The article questions the legitimacy of use of the terms “Calvinist” and “Calvinism” as applied to the polish adherents of the emerging Evangelical-Reformed Church in the second half of the16th – at the beginnings of the 17th centuries and their doctrinal writings. The author analyzes various versions of the self-names of these Protestant follows, and the names given to them both by adherents of other branches of Protestantism and by Catholics. The author comes to the conclusions, that the theological legacy of John Calvin exerted its influence only to an insignificant degree on catechisms of the polish Reformed of that epoch, and with much more reason can be said about the existence of many other sources of theological inspirations (from Lutherans, Bohemian Brethren, follows of Johannes Oecolampadius, others), which had a significant impact on the confessional identity formation of the Polish Reformed churches.
Keywords: Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, confessional identity, Calvin, Calvin’s works, Calvinism, Reformed churches
DOI: 10.22250/2072-8662.2019.2.17-22
About the author
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Margarita A. Korzo – PhD (History), Senior Research Fellow, Ethics Department of the Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences; 12/1 Gorcharnaya str., Moscow, Russia, 109240; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |