4205019

Polish Protestants and Their Connections with England and Holland in the 17th and 18thCenturiesAuthor(s): Nicholas HansReviewed work(s):Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 37, No. 88 (Dec., 1958), pp. 196-220Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4205019 .Accessed: 22/09/2012 14:56

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and EastEuropean Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Slavonic andEast European Review.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mhra

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucl

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucl

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4205019?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

Polish Protestants and

their Connections with England

and Holland in

the 17th

and 18th Centuries

NICHOLAS HANS

The Polish reformation movement has contributed to Polish cultural

development much more than the Catholic Polish historians are

ready to admit. In the 16th and 17th centuries the Polish Protestants

had numerous and vigorous communities, famous schools and

academies and close connections with other Protestant countries,

especially with England and Holland. In England they influenced

directly the reform of education and the movement for religious tolerance. Although the influence of Komensky (Comenius) and the

Moravian Brothers is comparatively well known, the influence of the

Polish Socinians has not so far been specially studied and the his?

torians of English education hardly,ever mention them.

The origin of the Polish reformation had four independent sources.

The Lutheran Church came directly from adjacent Germany and

was propagated by German settlers in Polish towns. Comparatively few Polish squires and townsmen joined the Lutheran community which all the time remained a branch of the German Lutheran

Church and used German in both its schools and churches. Much

more influential among the native Poles was the Calvinist form of

reformation which was accepted by many Polish squires and mem?

bers of the titled aristocracy. In contrast to Lutheranism, which was

limited to urban centres, Calvinism spread to the estates of the Polish

nobles and influenced the rural population as well. Polish was the

language of Calvinist communities and their schools. The third form

of the Polish reformation, the anti-trinitarian movement, was mainly of Italian origin and was known under many names as Arian, Socinian or unitarian. Although started by Italian exiles this move?

ment was mostly fed by secessions from the Polish Calvinist com?

munities. Owing to its rationalist features unitarianism was adopted almost exclusively by Polish squires and intellectuals. Although very influential in Poland for a century, the normal growth of the

' Soci?

nian heresy' was cut short by Catholic persecution and total pro? hibition and closure of their churches and schools in 1660. As a

matter of fact both Lutheran and Calvinist deputies voted with the

Catholics in the Seym for this legal murder of one of the most

POLISH PROTESTANTS AND THEIR CONNECTIONS 197

enlightened communities of Europe. Exiled and dispersed, the Polish

Socinians ceased to be an organised community and influenced

England and Holland only through individual members. The fourth

group of Polish protestants grew as ' Polska Jednota', a branch of the

Moravian Brothers of the 'Unitas Fratrum'.

The four Protestant churches of Poland clearly understood the

necessity of federation in order to withstand the dominant Roman

Catholic Church. Even the West Russian Orthodox leaders under?

stood the necessity of combined action by all 'dissidents'. The famous

West Russian leader Prince Constantine Ostrozhsky, the governor of

Kiev province, convened a conference of Orthodox theologians and

Calvinist divines to discuss the possibility of religious and political

agreement. In spite of all Ostrozhsky's efforts the theologians could

agree on only one point, namely that the Pope of Rome was the

Antichrist. This common ground proved to be insufficient for com?

bined action and the political agreement which was concluded did

not last long. More promising was a federation of the four Protestant

communities. The Socinians advocated mutual recognition and

tolerance, and common action against the increasing dominance of

the Catholic Church. However, neither the Lutherans not the Cal?

vinists could accept the 'Socinian heretics' as brother Christians and

they joined the Catholics in persecuting them. Thus the possibility of federation was limited to three Protestant communities: Lutherans, Calvinists and Moravians. The federation was concluded at the

synod of dissenters at Sandomierz in 1570 and was confirmed at

Torun in 1595. The majority of Polish Lutherans of German origin,

closely connected with the German Lutheran Church, were unwilling members of the Protestant federation and soon dissociated them?

selves from the native Polish Calvinists and the Czecho-Polish Unitas

Fratrum.

Thus only the Moravians and the Calvinists remained to form a

stable union. As early as 1555, at the conference of Kozminek, the

Moravian Brothers of Great Poland and the Calvinists of Little

Poland united into a single church with mutual recognition of tra?

ditional differences. This union was preserved throughout the 17th and 18th centuries; it transcended the frontiers of Poland and was

recognised by Calvinists in Lithuania and Prussia. Yet for historical

purposes we have to distinguish the mainly Moravian community of

Poland from the Calvinists of Lithuania and deal with them separ?

ately.

ig8 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

I

The Unitas Fratrum and their Academy at Leszna1

The Polish town Leszna (Latin, Lesna, German and English Lissa) lies

on the Polish-German frontier twelve miles from Wroclaw (Breslau) and ten miles from Poznan. Thus it was suitably situated for religious

refugees from Bohemia, Moravia, and Germany, who were persecuted

by Catholic powers during and after the Thirty Years War. The first

group of Czech Protestant refugees arrived at Leszna in 1552 after

their first expulsion from the empire in 1547. They were remnants of

the Hussite movement who, through the last Italian bishop of the

Waldenses, claimed the uninterrupted apostolic succession for their

bishops. As the owners of Leszna, the Counts Leszczinski, were mem?

bers of the Moravian Brotherhood, they afforded all facilities to the exiled Czechs. Three years after their arrival the exiles started a

school at Leszna in 1555 for their own members. The Polish and

German-speaking citizens of Leszna began to join the Unitas Frat?

rum and send their boys to the school. In 1579 Count Rafael IV

Leszczynski endowed the school and set it on a firm foundation. His

grandson Rafael V transformed the school into a gymnasium

(academy) in 1624 and undertook the payment of salaries of all the

teachers from 1626.

At that time the school became definitely international as not

only the Czechs but the Poles and the Germans took an active

part in its further development. Even the first rectors of the 16th

century confirm its trilingual character. David Knobloch was a

German from Silesia, Andreas Fabricius came from Hungary, Johann Musonius was a Leszna-born German, Georg Manlig a

German, and Michael Aschenborner a Pole from Leszna. Aschen-

borner was the last rector of the unreformed school. In 1624 Rafael

Leszczynski appointed a team of teachers from all three nations to the

new academy. A Pole, Jan Rybinski, educated at Frankfort-on-Oder and Leyden, became rector with Michael Henrici, a Silesian German, as co-rector, David Ursinus, a Leszna German, as coadjutor, and

Jan Dekan, a Czech from Prague, educated at Leyden, as cantor. In 1628 a second numerous group of Moravian Brothers arrived, led by two bishops, Erastus and Cyril, and Jan Amos Komen-

sky (Comenius). Although Komensky was at once acknowledged as an educational leader, he was appointed rector of the academy only in

1636. Meanwhile in 1629 a well-known historian, Andreas W^gerski,

1 J. Lukaszewicz, Von der Kirchen der Bohmischen Briider in ehemaligen Grosspolen, Gratz, 1877; J. Lukaszewicz, History a Szkol w Koronie etc., 2 vols, Poznan, 1849-51; F. J. Zoubek, ZivotJ. A. Komenskeho, 2 vols. Prague, 1902; Polski Slovnik Biograficzny (P.S.B), vols A to F.


was appointed in place of Rybinski, and after his retirement in 1633 the co-rector Michael Henrici acted as rector for three years.

