Augustus himself in 1565 did not succeed in bringing both Protestant factions together again. Finally, the faction that had supported Piotr of Goniądz' arguments broke all ties with the Calvinists and organized their own synod in the town of Brzeziny on June 10, 1565.

In the 1570s a split was developing between the pacifist and Arian group, led by Marcin Czechowic and Grzegorz Paweł z Brzezin and the non-pacifist and Ebionite group led by the Byelorussian Symon Budny. In 1579 the Italian exile Fausto Sozzini arrived in Poland and applied for admission to the Ecclesia Minor, which was refused because of his rather unusual personal objection to water baptism, however they saw in the Italian an able advocate and Sozzini's capable answering of Budny, followed by his marriage to the daughter of Krzysztof Morsztyn Sr. in 1586 cemented his place among the Polish Brethren. The calling of the group "Socinian" in England is more a result of the place given to Sozzini's writings in the publishing of his grandson Andrzej Wiszowaty Sr. in Amsterdam a century later than any role of active leadership in Sozzini's life — especially given that without submitting to baptism he could never formally join the church that later bore his name abroad.

1602–38, The Racovian Academy

Their biggest cultural centers were Pińczów and Raków, site of the main Arian printing press and the university Racovian Academy (Gymnasium Bonarum Artium) founded in 1602 and closed in 1638, which trained over 1000 students.

1658, Expulsion

The Minor Church ended in Poland on July 20, 1658, when the Sejm expelled the Socinians from Poland. The Brethren never participated in the Sandomierz Agreement 1570 between different Polish Protestants. This occurred after a series of 17th century wars known as The Deluge in which protestant Sweden invaded Poland, since they (as almost all non-Catholics) were commonly seen as Swedish collaborators.

The brethren found exile in three directions:

* Prussia - where Christopher Crell and his sons founded new congregations.
* Netherlands - where Andrzej Wiszowaty Sr. published the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant (1668) and Christopher Sand published the Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum (1684).
* Transylvania - where the Unitarian Church of Transylvania enjoyed freedom. This was the destination of Andrzej Wiszowaty Jr. who became a teacher at the Unitarian College in Cluj.

Beliefs

Theology

Originally, the Minor Church followed an Arian non-trinitarian doctrine inspired by the writings of Michael Servetus. Later on, Socinianism, named for Italian theologian Laelius Socinus, became its main theological approach. They were against capital punishment, and did not believe in the traditional Christian doctrines of Hell or the Trinity.

Church and state

They advocated the separation of church and state and taught the equality and brotherhood of all people; they opposed social privileges based on religious affiliation, and their adherents refused military service (they were known for carrying wooden swords instead of real almost obligatory szablas) and declined political office.

Influence

Although never numerous, they had a significant impact on political thought in Poland. After being expelled from Poland, they emigrated to England, East Prussia and the Netherlands, where their works were widely published and influenced much of the thinking of later philosophers such as John Locke and Pierre Bayle.

Their main ideologues were Piotr z Goniadza ("Gonesius"), Grzegorz Paweł z Brzezin, Marcin Czechowic, although Johannes Crellius (from Germany), and Johann Ludwig von Wolzogen (who came to Poland from Austria) were far better known outside Poland. Among the best known adherents of this fellowship are Mikołaj Sienicki, Jan Niemojewski, and writers and poets Zbigniew Morsztyn and Wacław Potocki.

This expulsion is sometimes taken as the beginning of decline of famous Polish religious freedom, although the decline started earlier and ended later: the last non-Catholic deputy was removed from parliament in the beginning of the 18th century. Most of Polish Brethren moved to the Netherlands, where they greatly influenced European opinion, becoming precursors to Enlightenment. Through their connection to Enlightenment thinkers, their ideas also influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Influence in Britain

John Locke was preceded by a few decades by Samuel Przypkowski on tolerance and by Andrzej Wiszowaty on 'rational religion.' Isaac Newton had met Samuel Crell, son of Johannes Crellius, of the Spinowski family. Newton was well informed about the developments in Poland and collected many books from the Racovian Academy.

The Englishman John Biddle had translated two works by Przypkowski, as well as the Racovian Catechism and a work by Joachim Stegmann, a "Polish Brother" from Germany. Biddle's followers had very close relations with the Polish Socinian family of Crellius (aka Spinowski).

Influence in America

Subsequently, the Unitarian branch of Christianity was continued by, most notably, Joseph Priestley, who had emigrated to the United States and was a friend of both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who claimed to be a Unitarian and credited Priestley with having converted him to that faith. Notably, Priestley was very well informed on the earlier developments in Poland, especially by his mentions of Socinus and Szymon Budny (translator of Bible, author of many pamphlets against the Trinity).

In the modern era

In the Second Polish Republic, 1937, priest Karol Grycz-Śmiałowski recreated what he considered was a revival of the Church of Polish Brethren in Kraków. In the People's Republic of Poland it was registered in 1967 as the Unity of Polish Brethren (Jednota Braci Polskich).

Modern groups which look to the Polish Brethren include the Christadelphians and CoGGC. Although Christadelphians had since their origins in the 1840s always looked for historical precedents, particularly to Arius, the group was unaware of closer precedents in Socinianism. This changed with a series of articles in the community magazine during the early seventies subsequently published. The Polish arm of the Christadelphians use the name Bracia w Chrystusie in conscious echo of Socinian precedents. The Atlanta Bible College of the CoGGC also publish a Journal continuing research into the Polish Brethren and related groups.

[pieter]

the Evangelical Reformed Church in Poland

www.reformowani.pl/

Frequently Asked Questions

1) When was the Polish Reformed church founded?

The Polish Reformed church was founded in 1551 in Southern Poland. In the course of time it existed in three entities, sometimes simultaneously: The Greater Poland Brethren (till 1817), the Lesser Poland Brethren (till 1849), and the Lithuanian Brethren (till 1939). In 1849 the Warsaw Brethren was formed which continued the tradition of the first two above-mentioned Brethren. After World War II it was reorganized as the Polish Evangelical Reformed Church which continues to-day the rich tradition of Polish Reformed Christianity.

2) How many members does the church have?

They lack precise statistics, but they normally speak of c. 4000 members grouped in 9 congregations and eight other places of worship. On an average Sunday there is c. 800 attendants in churches across Poland. The parishes vary greatly in size from Warsaw (c. 400 members), through Łódź (ca.120 members) to Pstrążna (14 members). They are a tiny minority in a population of 38 million Poles.

[rcordes]

I am doing a brief documentary of early Eastern European Unitarianism and how it got from there to America. Does anyone have an image of Piotr of Goniądz (a.k.a. Peter Gonesius) they would let me use? An extensive search of the web turned up nothing. Please send such to [e-mail].

Please note - the image posted by 'pieter' on March 6 is not Piotr of Goniądz - it is Michael Servetus.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Ron