Calvinists at the Torun religious colloquium in 1645

Mikhail Petrovich Belyaev PhD in History, associate professor, Department of Law, Russian University of Cooperation (Vera Voloshina ulitsa, 12/30, Mytishchi, Russia, 141014)
babek-han@mail.ru

Belyaev M.P. Calvinists at the Torun religious colloquium in 1645, Religiya. Tserkov’. Obshchestvo. Issledovaniya i publikatsii po teologii i religii [Religion. Church. Society: Research and publications in the field of theology and religious studies], Saint-Petersburg, 2019, vol. 8, pp. 252–273.

doi: 10.24411/2308-0698-2020-00001

Language: Russian

The article explores the Torun religious colloquium govered on the initiative of the Polish king Vladislav IV in 1645. This conference brought together German and Polish representatives of the Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist (Reformed) denominations. The Reformed delegation was headedby Z. Goraisky from Chelm kashtelian and I. Bergius, the court preacherof the Brandenburg Elector. Calvinists advocated an alliance with the Lutherans against the Catholics. However, most of the Lutheran delegation wasagainst cooperation with the Reformed. The meetings of the colloquiumproceeded by setting out the foundations of their doctrine with the Сatholicsrefusing to include the foundations of Calvinist doctrine in the official protocol. In their opinion, the Reformed delegation violated the royal instructionsfor holding the colloquium, while its documents contained insult and slanderin relation to the Catholic doctrine. Besides, Lutherans were not allowed to layout the foundations of their doctrine. When representatives of both Protestantdelegations met with the Polish king, Vladislav IV stressed that he guaranteescomplete freedom to all delegations during negotiations. He explained thatthe royal instructions were just his suggestions. Inspite of that, as the authorshows, nothing changed after this meeting and mutual distrust betweenCalvinists and Lutherans increased. Catholics suggested Calvinists to makeextracts from extracts from their documents. However, Goraisky called thisproposal useless. The parties agreed to mutual checks of documents. In fact,after three months and 36 sessions, the colloquium ended in vain.

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Key words: Reformed, Lutherans, Catholics, Theologians, Preacher, Doctrine

URL: http://rcs-almanac.ru/belyaev-2020-en/

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