With the arrival of Komensky the academy experienced the most

brilliant period of its history. New teachers were appointed: Jan Stadius, Adam Hartman, Jan Laubman, Martin Crusius, Jan Cyrill and Martin Gertich. Nikolas Gertich reported that in 1637 nis

teachers were: rector Komensky, vice-rector J. Dekan, pro-rector Daniel Wankius (a German Lutheran), co-rector Sebastian Macer, co-rector Benjamin Ursinus, and Crusius, Cyrill, Laubman, Andreas

Fabricius and Jan Borowski. Thus the staff amounted to ten teachers.

The famous rector organised the school according to his pedagogical ideas and wrote Leges illustres Gymnasii in 1635. The school was

divided into four classes (years), later into five classes, with a class

teacher for each year. There were two large lecture rooms, each

accommodating two classes. Besides Latin, the three mother tongues of

the pupils, Czech, Polish and German, were taught and used as media

of instruction. The subjects included Latin, Greek, the three modern

languages, history, geography, mathematics, natural history, and

theology. Mathematics was taught by J. Dekan, Polish by A. Uffan.

Sciences were not neglected, and the well-known physician John

Johnstone acted as school physician and part-time teacher of sciences.

The fame of Komensky and his academy of Leszna spread all over

Europe and resulted in the pilgrimages of Komensky to many foreign lands including England. Many teachers from Leszna took part in these

travels. Komensky was absent from Leszna during 1641-8 and his

co-rector Sebastian Macer acted as rector. After his return Komen?

sky was officially rector in 1648-50, but he again left Leszna to

organise a pansophic college at Saros Patak in Transylvania. During his absence a Czech exile, Georg Vechner, acted as rector, and when

Komensky returned in 1653 he relegated all administration of the

academy to his friend Adam Samuel Hartman, devoting all his time

to writing and publishing. In 1630 Wigand Funck (Funcius) from

Silesia settled in Leszna and became the chief printer of Unitas

Fratrum. Komensky was appointed the chief supervisor of printing.

During 1630-55 Funck published 147 books including some works of

Komensky. In 1656 during the war with Sweden, accompanied by civil war between the Polish Catholics and Protestants, Leszna was

burnt down by Catholics as a centre of Protestantism and Komensky left his academy for the last time for Holland where he died in 1670. Thus the first period of the Leszna academy ended with its destruc?

tion and closure for six years. The rebuilding of the school needed

funds and the Moravian Brothers appealed to England and Holland.

200 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

II

Links with England2

The first connection of Leszna with England can be traced to John

Johnstone who came to Britain in 1624. His father, Simon Johnstone of Craigieborn in Scotland, emigrated to Sambter in Poland where

John was born in 1603. In 1624 John, after graduating from Leszna, went to the country of his ancestors and matriculated at St Andrews

to study medicine. In 1629 he was at Cambridge studying botany and

medicine. In 1630 he matriculated at Leyden and graduated M.D.

in 1632. He returned to Cambridge in 1633 and was incorporated M.D. in 1634. This time he brought two students from Leszna with

him. They were Count Boguslaw Leszczynski and Wladyslaw Doro-

hostajski, son of the Marshal of Lithuania, both pupils of Komen-

sky. They graduated at the Leszna academy in 1630 and went to

Leyden, where they were supervised by Johnstone. He took them to

Cambridge and from the Bodleian Library Register we know that

B. Leszczynski studied at Oxford in 1633. Johnstone returned to Leszna

in 1636 and acted as physician to his former pupil Count B. Leszczyn? ski and as assistant of Komensky at the academy. In 1640 he married

a cousin of Georg Vechner, who acted as rector in 1650-3. Johnstone was offered a chair of medicine at Leyden in 1640, but remained in

Poland, where he died in 1675 and was buried at Leszna. Johnstone was a distinguished scientist and enjoyed a European reputation.

In 1632 two students from Leszna, Daniel Erastus and Samuel

Benedictus (Blajei), were sent by the Moravian Brothers to study at

Cambridge. They both matriculated, and Erastus received his B.A. in

1636 (under the name of Brestus), while Benedictus received his B.A.

in 1634 and an M.A. in 1638 (under the name of Bennet). The next

distinguished student of Leszna who came to England was Wictoryn

Bythner. After completing his medical studies in Frankfort-on-Oder, he came to Oxford in 1635 to study oriental languages, in which he

specialised after abandoning the medical profession. He went to

Cambridge in 1643 and in 1651 was appointed lecturer in Hebrew

at Oxford. We must also mention the other Leszna students who

studied in England: Jan Lactus, after spending some years at Leyden

(1632-5), came to England in 1636, and the two Vechner brothers, David and Georg, came to England in 1640. Georg was later acting rector of Leszna. Thus when Komensky arrived in London in 1641 his academy was well known in the English centres of learning.

Komensky brought two Leszna students with him as assistants. 2 R. F. Young, Comenius in England, London, 1932; Dictionary of National Biography;

P.S.B. (see 1); Alumni Oxonienses; Alumni Cantabrigienses; Stanislas Kot, Anglo-Polonica, vol. 20, Nauka Polska, 1935.


Petrus Figulus, a Czech, came to Leszna with Komensky in 1628 and

was educated by him in his academy. In 1636 he continued his

education abroad and accompanied Komensky in 1641. Later, in

1649, ne married Komensky's daughter and played an important role

in the Moravian Brotherhood. His son Daniel Ernst (grandson of

Komensky) is better known as Jablonski. The second assistant of

Komensky in England was Olyrius, who afterwards went to Leyden in 1643. Another pupil of Komensky at Leszna, Michael Arnold, went to Franeker in 1641, and Leyden in 1643 and came to Cam?

bridge in 1644 to study medicine. He went back to Franeker, was ap?

pointed professor of medicine and was rector of Franeker University four times, in 1653, 1661, 1671 and 1676. The story of Komensky's visit to England and his intimate connections with the circles of

Samuel Hartlib and Robert Boyle (invisible college) are well known

and need not be repeated here.

III

The New Foundation of the Leszna Academy3

In 1657 the acting rector of the destroyed academy of Leszna, Adam Samuel Hartman, and one of its teachers, Jan Cyrill, the

brother-in-law of Komensky, came to England to collect funds for

the reconstruction of the academy. Hartman sent a memorandum to

the archbiship of Canterbury in 1657 on the persecution of the Unitas

Fratrum in Poland. In 1659 they presented Cromwell with a

memorandum and the latter authorised them by an ordinance of

2 May 1659 to raise subscriptions throughout the country. With the

help of English and Dutch sympathisers the two Moravians collected

in England and Holland 120,000 marks (about ?6,000) and thus

were able to rebuild the academy. It was opened in 1662 and Hart?

man resumed his rectorship, which he held till 1673, when he

resigned. He was succeeded by his son-in-law Marcin Arnold, who

was rector until his death in 1685. Then through Hartman's influence

the grandson of Komensky, Daniel Ernst Figulus, was appointed. Daniel Ernst assumed the name of Jablonski, after the native vil?

lage of his father. As he is known in history as Jablonski, we shall use

this name. Jablonski was born in 1661 and hardly knew his grand? father. But he grew up under Komensky's shadow and influence.

