Piotr Skarga jako propagator unii kościoła katolickiego z prawosławnym

• Petras Skarga kaip katalikų ir stačiatikių bažnytinės unijos propaguotojas
• Piotr Skarga as a propagator of the union between the Catholic and the Orthodox Church

ENPiotr Skarga played an outstanding part as a propagator of the unity of the Orthodox from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with Roman Catholic Church. He had been in contact with numerous Christians of the Greek rite at the beginning his priestly activity on the Ruthenian land already. From the very start he strove to win for Catholicism not only Protestant but also Orthodox magnates and nobles. His activity in these sphere got actuated, when after his return from Rome, where he had joined a convent of Jesuits, began work in Vilnius. The book titled "O jedności Kościoła Bożego..." (About the unity of God’s Church...), printed in 1577, was written on the basis of his sermons preached to Vilnius citizens. The Jesuit presented in this work his opinion about the reasons of the schism between Western and Eastern Christianity and about a onetime condition of Orthodoxy under the Turkish rule and in the Ruthenian lands of the Commonwealth. Moreover he tried to show means, which – in his opinion – could run to renewed unity between Catholics and the Orthodox in the Commonwealth. The views presented in this book were convergent with the Counterreformation optics of Roman Catholic Church, which there was no room for a theological compromise with Orthodox side in. However Skarga accepted an existing of Greek rite in the situation of approval Pope’s jurisdiction and the Catholic’s doctrine by the Orthodox. The Skarga’s work, which had two next editions during his life (in 1590 and 1610), got an ideological groundwork of the Brest Union (1596). The Jesuit propagated also the idea of Catholics and the Orthodox unity on the court of Sigismund III (1587–1632), whom he was a preacher. In October 1596 Skarga took part in the unific synod in Brest, where he tried to persuade, but without result, the Orthodox opposition with its leader, the voivode of Kiev Konstanty Ostrogski, into the union.He preached during High Mass which finished this synod too. Skarga defended the Brest Union in his next polemic works arguing with the leading writers which represented the Orthodox side. Moreover the Jesuit fought a political cooperation of the Orthodox and Protestants in the Commonwealth. Until the end of his life he remained a zealous adversary of the Warsaw Confederation (1573), which ensured to the whole nobility in the Commonwealth – regardless of a confession – a freedom of religion. At first Skarga was geared sceptically towards plans of spreading of Catholicism in Muscovy. However successes of the Commonwealth’s foreign eastern policy at the beginning of the XVII century caused that the Jesuit believed in a possibility of a subordination of the Muscovy Orthodox to the Pope’s supremacy by enforcing of the religious union there. [From the publication]