Religijos tolerancija Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės tikėjimo disputų epochoje XVI-XVII a.

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė (LDK; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; GDL); Religijos tolerancija; Religious tolerance.

ENThis article examines the situation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the 16th to the 18th century and analyses the manifestation of religious tolerance (and intolerance) in public confessional life. This narrative follows two methodological provisions. The first is to approach the phenomenon of tolerance in the light of the central conflict of the period (Protestantism vs. Roman Catholicism). The second is, by analysing historiography and its empirical data, to discuss common stereotypes and their argumentation and to raise issues for further research and discussion in order to learn how tolerant the socio-cultural environment in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in the period of Reformation with respect to different confessions. The phenomenon of religious tolerance is examined both in de jure and de facto terms. The former includes features of the religious policies of the rulers in the given period and the legal status of the Protestants. The latter approaches the counter-reformatory attitude of the Roman Catholic Church. The subject of religious tolerance in Lithuania in the 16th and 17th centuries is described as one that requires further systematic research on various levels, which so far have been only fragmentarily approached in historiography: mixed religion marriages among both nobility and townsfolk; cases of religious conversion in the family; the “religious coercion” of subordinates applied by both catholic and protestant noblemen in their private domains; the attitude of the nobility towards religious minorities in their domains; theological discourse and its argumentation in dogmatics and polemical writings of various confessions on forbearance/ non-forbearance; litigation between protestants and catholics concerning church land-ownership, ownership of church buildings, and religious pogroms. [From the publication]