Komensky's ideas and activities were transmitted to him by his

father and his teachers at the academy of Leszna. After graduat?

ing he and his three classmates. Samuel Gulich, Jakob Makowski and

Simon Arnold, went to Frankfort-on-Oder and matriculated there in

1677 f?r tne study of theology, and remained there till 1680. At that 1 H. Dalton, Daniel Ernst Jablonski, Berlin, 1903; see also 2.


time two brothers Hartman had strong connections in England. Pawel Hartman went to Oxford, graduated M.A. in 1658 and settled

permanently in England as Anglican rector at Shillingford, Berk?

shire. His brother, retired rector of Leszna, Adam Samuel Hartman, visited England in 1679 and was awarded a degree of D.D. at Oxford

in 1680. Through their influence the Church of England published at

its own cost a memorandum on the Unitas Fratrum in 1683 and dis?

tributed it in all dioceses. At the same time Jan Petroselin collected funds for the Polish Protestants. Through their connections the two

brothers succeeded in receiving a grant of ?200 from Charles II for

the education of two Leszna students at Oxford. Hartman selected

Jablonski and Gulich, who had just returned to Leszna from

Frankfort-on-Oder. They came to Oxford in 1680 and resided at

Christ Church for three years as Royal stipendiaries. But they did not

officially matriculate as they did not sign the articles of the Church of

England. The residence at Oxford and frequent visits to London influenced

Jablonski far more than the studies at Frankfort-on-Oder. In

London he was in touch with puritan societies which included

both Anglicans and Presbyterians, and which endeavoured to raise the moral standard of the people lowered by the Stuart reaction. He came into intimate contact with the bishop of London, Compton, William Beveridge, later bishop of St Asaph, and the German

clergyman, Horneck. These connections and his personal friendship with the chaplain of Christ Church, Oxford, John Ernest Grabe (a Prussian by birth, D.D. of Oxford in 1706), helped Jablonski later in

his appeals to England. After their return to Leszna in 1683, Samuel Gulich was ap?

pointed co-rector of the academy in 1683 and Jablonski rector

in 1686. The Leszna academy was slowly recovering from its closure in 1656. In 1663 there were only 13 pupils which grew to

71 in 1675 and 126 in 1723. During the first year of Jablonski's rectorship the upper three classes had only 21 pupils, but half of them were sons of the Polish nobility and one was the future King Stanislaw

Leszczynski, the father-in-law of Louis XV. Jablonski followed

Komensky's tradition, invited parents to take an active interest in the school and promoted amateur theatricals. He married Barbara Fer-

gushill, of Scottish origin, and kept pro-British sympathies alive in his

family. In 1691 he left Leszna for Berlin, where he was appointed court preacher. Yet he kept close contacts with the Moravian

Brothers, was consecrated as their bishop and played an important role in the movement for Protestant unity. But that activity belongs to the 18th century. Jablonski's successor was Jan Serenius Chodo-

wiecki, educated at Frankfort-on-Order, son of J. S. Chodowiecki


senior, who matriculated at Franeker in 1635 and was a student of

Jan Makowski. Rector Chodowiecki translated some of Komensky's works into German and Bishop Edward Fowler's The Principles and Practices of the Latitudinarians into Latin.

IV

The Unitas Fratrum in the i8th Century4

During the first half of the 18th century the Leszna academy was

under the constant threat of closure by the Catholic government of

Poland. Count Stanislaw Leszczynski, the pupil of Jablonski and later

king of Poland, was converted to Catholicism and although he con?

tinued to protect and provide for his academy, he could not be so

favourably disposed as his ancestors had been. During the long

struggle of Charles XII of Sweden with Peter the Great, Leszna quite

naturally sided with King Stanislaw Leszczynski and the Protestant

Charles XII. It was burned down again in 1707, this time by the

Russian troops. The rector, Samuel Arnold, son of Marcin, succeeded

in reconstructing the academy but it was uphill work and the number

of pupils grew very slowly. The patronage of the Leszczynski family and of many Polish nobles was withdrawn and the pupils were mostly Leszna merchants of German origin. Nevertheless Polish as the lan?

guage of instruction survived even the annexation of Leszna by Prussia, and the academy became a German gymnasium only in the

19th century.

Jablonski, now a preacher at the Prussian court, could assert his

influence and appeal to the Prussian rulers for protection. He was

active in the realisation of the old dream of Komensky and John

Dury in attempting to unite all Protestants in a religious federation.

His connections with England were useful in this respect. He was

awarded the D.D. at Oxford in 1706 and sent his son Pawel to study in England in 1716. Later P. Jablonski studied at Leyden and was

appointed professor at Frankfort-on-Oder. In 1715 the Privy Council

issued an order 'for the relief and for preserving the Episcopal Churches (Unitas Fratrum) in Great Poland and Polish Russia'.

That was the result of Jablonski's visit to England in 1709, when he

met Marlborough and attended a meeting of the Privy Council under

the chairmanship of Lord Sommers. Through his friend the arch?

bishop of Canterbury, and with the approval of George I, Jablonski received the right to collect funds for the Moravian Brothers in all

parts of England. The collection amounted to 237,000 marks (about

?12,000) which was divided equally between the Polish and Hun?

garian communities of the Unitas Fratrum.

4 See 2 and 3, also Deutsche Allgemeine Biographie.


The Leszna Synod again sent students to England. In 1717

Krystian Sitowski, a minister of the Unitas Fratrum, came to England to collect funds. In 1718 Bogusaw Kopijewicki came to study and remained in England for eight years. The financial conditions

of the academy were more precarious since the conversion of

Stanislaw Leszczynski. In 1717 the Leszna Synod had to assume the

payment of salaries of four teachers of the academy on condition that

the Polish nobles would pay for the fifth. Leszczynski lost interest in

his Protestant heritage and sold Leszna to Prince Sulkowski in 1738.

Although Sulkowski proved to be a kind patron of the academy, the

old intimate connections with the Polish nobility could not be re?

stored.

The precarious position of Polish Protestants and the intimate

relations of the Moravian bishop Jablonski with the Church of

England made England a promised land to the descendants of the

Moravian exiles. The coming of the Moravian Brothers to England has an interesting history. In 1722 a Czech carpenter, Christian

David, with a group of ten Moravians, emigrated from Bohemia

and found asylum on the estate of Count Nikolas Ludovik Zinzendorff

in Saxony and named his settlement 'Herrnhut'. Jablonski was

interested in the new community of Moravian Brothers and started a

correspondence with Zinzendorff, who joined the community in

1729. In 1737 Jablonski consecrated Zinzendorff as bishop of the

Unitas. Zinzendorff was in England in the 1720s and he had many friends among the English aristocracy. He came to England again and

obtained an Act of Parliament in 1749 recognising Unitas Fratrum as

an episcopalian church in community with the Church of England. On the strength of this legal recognition Zinzendorff sent a group of

Moravian Brothers to England for permanent settlement.

One of the first Englishmen who joined the Moravians in 1737 was

James Hutton, who was married by Zinzendorff in 1740. At first

Hutton was connected with John Wesley, who at that time considered

the possibility of joining Unitas Fratrum himself. But he disagreed with Zinzendorff and started his own methodist movement. Hutton

officially joined the Unitas Fratrum and became the leader of the

English Moravians. He was a very broad-minded man and an inti?

mate friend of Benjamin Franklin and English deists and unitarians.

The English Moravians founded their own academies where the

principles of Komensky were directly accepted through the channel

of Zinzendorff and Jablonski. The English Moravians sent their

missionaries to America and established their communities not only in the English-speaking North but in the Spanish-speaking South as

well. Thus the century-old relations of the Unitas with England resulted in an English-speaking branch of Komensky's church.


