Poland’s Protestant diversity

Mikołaj Rej z Nagłowic

The popular opinion in Europe is that Poland is a homogeneous society. In fact, Poland today is usually associated with the dominant Roman Catholic faith. A majority of Poles consider Catholicism to be part of a broader nationalism, where differentiating between nation and religion is difficult, if not impossible. Polish history, however, argues otherwise, with its strong tradition of multi-cultural heritage and variety of denominations, including Protestantism, which had an important influence on the development of Polish civilisation. Many its representatives were and are among the most respected elite and wealthiest of noblemen.

Protestants before Luther

Our story starts on a typical early spring day on the outskirts of Nowy Korczyn, a village in southern Poland, a land with a vast amount wheat fields and fragrant apple orchards surrounded by the lazy curves of the Nida and Vistula rivers. The picturesque landscape was blanketed with military men. One could see armoured noblemen with their long swords, lightly armed crossbowmen, heavily armed knights on horses and a vast throng of infantrymen with polearms. All were preparing for battle. History is not clear if this was May 4th or 6th 1439, but that is quite irrelevant.

The opposing forces had gathered on the land which belonged to the wealthy and influential family of Spytko of Melsztyn. In the immediate past, he had inherited position of local landlord from his father, a powerful figure in Polonia Minor. There were rumours that the proud Spytko had renounced the Holy Catholic Church and joined the Czech Hussite movement. In fact religious differences were the real justification for the conflict, though political domination definitely played a role as well. Spytko, named a heretic by later historians, had quarrelled with the Bishop of Krakow, Zbigniew Oleśnicki, the de facto ruler of the Crown of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, when King Wladyslaw III became heir to the Hungarian throne.

The confederacy of landlords under Spytko, which challenged the Bishop’s claims to power, was a motley collection of knights with a huge support of the local peasantry. All of the army commanders and a majority of knights on both sides were battle proven veterans. Hence, the outcome of the battle relied strictly on the element of quick surprise. In this case the imagination and experience of Bishop Oleśnicki overwhelmed his worst enemy, Spytko. Spytko, who trusted his Hussite brethren, chose the battlefield wisely and began to build up his fortified base in the best possible place he could think of – the estuary of the Nida and Vistula rivers. Oleśnicki, on the other hand, made use of the only advantage he had. The Bishop’s forces showed better tactical skills and instead of waiting for future developments and counting on God’s providence, attacked Spytko immediately, giving no opportunity for regrouping. The Bishop’s forces knew well how dangerous the Hussite warriors were in their well-prepared forts. At dusk the Bishop’s infantrymen supported by the knights stormed the unprepared enemies. Spytko, who saw he was losing ground, fought bravely with apparent personal courage, trying to strengthen his soldiers morally, but eventually falling in battle.

The battle of May 1439, dubbed the Battle of Grotniki, marked the abrupt end of the Hussite religious movement in Poland. This was almost eighty years before Martin Luther announced his own religious revolt with The Ninety-five Theses and his opposition to the Catholic Church. Also at this time, the end of the feudal era was marked by changes via scientific observations and daring experiments. The ocean voyage of Christopher Columbus in the autumn of 1492 would bring European culture to the unknown. Europe now faced a completely new perspective and in a way brought Europe on a path of no return. The scene was thus well prepared for a religious revolution to fatally shake the foundation of feudalism.

Luther’s 95 theses

Martin Luther’s visit to Rome in 1510 had a fundamental influence on his perception of religious practice at the time. Pope Julius II had recently replaced one of the most infamous figures in the history of Catholicism, Alexander VI, who died in mysterious circumstances in 1503. Although the new pope was fundamentally different than Rodrigo de Borja (Alexander’s birth name) he openly supported a court of lady lovers and was privately involved in several perverted sexual affairs with countless women and was thus severely damaging the image of the Church. After the dark days of Alexander VI, Rome was slowly recovering, but the new pope, though not so openly dissolute as his predecessor, still lost himself in affairs very distant from what was conceived by the true believers. The pope fought against the French threat and desperately needed money (and wealth was a lot more valued in Rome than moral obligations).

