Didaktinis Petro Skargos požiūris į rusėnus

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Petras Skarga; Bažnytinė unija; Katalikai; Stačiatikiai; Rusėnai; Graikai; Religinė polemika.

ENThe aim of this article is to discuss the image of Ruthenians as it is conveyed in one of the most famous Piotr Skarga’s works "On the Unity of the Church of God under One Shepherd and on the Greek Separation from that Unity" (Vilnius, 1577). The contention of this article is that Skarga’s image of Ruthenians is far from hostile, as it might apppear from a modern point of view, but rather, it is raletively favourable as compared to more strident assertions on the topic of church union as expressed by such writers as John Sacranus (in "Elucidarius errorum ritus ruthenici" as of 1501) or Benedykt Herbest (in "Exposition of the Faith" as of 1586). To prove his thesis the author of the present article analyzed the role played by the Greeks in the narrative of Skarga. It has become clear that Skarga laid the blame of the schism almost solely on the anti-unionist Greeks and their seductive designs with regard to simple-minded Ruthenians, thus exonerating the latter from this kind of defection from Church unity. Skarga treated local Polish-Lithuanian Ruthenians far more favourably and saw them as much more well-disposed towards Church unity than the Muscovites to whom he reserved the anti-Catholic opprobrium. The author of the present article has also drawn special attention to the local circumstances that proved conducive to the writing of Skarga’s book under consideration. It is widely known that this treatise was composed in 1574, but this date must be considered as the date indicating the time of the composition of the first draft. The final draft was produced in 1576, and the book itself published in 1577. The people who inspired Skarga to write this pro-union treatise were first of all the Catholics of Vilnius, among whom Bishop Valerian Protasevich and Vilnius advocate Augustyn Mieleski Rotundus seem to have been most active in this regard.Rotundus was also a man who advised Skarga to dedicate his book to the Ruthenian magnate Constantine Ostrogski. Although such an advice looks likely to have been redundant, this fact along with other activities related to the production of the book show how deeply and actively Skarga and his immediate Catholic milieu were involved in confessional polemics that ran simultaneously against the so-called schismatics and Protestants. [From the publication]