From 1716 to 1824 the Leszna academy was closely connected with

the family of Cassius. The family originally came from Kaszkow in

Pomerania and their name was Kaszkowski. In the middle of the

17th century a branch of the family settled in Leszna and assumed the

latinised name of Cassius. Another branch emigrated to Germany and

was gradually germanised. Christian Cassius, of the German branch, was educated in Paris and Leyden, and in Paris he lived in the house

of Hugo Grotius in 1628-31. The first Cassius of the Leszna branch

connected with the academy was David who was a teacher in 1660

and was appointed co-rector of the academy in 1669. I know of

twelve members of the family educated at the Leszna academy during

150 years of their connection with it. The first rector of this name was

David Cassius, matriculated at Franeker in 1692, who on his return

became senior and bishop of Unitas Fratrum. He was a pupil of

Jablonski and later was associated with him in all his activities as a

junior bishop. In 1707, after the burning of Leszna by the Russians, David Cassius was sent by the Unitas to Germany to collect funds, and in 1714 he went to Holland for the same purpose. He was

appointed rector in 1716 and sent his Polish pupils to Frankfort-on-

Oder, Leyden and England. After his death the next rector was

David's brother. Jan Alexander Cassius, son of the Moravian senior

Pawel, who was educated at Frankfort-on-Oder and Leyden. During his long rectorship of forty-eight years the number of pupils in the

academy grew to more than 200. He was succeeded by his son

Christian Theofil, who also was educated at Frankfort-on-Oder

and Leyden. He was appointed rector in 1788 and wrote textbooks on

logics, antiquities, history, and geography which were used in the

academy in manuscript form. In 1797 he resigned in favour of his

cousin, Boguslaw David Cassius, who was pro-rector in 1797 and rector

in 1800-24. He was the last Polish rector who defended the use of

Polish as a medium of instruction. After his resignation in 1824 the Leszna academy was germanised and became one of the German

gymnasia.

V

The Polish Socinians5

The anti-trinitarian movement within the Christian Churches, known in history as the Arian heresy, was started by the Canon of

Alexandria, Arius, in the 4th century and at one time had as many

6 E. M. Wilbur, A History of Unitarianism, Sodnianism and its Antecedents, Cambridge, Mass., 1946; E. M. Wilbur, Our Unitarian Heritage, Boston, 1925; S. Morawski, Arjanie Polscy, L'vov, 1905; St. Kot, Ideologia . . . Bract Polskich, zwanych Arjanami, Warsaw, 1932; H. Dalton, Johannes a Lasko, Beitrage zur Reformations Geschichte Polens, Deutschlands und Englands, Gotha, 1881; H. Dalton, John a Lasko, his Earlier Life, Labours, etc., London, 1886; P.S.B. (see 1) and Deutsche Allgemeine Biographic.


adherents as the orthodox trinitarian church which accepted the

Nicaean creed. Suppressed and persecuted by the Roman Church, the anti-trinitarian views became a secret creed of a few intellectuals,

especially in Spanish universities under Moslem kings when Moslem,

Jewish and Christian professors mixed freely and shared the same

'deistic' opinions. After the reformation which split the unity of

Western Christendom, anti-trinitarian opinions reappeared in the

open and were organised in a separate denomination with their

churches and schools. The famous Spanish physician, Miguel Servetus, was one of the first anti-trinitarians and was burnt by Calvin in

Geneva for heresy. His follower, Cassiodorus de Reyna, fled to London

and became a preacher to Spanish exiles. At the same time many Italian theologians adopted these heretical views and had to flee from

the inquisition to Switzerland, England and Poland. Many of them

came to London and were members of the Strangers Church at

Austin Friars during the first period of the English reformation. The

Strangers Church was a link between the English and continental

Protestants and incidentally connected the Church of England with

Poland.

When Archbishop Cranmer formulated the catechism and the

prayer book for the Protestant Church of England, he invited the

Polish theologian, John A. Lasko (Jan Laski), to assist him in this work.

Laski took an active part in Cranmer's reforms as a member of the

commission of 1551, and when the archbishop had established a

special church for continental Protestants he appointed Laski as

superintendent of Strangers Church in 1550. Although Laski was not

openly an anti-trinitarian he welcomed anti-trinitarian Spaniards, Italians and others to his church. De Reyna was appointed Spanish

preacher and Ochino, Giacomo Aconzio, and Laelius Socini were the

leaders of the Italian community. With the death of Edward VI in

1553 both Laski and Laelius Socini left for Poland.

The first Polish anti-trinitarian was Peter Goniondz (Gonesius), who was influenced by the lectures of S. Chatillon (Castello) and

the Italian Curione at the University of Bale. As is well known

Chatillon, who sympathised with Servetus, escaped from Geneva

to Bale. Goniondz returned to Poland in 1555 and started pro?

pagating anti-trinitarian views among the Polish Calvinists. The Italian anti-trinitarians Biandrata, Alciati, Gentile and Laelius Socini all went to Poland and furthered the movement. But the

most important influence was exercised by the nephew of Laelius Socini?Faustus. Faustus Socini, after escaping from the Inquisi? tion of Florence, settled permanently in Poland near Cracow and

organised the scattered groups of Polish anti-trinitarians into a

new denomination, which became known as Socinians. The new


church called itself neither Arian nor Socinian and officially adopted the name of'Polish Brothers' or the 'Minor Reformed Church'

(the Calvinists being the 'Major Reformed Church'). As the

Polish members of the Unitas Fratrum (Moravian Brethren) were

also known as 'Polish Brothers' this has led to the confusion by many historians of individual members of the two communities. For in?

stance Ch. G. Woide of the British Museum is wrongly identified in the

Dictionary of National Biography as 'Socinian', when he was a Moravian.

The Pax Dissidentium, enacted by the Polish Seym in 1573 as the law

of Poland, protected the new church for about a century and the

movement spread very rapidly. In this growth the most important

part was played by the academy of Rakow. The township of Rakow, a

property of the noble family Sieninski, which lies between Cracow

and Warsaw, became the recognised centre of the Socinians. In 1602

Jan Sieninski and his son Jakub founded the famous school of Rakow.

It soon grew into a large academic centre of learning known as

'Athenae Sarmaticae' and attracted pupils from all over Poland-

Lithuania and from abroad. For instance two Frenchmen, Cristophe and Pierre Statorius (Stoinski) studied at Rakow and matriculated

at Altdorf in 1604. Even an Englishman, Thomas Segeth, was a

student of Rakow and matriculated at Altdorf in 1614 under the

name of Seghetus. The number of pupils soon increased to a thousand, of whom about three hundred belonged to the Polish noble families, both Socinians and Calvinists. Leszczynskis, Branickis, Tarlows,

Niezabitowskis, Sieninskis and other well-known Polish names can be

found among the students of Rakow.

The relations between the Socinians and the Moravians were

friendly on the whole and Komensky's pedagogical ideas were ac?

cepted wholeheartedly at Rakow. Moravian students attended the

academy of Rakow and Socinian students attended Leszna. Komen?

sky himself was often approached by Socinians to join their church.

In 1640, when Rakow was closed, the leading Socinian writer and

teacher Jan Schlichting personally asked Komensky to accept his

son as a pupil at Leszna and handed to Komensky his works against the Trinity. Komensky accepted young Schlichting and read his

father's works but did not join the Socinians. Whether he firmly be?

lieved in the divinity of Jesus or did not wish to join an outlawed church

and to disrupt the working agreement with the Calvinists is uncertain, but he was undoubtedly influenced by Schlichting's arguments.

