Calvin in Lithuania: from the correspondence to the first publication

This paper deals with two topics: Calvin’s efforts to guide the course of the Reformation in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) from 1549 until his death, and Calvin’s reception in the Lithuanian Reformed Church at the end of the 16th century and during the first half of the 17th. The paper also discusses the publication of Calvin’s works in the GDL during that period. The relationship between Calvin and the Reformation process in Lithuania can be divided into three periods. The first period was that of early Evangelicalism, when the Lithuanian Reformation was guided (until his death in 1565) by Mikołłaj Radziwiłł the Black, who entertained a controversy with Calvin concerning the Trinity. The second period witnessed the formation of the Reformed orthodoxy after the schism in the Lithuanian Protestant community; the development of doctrine was influenced by Andreas Volanus (ca. 1531-1610). During this period Lithuanian Evangelical Church started to maintain a clear distance from the Anti-Trinitarian communities and made a declarative turn towards Reformed orthodoxy. The third period marked a stronger link toward Calvin and Calvinism at the beginning of the 17th century. In that period the first translation of Calvin was published in the GDL. Nauka o Sakramienciech Świętych Nowego Testamentu. Wzięta z czwartych ksiąg Institucij nabożeństwa krześcijańskiego Jana Kalwina i na polską rzecz przeniesiona (A Teaching on Sacraments taken from Institutio of Calvin) was published in 1626 in Lubcz by Radziwiłł’s printer Petrus Blastus Kmita. The book was prepared by one of Radziwill’s clients, Piotr Siestrzencewicz (Petrus Sestrencius, + 1655), an early student in the Academy of Sedan (France) who started his activities as an author of some published funeral speeches (one of them, dedicated to Volanus, did not survive) and other occasional works. It is right from the fifth decade of the 17th century that one can spot that in the popular discourse of GDL Protestants the Lithuanian Reformers started to call themselves Calvinists and identify themselves with “the Calvinist faith.” Until that moment GDL Protestants referred to themselves only as “Christians” and “Evangelicals” (the latter name was first used in the letters from 1567 to 1573)