Hence, the young monk from Wittenberg was shocked to find a completely cynical clergy who openly exploited the poor and uneducated, treating faith as a business enterprise, and making use of the horror of eternal damnation, which they promised to soften for money. Luther observed that this money was used by the pope to fund military planning rather than prayer; and upon his return saw how it corrupted the local German church even more severely than in Rome. Selling indulgences perhaps was more or less excusable by the pope, who was desperately fighting the French and needed to raise resources. It was not the same with local cheaters, however, who made profit by exploiting people’s naivety. Back in Germany, Luther intensified his biblical studies and this resulted in him becoming a professor of biblical science. He was still a loyal member of the Catholic Church and subject of Pope Julius II, who died of malaria on February 21st 1513. Julius’s successor, Leo X, continued administrative reforms of the church, while maintaining the direction of de-sacralisation of everyday life and steering towards a Renaissance philosophy of a happy life and fulfilment of natural instincts. Leo X was also known for openly questioning the truth of Christianity: “It’s a very good circumstance that people still believe in the fairy tale of Christ.” In such conditions, it is no wonder that a zealous monk from northern Europe, taking his faith seriously, clashed with the powerful lords in Rome.

In 1517 Luther posted his 95 Theses in Wittenberg. In reaction, the pope condemned Luther as a heretic. Luther did not obey the order to drop his teachings, and instead publically burned the Papal Bull. Between 1517 and 1520 a protestant religion emerged. Luther’s bold decision to reject the papal order brought to a boil the simmering feelings of anger and a demand for a new social disorder with the role of citizenship at its centre, a response to the declining feudal order. Meanwhile, Poland was becoming a state dominated by noblemen with an interesting character of political equality among Brethren Nobles, as they called themselves.

Protestantism in Poland

About a decade after Luther, a French theologian named Jean Calvin followed in his footsteps. Like elsewhere in Central Europe, Polish noblemen saw Calvin’s teaching as an attractive religious system, which explained their political and economic positions better than Lutheranism. Calvin claimed that human life was predestined by God at birth. At the very beginning, a newly born child, without knowing it, was sentenced either to be eternally condemned or saved. Calvin also taught that humans are born unequal and one’s life is shaped naturally this way (i.e., some people naturally gain wealth and position of power and others are born servants). Calvin favoured a strict division between church and state, which was attractive for the ruling class in their struggle for political independence, both from the influential court and the mighty church. Initially, the Polish King Sigismund I opposed the Reformation in his kingdom and in 1520 even banned the printing of protestant books. But the Jagiellonian Kings were never strict in matters of religion, as they had to rule a population with a variety of denominations, including eastern Orthodox (with some noble figures openly opposed to converting to Catholicism). Even the after victory against the Prussian prince, who moved his capital from Marienburg to Konigsberg, repressions against Lutheran citizens in Prussian cities remained mainly on paper.

With the new king, Sigismund II August, the situation improved in favour of all religious dissidents. The king declared that he did not rule over people’s minds. In this atmosphere, Polish Protestants flourished. The Protestant movement found the best place for development in the Duchy of Lithuania with the mighty magnates of the Radziwiłł family, who converted to Calvinism. One of the most prominent figures – the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania Mikołaj Radziwiłł “the Black” – gave the Protestant movement much needed protection and soon Protestants became a majority among the lower house of parliament. In 1560 Protestant magnates also dominated the upper house. A year earlier, King Sigismund accepted religious freedom in the Prussian province which began an era of religious tolerance in the state. In 1563 a Protestant translation of the Bible, under the popular name the Brest Bible, was printed under the auspices of Mikołaj Radziwiłł, who sponsored this important work with his own wealth. Poland became a safe-haven to all heretics who could not feel safe at home. These included Czech brethren and various forms of unorthodox Protestants.

The radical social movement of Arianism, a branch of Protestantism which has indigenous elements, found an intellectual centre in Raków, where an academy and educational centre were founded. Its doctrine was radical in many ways. In the moral sense Arians focused on teachings concerning obligations of peace and human relations, such as forgiveness. On this basis they refused to participate in any kind of violence. As pacifists, Arians regarded war as a heavy sin against the law of God.

In the 16th century, Polish Protestantism began to flourish and this tolerance brought European civilisation many noble thinkers, including Jan Hevelius, Kazimierz Siemienowicz, Józef Naronowicz-Naronski and Krzysztof Arciszewski.

Famous Polish Protestants

During the reign of Sigismund I the Old, the successor to Sigismund II Augustus, Protestantism suddenly prevailed among the political nation – the commonwealth noblemen. Some of the high ranking Catholic clergy started openly speaking about following England and creating a national church, independent from Rome. In the meantime, Polish Protestants heralded in the so-called golden era of the Renaissance to the Polish kingdom. The most important changes were observed in the development of the Polish language. A major representative of rising importance here was Mikołaj Rej of Nagłowice. Rej, a Calvinist nobleman, wrote poems in his native language, leaving the noble Latin behind. Before this time, using Polish in such a way was unheard of. The language of the political nation was Latin. Although Latin would stay with the noble brethren, Protestants and others began promoting the Polish language. This included its use in Protestant liturgy.

Rej is widely considered the father of Polish literature. He is well known as the author of poems which praised the rural, peaceful and healthy life of good noblemen who enjoyed their farms, animal stocks and working with jovial peasants.

Józef Naronowicz-Naronski was born into a Lithuanian Calvin family, which settled safely under the protection of the mighty Radziwiłł magnate family. Józef was a man of a variety of talents, among them linguistic. He was fluent in four foreign languages and was also an exceptional mathematician and cartographer. He studied in Kiejdany (present day Kėdainiai) and probably in the Raków Arian academy. In his adult life, Naronowicz-Naronski was involved in military engineering as well as cartography and the mapping of land properties in Prussia, where he was exiled after 1658. Today, he is remembered by students of military history for his major opus Architectura militaris, where he reveals the rules of the so-called old Flemish fortification system which was very popular at this time.

Another famous Arian follower was a nobleman from Greater Poland, named Krzysztof Arciszewski, born in Rogalin in 1592. Originally a Catholic, Arciszewski studied in Frankfurt on the Oder River. In a way his life was quite similar to that of the founder of the most sworn and effective enemy of the Protestants – the Spanish priest Ignatius Loyola (founder of the Jesuits). Arciszewski began his career as an army officer and after winning a duel against an enemy of his family, he was forced to leave his native country and seek safety abroad. Arciszewski found protection in the Low Countries – exactly in the newly independent confederation of Holland. He converted to Arianism around 1623.

Arciszewski’s skills were so brilliant that he distinguished himself as a student of practical sea navigation and an expert of artillery. He joined the Dutch army during the Thirty Years’ War and later became a mercenary in the Dutch possessions, willing to serve those who appreciated him graciously – once under the pennant of Maurice of Orange during the Breda siege in 1623, then as an artillery officer and engineer under the command of the Catholic Admiral Richelieu in 1629 at the gates of the Huguenot fortress at La Rochelle. Arciszewski’s restless spirit brought him to the Dutch West India Company and soon he sailed with a company of Dutch buccaneers serving the interest of the House of Orange. Arciszewski became the first native Pole who rose so high in the naval machinery of one of the mightiest fleets.

End of Protestant Poland

When the king of Poland Wladyslaw IV Vasa called Arciszewski to return and take up the post of artillery commander in the Polish military, he did not hesitate. He came during the troubled times when the Cossack Uprising had just begun. As a commander in Lviv, Arciszewski successfully pushed the besieged Cossack forces back from the metropolis. After clashing with several of his peers, including Jerzy Ossoliński, Arciszewski decided to pursue his philosophical and literary interests; not uncommon among those multi-talented men whom nature graciously equipped with many skills. In 1656, as Sweden was invading Poland, Arciszewski died. He is buried in a protestant church in Leszno.

Two years later, after the Swedish occupation and the open betrayal of the Protestant protector Janusz Radziwiłł, Protestants were expelled from the previously tolerant country. This marked the beginning of the end of the Protestant epoch in Poland. When Poland was invaded, many Protestants (among them noblemen) recognised Charles X Gustav of Sweden as their lord and swore allegiance to him, thus betraying their native country. The religious connections proved to be stronger than the political or national ones. Moreover, the Arians, in their naive perception of the world, refused to take up arms and defend the country. Their refusal to defend against an aggression was not to be forgiven.

By the end of the hectic 17th century in Poland, Protestants as a political nation were essentially extinct. After pushing the Swedes out of Poland and regaining sovereignty, Arians were the first to be expelled as traitors. After the death of King John III Sobieski, the dual kingdom lost its political influence in Europe. While the 18th century was marked by a rising influence of Protestantism on civilisation, Poland had fully rejected it. Its once noble tolerance was eventually used by neighbouring powers to divide and conquer the population.

Andrzej Zaręba is a PhD student in military history at the Jesuit University Ignatianum in Kraków. He is also the illustrator for New Eastern Europe.

history, Poland, Protestantism, Reformation, Sweden