The Rakow academy developed on the lines of Komensky's ideas

even before they were made known by publication. The Socinian

views on the social equality of all true Christians led to the com?

pulsory acquisition of a manual trade by all pupils, whether aristo?

crats, merchants or craftsmen. Marcyn Ruar, a German Socinian,


who matriculated at Altdorf in 1611 and later became rector of

Rakow, wrote a memorandum on education for the relatives of

Piotr Rzeczyski, who went to Leyden to complete his education. In

it he recommended that all young squires should study mathematics,

politics and law, Polish and general history and geography, in?

cluding maps. Geometry and mathematics should be studied in

useful application to civil and military sciences.

The first rector of Rakow was the author and poet Erasmus

Otwinowski who died in 16io at the age of ninety. During the short

period of its existence, 1602-38, the Rakow academy had a brilliant

team of rectors and teachers. The second rector, Krzysztof Ostorod

(Osterodus), was a Socinian minister who, together with another

Socinian leader, Woidowski, came to Leyden in 1598, had personal contact with Arminius (Harmensch) and propagated his views orally and in writing. They converted some Leyden students, among them Ernest Soner, later rector of Altdorf. They were ordered to leave

Holland and their books were publicly burnt; they then went to

Rakow, and Ostorod was appointed rector of the academy. In 1616

another outstanding Socinian was appointed rector?Jan Crell

(Crellius), who was at Altdorf together with Marcyn Ruar and

emigrated to Poland in 1612. His anti-trinitarian works acquired a

European reputation, were translated into English and read by many

English intellectuals. He resigned his post to his friend Marcyn Ruar

in 1621. Ruar was another German by birth, like Crell, who became

a naturalised Pole. He travelled widely: in Paris he became a friend

of Hugo Grotius, in England he met the English latitudinarians, and

in Holland he had contacts with the Arminians. His views on edu?

cation have been mentioned before. The teachers were also able

writers and had progressive pedagogical views. Jan Schlichting,

Walenty Szmalc, Petrus Statorius (French by birth), his son Jan Stoinski, Andreas Wiszowaty (grandson of Faustus Socini), three

Liubienieckis, two Stegmans?were all outstanding teachers, not only of theology but of history, mathematics, and classical languages.

Rakow was the centre of Socinian learning and was well known for

its publishing activities. The printing office was at work from 1575. Here were printed the Rakow Catechism and works of all the Soci? nian leaders at Rakow, and thence these publications penetrated

(being in Latin) into all Western countries including England. Although the first Socinian MSS were already available in England at the end of the 16th century, a wider distribution of Socinian books

took place in the 17th century. In 1638 John Hales and later John Prideaux of Oxford, afterwards bishop of Worcester, read Crell's

books printed at Rakow in 1623. Polish Socinians, after the closure of

Rakow and the dispersion of its teachers, started coming to England


for the propagation of their views. But before we deal with their

English contacts we must finish the story of the Socinian schools.

In 1638 the Polish Seym with the help of Calvinist and Lutheran

votes outlawed the Socinian Church and ordered the closure of all its

churches and schools. The Rakow academy was shut at the peak of its

achievement and European reputation. However, in Podolia among the Russian (Ukrainian) Orthodox population, the Socinian squire

Jerzy Czaplic-Szpanowski founded a secondary school in 1614 on his

estate of Kisielin, and when Rakow was closed he invited its teachers

to Kisielin to continue their work. Jan Schlichting, Krzysztof Liubie-

niecki Samuel Przypkowski and Krzysztof Stoinski migrated to

Kisielin and joined the local teachers Maciej Twardochleb and Jakub

Hryniewicz, thus continuing the Rakow tradition. Yet the govern? ment, prompted by the Catholic hierarchy, closed this Podolian

academy as well in 1644. One should not presume that the Orthodox

Cossacks looked with favour on the Socinians. The troops of Bogdan

Khmel'nitsky burned down and looted all Polish churches and

estates, whether Catholic, Calvinist or Socinian. The higher Socinian

learning found an asylum for a time outside Poland, just on the

German side of the frontier at Luclawici, where the local landowners

Stanislaw Taszycki and Abraham Blonski founded an academy. Jan Crell, Marcyn Ruar, Joachim Stegman, the mathematician Adam

Frank, Wojciech Manlius, all from the Rakow academy, continued at

Luclawici. The studies included theology, methaphysics, logic,

physics and mathematics, besides classical subjects, history and

geography. The Socinian works came to England, mostly in manuscript,

already in the 16th century; the printed works of Simon Budny were

also available at the end of the 16th century. In 1618 a whole group of well-known Socinians came to London from Leyden. They in?

cluded Sbignew Sieninski, Samuel Przypkowski, Krzysztof Przyp? kowski, Jonasz Schlichting, Mikolai Lyszko, Jan Morsztyn and

Krzysztof Milanowski. Undoubtedly they had some connections in

London and left traces of their visit.

VI

Socinians in England6

The first known English Socinian was John Biddle, BA. Oxford

1634 and M.A. 1641. He was appointed headmaster of St Mary le

Crypt Grammar School (Gloucestershire) and apparently developed Socinian views independently through reading. In 1638 the Socinian

6 St. Kot, Anglo-Polonica, vol. 20; D.N.B.; M. Cranstone, John Locke, 2 vols, London, 1957-


Jan Cizchowski from Rakow was in Oxford for the propagation of

Socinian views and it is very likely that Biddle was influenced by him. To escape imprisonment Biddle confessed his errors publicly in 1644 but nevertheless he was gaoled in 1647 and released only in 1652 with the passing of the Act of Oblivion. He started the first

Socinian congregation in England and had contacts with the Polish

Socinians, since he met Crell-Spinowski and corresponded with

Jeremiusz Feldbinger, a Polish Socinian, who was educated at Frank?

fort and was rector of Wroclaw. Biddle wrote a Socinian catechism

which was translated into Latin by a member of his congregation, Nathan Stukey, and he published Socinian tracts by S. Przypkowski,

J. Stegman and others. Biddle was again imprisoned and died in

gaol in 1662. But his views were propagated by his friend Thomas

Firmin, who by his prudent behaviour escaped persecution. In 1662

Firmin collected money, partly in churches, Tor the exiled anti-

trinitarians of Poland'. In 1681 he collected ?680 for the persecuted Polish Calvinists. The non-juring Bishop Frampton called Firmin 'a

nonconformist to all Christendom besides a few lowsy sectaries in

Poland'. In 1687 Firmin published A Brief History of Unitarians called

also Socinians and other Socinian books. It appears that Firmin was

the first to use the term 'unitarians' which was later accepted in

England and Transylvania. After the restoration of the Stuarts Fir?

min used to hold gatherings of latitudinarians at his house. Fowler, later bishop of Worcester, Tillotson, later archbishop of Canter?

bury, and other unorthodox Anglicans attended these meetings, and

John Locke went regularly. From indirect evidence they met there

Crell-Spinowski and other Polish Socinians.

In the 1650s Krzysztof Crell-Spinowski, son of Jan Crell, came to

England for the first time and due to his father's fame was accepted in English radical circles as one of their members. He met Biddle and

formed a friendship with Firmin. Crell-Spinowski started his educa?

tion at Rakow, then followed his teacher Marcyn Ruar to Danzig. In 1646 he was appointed teacher at the academy of Luclawici and

in 1648 he completed his education at Leyden together with three

other well-known Polish Socinians: Maciej Przypkowski, Alexander

Konarski (uncle of the famous Piarist Stanislaw Konarski) and Jan

Arciszewski, who went to England in 1651 with Crell. In 1662 Crell

came to England again, and in secret Socinian circles at Oxford and

Cambridge he propagated his views with success. He advised the

English Socinians not to follow the example of Biddle and to abstain

from forming Socinian congregations. In his opinion the latitudin?

arian views leading to Socinian ideology would be better propagated

by remaining officially within the Church of England. In 1666 he

went to Holland to collect funds, but came back to England. Mrs


Stukey, mother of Nathan and friend of Biddle, offered Crell suffi?

cient money to educate his two sons, Samuel and Paul, at Cambridge. Paul Crell became a physician and practised in England. Samuel

Crell (Crellius) became one of the most learned men in Europe of

his time; he collaborated with Pierre Bay le and was a friend of

Newton, Locke, and Shaftesbury, who shared his views whilst re?

maining members of the Church of England. Locke's Reasonableness

of Christianity, published anonymously, was obviously a Socinian

book, and it was at once attacked as such by the orthodox trini?

tarians. If Locke publicly denied his Socinianism, it was only in

accordance with the advice of Crell-Spinowski. Crell himself

adopted the name Spinowski (Spinovius) to escape the Socinian

fame of his father. Samuel went to Luclawici where for a time he

acted as preacher and teacher. He made frequent visits to England,

Holland, Berlin and Russia. In 1725 he settled at Amsterdam with

the Remonstrants (or Collegian ts) under whose professor, Philipp van

Limborgh, he had studied earlier. As is well known, Limborgh was an

intimate friend of Locke. Samuel Crell died in Amsterdam in 1747. He had followed the example of his father and had published his

works under an assumed name?Lucas Mellierus?which was an

anagram of Samuel Crellius. In London he knew Archbishop Tillot-

son, who publicly spoke in high appreciation of Socinians as men.

The younger brother of Krzysztof Crell, Jan, was educated at

Luclawici and came to England in 1657. He went to Leyden in 1653 to study medicine. He sent his son Daniel to Cambridge to be edu?

cated with his two cousins (as Socinians all three Crells were not

matriculated). Daniel was introduced to Locke by his cousin Samuel.

Besides the Crell family other Polish Socinians also came to England. In 1660 Andreas Wiszowaty came to England. His two classmates at

Leyden, Alexander Czaplic-Szpanowski and Krzysztof Arciszewski, also visited England earlier. Christian Sandius was at Oxford in

1669. Adam Frank of Luclawici was in England in 1630. As a result of these contacts with the Polish Socinians their views

were disseminated in England quite widely, and an embittered con?

troversy was started after the publication of Locke's Reasonableness of

Christianity. Especially prolific in his heterodox publications was

William Whiston, an Anglican clergyman and successor of Newton as

professor of mathematics at Cambridge, who was expelled from

Cambridge in 1611 for his heretical opinions. The Socinians were

joined by 'deists' and the controversy raged throughout the 18th

century. In this polemic the orthodox Calvinists were more intolerant

than the Anglicans. It was the puritan parliament which imprisoned Biddle and it was the Scottish Church which burnt a Scottish

Socinian as late as 1797. In the 18th century, however, the English


Calvinists, being a persecuted minority themselves, advocated the

policy of toleration and many of their leaders became openly 'uni?

tarians'. The case of Joseph Priestley is well known. Here it should be

mentioned that the practice of Polish Socinian academies in pro?

moting scientific studies and tolerant and reasoned argument was

adopted by the dissenting academies of England, of which Warrington

Academy was a famous example.

VII

The Lithuanian Calvinists and Their Contacts

with England7

Lithuanian Calvinism owed its growth to two causes. First the ex?

tremely rich and influential princely family of Radziwill joined the Geneva creed and promoted it in all its towns and estates.

Secondly, after 1615 the Scottish Calvinists, persecuted by James I,

emigrated to Lithuania in thousands and settled mostly in the two

towns of the Radziwill family, the Lithuanian Kiejdany near Kaunas

and the Belorussian Sluck (Slutsk). It was in these two towns that

Krzysztof Radziwill founded the well-known Calvinist academies, at

Kiejdany in 1625 and at Sluck in 1626. His son Janusz Radziwill

founded the printing office at Kiejdany in 1650 and at Sluck in 1670, from which Calvinist books were distributed all over Europe. The

Scottish refugees settled in these two centres of Calvinism and from

the very beginning took an active part in their activities. The names of

Haliburton, Gordon, Motteson, Paterson, Ramsay, Middleton, Wat?

son, Forbes, Inglis, Hunter all figure in the history of Lithuanian

Calvinism. They kept in touch with their country, and a Scottish

emigrant merchant established a fund at Edinburgh University for

the education of a Calvinist student from Lithuania. One of them, Tomasz Ramsaeus (Ramsay), received his B.D. at Edinburgh and

went to London in 1678-82, where he studied medicine and gave

private lessons. Another, Gabriel Bieniaszewski, ^fter Leyden went

to Edinburgh in 1726 and on his return was appointed co-rector of

Kiejdany. In 1726 two Polish-Lithuanian students were awarded

M.A. degrees at Edinburgh: Jacobus Inglis and Chr. Henricus

Karketell. Later Inglis became rector of the Sluck academy. The two

academies at Kiejdany and Sluck, although they could not rival the

older Polish foundations of Leszna and Rakow, grew into recognised centres of Calvinist learning and had many distinguished scholars as

rectors and teachers. In Kiejdany in the 17th century we would

7 J. Lukaszewicz, Geschichte der reformirten Kirchen in Lithauen, Leipzig, 1848; J. Lukasze- wicz, Dzieje Kosciolow Wyznania elweckiego w dawnej Malej Polsce, Poznan, 1853; P.B.S.; Russkiy Biograficheskiy Slovar'; D.N.B.', St. Kot, Anglo-Polonica.


mention Pawel Demitrowicz, educated at Frankfort-on-Oder in 1611;

Jan Borzymowski, educated at Sluck, Leyden (1636) and Franeker; Adam Freytag, M.D. Leyden 1632, astronomer, mathematician and

writer; Frydrich Stark, rector 1643-8; in the 18th century the two

grandsons of Jan Borzymowski?Daniel, educated at Frankfort-on-

Oder in 1695, rector of Kiejdany in 1700-1, and his brother Samuel, rector in 1703; Jan Bythner, educated at Leyden in 1697, rector in

1720; Claudius Canot, educated at Leyden in 1717; Kazimir Kazarin, educated at Frankfort-on-Oder and rector in 1732; and Samuel

Bernacki, educated at Marburg in 1728 and rector in 1733. His son

Boguslaw Bernacki, educated at Frankfort-on-Oder in 1770, was co-

rector at Kiejdany till 1784. In Sluck we should equally mention

Jan Borzymowski junior, educated at Kiejdany under his father, rector of Sluck in 1670; his son Jan Borzymowski (tertius) educated

at Frankfort-on-Oder in 1695 and Leyden in 1698, rector in 1700; Gabriel Dyjakiewicz, educated at Leyden in 1683 and co-rector in

1686; Martin, his son, educated at Leyden in 1694, co-rector of

Sluck in 1713 and rector of Kiejdany in 1719; Jacob Inglis, M.A. of

Edinburgh 1726; and Michael Bernacki, educated at Marburg, like

his father Samuel, rector in 1776. Rejnold Adam, the inspector of

the academies in 1642, was known for his publications and as a

teacher. He supervised a group of Sluck students at Leyden and

Altdorf in 1631-3 and visited Paris and London. In Paris he met

Hugo Grotius in 1636. After the partition of Poland-Lithuania both

academies continued under Russia.

The Lithuanian Calvinists were not only intimately linked with

Scotland; they also had connections with England. Boguslaw Samuel

Chylinski was educated at Kiejdany under F. Stark and was sent as a

scholar to Franeker in 1654. He arrived in London in 1657 and went

to Oxford where he started the translation of the Bible into Lithuan?

ian. Oxford dons helped him with funds and printing, and in two years

Chylinski completed his translation. Fifteen Oxford professors signed a certificate that Chylinski was' a learned and polite scholar5. In 1659

Chylinski published in English An account of the translation of the Bible

into the Lithuanian tongue. He also translated the Anglican catechism

and psalms into Lithuanian. The subsequent story of the Lithuanian

Bible is very involved. Chylinski was not approved by the Synod of

Lithuania, and when in 1660 the Calvinists of Vil'na sent Jan

Krainski, treasurer of Boguslaw Radziwill, to collect funds in Eng? land and Scotland for the destroyed Lithuanian Calvinist churches,

they also sent Mikolaj Minwid to supervise the publication of the

new Bible. Charles II, by his Letters Patent of 27 August 1661, allowed public subscriptions for the Lithuanian Calvinist Church.

Chylinski, however, was obliged to return to Lithuania to defend


his translation. The Kiejdany convention appointed Jan Borzymow- ski and Skrodzki to revise the whole translation of Chylinski. The

latter went back to England and appealed to the Privy Council.

Meanwhile Krainski found mistakes in the translation (from the

orthodox Calvinist point of view) and persuaded the Secretary of

the Privy Council, Sir Richard Browne, to stop printing the Bible.

The Privy Council decided that the expenses and printing should

be taken over by Lithuanian Calvinist authorities, and although Robert Boyle and John Walis defended Chylinski's translation it

remained in MS only. The Lithuanian Synod appointed a commis?

sion of Jan Borzymowski junior, Stanislaw Monkiewicz, Samuel

Bythner and Samuel Lipski to make the new Lithuanian translation

independently of the Oxford dons.

The relations of Lithuanian Calvinists with Oxford were not

limited to the story of the Lithuanian Bible. Princess Karolina Lud-

wika Radziwill (married to the Markgraf of Brandenburg) financed

the education of several Lithuanian Calvinists at Oxford. One of

them, Samuel Lutomirski, became rector of the Kiejdany Academy in 1681 and senior of the church in Lithuania. As Calvinists these

students were not officially matriculated and are not included in

Oxford registers. The Lithuanian students continued to come to

England in the 18th century but they went to the dissenting aca?

demies and not to Oxford. The most notable case is that of Sies-

trzencewicz-Bogusz who, after graduating at Kiejdany, came to a

London dissenting academy to complete his education. Later he

played an important role in Russia as archbishop of Belorussia and

as the president of the Free Economic Society {Volnoye ekonomicheskqye

obshchestvo).

VIII

The Russian Protestants in Belorussia8

About half the population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania-

Russia were Russian-speaking Orthodox Belorussians. Although some

of the Orthodox gentry followed their Lithuanian neighbours and

joined either Catholic or Calvinist churches, the mass of the Belo?

russians remained steadfastly Orthodox and were not touched by Western European forms of Christianity. Strangely enough the re?

forming ideas came to them not from the West, but from the East, from the depth of Muscovite Russia. In 1551 the abbot (Igumen) of

the Troitsko-Sergiyev Monastery (Lavra), Artemy (in Poland Ar-

temius), started the propagation of anti-trinitarian views. He was

condemned by the clerical convention (Sobor) of 1553 for heresy and

8 P.S.B-1 Russkiy Biograficheskiy Slovar', article 'Feodosy (Kosoy)'; J. Lukaszewicz (see 7).


imprisoned in a monastery near Moscow. One of his followers, a serf

of a Moscow boyar, Feodosy (Theodosius), fled to the Volga dissenters

(raskol'niki) and was consecrated a monk (chernets). He was caught in Moscow in 1554 and also imprisoned in a monastery. Artemy,

Feodosy, and a third monk Foma (Thomas) managed to escape from

prison and fled to Lithuania. They arrived at Vitebsk and started

propagating their views among the Russian-speaking population.

They gathered a considerable following and began destroying ikons

and other symbols of the Orthodox faith. Persecuted by the Orthodox

clergy and by fanatical mobs, they dispersed into the depth of

Lithuania. Feodosy, who meanwhile had married a Jewess, soon died

at the age of eighty. Artemy found asylum on the estate of Prince

George Slutski and Foma went to Polotsk. There he established a

congregation and became minister of a unitarian church. In 1563 Ivan Grozny took Polotsk, drowned all the Jews in a frozen river and

ordered the drowning of Foma as a traitor and a heretic. Nevertheless

their congregations survived them and joined the Lithuanian Cal?

vinists or the Socinians.

Socinian views penetrated into Lithuania from Poland. One

of the Italian anti-trinitarians, Biandrata, was invited by Radzi-

will as a Calvinist, but soon proved to be a Socinian and had

considerable success among the Calvinists. One of the Calvinist

landowners, Jan Kiszka, became a fervent Socinian and in all his

estates transferred the Calvinist churches to Socinians. Simon

Budny, a Calvinist minister of Klecko, also became a Socinian and

was invited by Kiszka to Losiek, where Kiszka had a printing office.

Here at Losiek Budny translated the New Testament into Polish in

Socinian interpretation and printed it. Being a Belorussian Budny knew Russian and evidently was connected with the three Russian

monks as he mentioned them in his introduction to the New Testa?

ment. So far as I know it is a unique instance in the history of the

Christian Church when Western rationalists (Socinians) met

Eastern rationalists (Great Russian sectarians) to form a combined

congregation.

IX

Polish Students at Foreign Universities in the

17TH and i8th Centuries9

The leading Protestant academies of Leszna, Rakow, Kiejdany and Sluck were in fact secondary schools, although in some subjects,

notably theology, they rose above that level and imparted the kind

9 Nederlandsch Biografisch Wordenboek; Leyden University, Album Studiosum; Frankfort- on-Oder University, Aeltere Universities Matrikeln; Altdorf University, Matrikeln der Uni- versitat.

2l6 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

of education which was usually the preserve of the universities.

Nevertheless they could not rival Western Protestant universities

either in resources or in scholars. Their students, to complete their

education, had to go to the established seats of learning in Western

Europe. It has been previously mentioned that fourteen Polish

Polish Students at Leyden University i 601-1800

ijth Century _

Faculty whom The- Medi- Mathe- Philo- not Ger-

ology Law cine matics sophy known mans Total

o x

cc

I

3 7

20 io

2

1601-1610 1611-1620

1621-1630 1631-1640 1641-1650 1651-1660 1661-1670 1671-1680 1681-1690 1691-1700

Total 17th century 52

4 2 2

11 16

3 3 2

3 5

4 9

20

3 1 2

4

12 26 12

49 52 19 5 1

7 1

2

14 19

119 19 14

2

2

4

7 8

4 6

20

45 46

210

117 43 18

7 18 18

5* 23 43 l84 J89 3$ 542

18th Century

The?

ology Law Medi?

cine Mathe? matics

Faculty not

known

Of whom Ger? mans Total

1701-1710 1711-1720 1721-1730 1731-1740 1741-1750 1751-1760 1761-1770 1771-1780 1781-1790 1791-1800

Total 18th

century

12 12

15 12

13 14 16 8

14 2

118

1

3

5 1 6 1 2

19 11

5 4 3

5 8 2

7

16

13 22

13 28 20 26 io 18 2

18 38 168


students studied at Oxford, ten at Cambridge, ten at London hos?

pitals and dissenting academies, and five at Scottish universities. The

number was probably much larger: as dissenters, most of them

did not matriculate and were not officially registered, and it is very difficult to ascertain their names. Far more important than the

British universities were the two Calvinist centres: Leyden in Holland

and Frankfort-on-Oder in Prussia. The number of Polish students in

these two universities amounted to 1,484 in 1601-1800.

Polish Students at Frankfort-on-Oder University 1601-1800

Poles Ger? mans Total Poles

Ger? mans Total

1601-1610 1611-1620

1621-1630 1631-1640 1641-1650 1651-1660 1661-1670 1671-1680 1681-1690 1691-1700

Total 17th" century

27 17 52

6

45 45 12

l9 24 27

8

7 io

5 40 28

13 5

11 8

35 24 62 11

85 73 25 24 35 35

274 135 409

1701-1710 24 16 40 1711-1720 13 6 19 1721-1730 25 11 36 1731-1740 13 9 22

1741-1750 17 11 28

1751-1760 23 40 63 1761-1770 13 23 36 1771-1780 23 18 41 1781-1790 io 8 18

1791-1800 53 9 62

Total 18th

century 214 151 365

The table of Polish students at Leyden and Frankfort-on-Oder has

many peculiarities which have to be explained. First, I considered it

necessary to distinguish the Polish and polonised students of Scottish,

Czech, and German descent from German students who, although Polish citizens, were mostly Lutheran and of German speech and cul?

ture. After the partition of Poland they all openly declared them?

selves Germans and were no longer classified asc Polonus \ Only those

few Germans who came from Warsaw and other centres of Polish cul? ture continued to be classified as Poles. That fact explains the decrease in the number of Polish students of German descent after the parti? tion. The Prussian annexation of Polish lands also explains the fact

that so many Poles went to Frankfort-on-Oder at the end of the cen?

tury instead of to Leyden. Secondly, we have to distinguish the

students of four Protestant denominations. The Socinians and the

majority of the Moravians went to Leyden, the Calvinists attended

both universities in almost equal numbers, and the Lutherans, with a

few individual exceptions, attended Frankfort-on-Oder. This fact ex?

plains the enormous influx of Polish students at Leyden in the 17th

2l8 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

century. Most of the Polish students in 1611-60 were Socinians from

Rakow and other Socinian academies. Their attendance in large numbers also explains the distribution by faculties. The Socinians did

not attend lectures on theology and were matriculated in philosophy and mathematics, or law and medicine. Many of them were not dis?

tributed by faculties. Most of the Calvinists, especially in the 18th

century, were trained in divinity. We must add in conclusion that

Polish-speaking Lithuanian students of Kiejdany and Sluck con?

tributed about ninety Calvinist students to Leyden University (thirty in the 17th century and sixty in the 18th century) and about sixty Calvinists to Frankfort-on-Oder (fifteen in the 17th century and

forty-five in the 18th century). Another German school of higher learning which attracted

many Polish students was the academy of Altdorf, transformed into a

full university in 1625. Already at the end of the 16th century Polish

students, especially those with Socinian tendencies, started to go to

Altdorf. In the period 1575-1601 no fewer than 114 Polish students

were matriculated at Altdorf. During the period 1601-31, 105 Polish

students, mostly Socinians from Rakow, studied at Altdorf. In 1631 the Polish students ceased to go to Altdorf and went to Leyden. This

change of university was connected with the change of the Altdorf

authorities towards Socinians. Although officially Calvinist, Altdorf

academic circles were lenient to Socinian views and welcomed Polish

students, who in some cases were open adherents of Fausto Socini. In

1583 Prince Nicholas of Ostrorog was even elected rector of Altdorf.

In 1609 Adam Sieninski (of Rakow) was elected rector after Ernest

Son er, rector 1607-8, had openly made Altdorf a Socinian centre.

Most of the teachers of the Rakow academy were trained at Altdorf.

Feeling secure, the Socinian students formed secret societies with

initiation rites and a cypher; Socinian tracts were much in evidence, and Professor Ernest Soner openly propagated anti-trinitarian doc?

trines. Besides the Poles many Germans were also infected by these

views, and the Calvinist authorities had to take notice. In 1616 they

expelled Samuel Przypkowski and his Polish associates from the

university (they went to Leyden in 1617) and they prohibited Socinian societies. During the years 1617-19 there were no Polish

students at all; from 1620 to 1631 only eighteen officially Calvinist

Poles matriculated at Altdorf, and after 1631 Polish students do not

appear in the registers any more.

POLISH PROTESTANTS AND THEIR CONNECTIONS 2ig

Links with Holland10

The majority of German Protestant universities were strictly Lutheran and did not accept Polish Calvinists or Socinians. Frankfort-

on-Oder was half Calvinist, half Lutheran but would not matriculate

members of Socinian churches. Dutch universities, on the contrary,

accepted students of all denominations, including Catholics, Soci?

nians and Jews. Especially liberal was the University of Leyden. As

we have seen, hundreds of Polish Protestants attended Leyden. Other

Dutch universities also had individual Polish students, especially Franeker at which a strong Polish group studied theology under Jan Makowski. Known in Holland as Johannes Maccovius, Makowski

was educated at Leszna and taught there. He tutored three boys of the

Sieninski family and two Gorai Gorayskis. With Counts Zbigniew and

Jan Gorai Gorayski he matriculated at Franeker in 1613, at the age of twenty-five. He graduated as D.D. and was appointed professor of theology. His fame as a university teacher attracted many Polish

students. Besides the two Gorayskis, his students included Mikolaj Arnold, later professor and rector of Franeker, Jan Serenius Cho-

dowiecki, senior of the Unitas Fratrum and writer, Jan Andziewicz

and Jan Borzymowski. B. S. Chylinski, the translator of the Bible, was also at Franeker in 1654. The rector of Leszna, David Cassius, was at Franeker in 1692.

Yet ties with Holland were not limited to university students and

professors. The Moravian Brothers of Unitas Fratrum were inti?

mately connected with Dutch liberal Calvinists. Komensky was the

most prominent of its members who found his final asylum in

Holland. Many others resided in the Netherlands for long periods, and whenever the Leszna community was short of funds they

regularly appealed to their Dutch friends and always received a

favourable response. The Socinians, on the other hand, found friends and protectors in the community of Dutch Remonstrants and often attended their theological seminary at Amsterdam.

XI

The facts related here lead us to several conclusions. First, the Polish Calvinists, the Czecho-Polish Moravians, and the Polish Socinians were in the centre of Western European religious and educational movements and directly influenced the progressive thought of England. Thus the Slavonic contribution to European

10 See 9 and previous.


reform was not limited to a single genius, Jan Amos Komensky.

Secondly, the role of the Polish Socinians in the history of English education is often neglected and the transformation of orthodox dis?

senting academies into unitarian and scientific seats of learning in

the 18th century is usually ascribed to purely English sources. We

have seen that the English latitudinarians and unitarians were closely connected with the Polish Socinians. The Polish Protestants in?

fluenced the reform in Holland as well as in England. They were not

only passive recipients in Dutch universities, they were active con?

tributors as well. The Socinians influenced for instance Harmensch

and Hugo Grotius and particularly the community of Remonstrants.

4205019

Documents

Transcript of 4205019