The Age of confessional stability (1655-1740)

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Bažnyčios istorija; Katalikų bažnyčia; Krikščionių tikėjimai; Krikščionybė; Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė (LDK; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; GDL); Lietuvos istorija; Ortodoksija; Protestantų bažnyčia; Reformacija; Religingumas; Sentikiai; Christianity; Church history; Lithuania; Lithuanian history; Old believes; Ortodoxy; Reformation; Religiosity; Christian faiths; Catholic Church; Protestant Church.

ENThe period between the mid-seventeenth century and the middle of the eighteenth century could be referred to as a time of stabilisation in religious life. Confessionalisation took the place of the dynamics and frequent conversions that are typical of the reform period. Now we find a clear and stable distribution of denominations and the formational of confessional mentalité. Within the denominations after the reforms had been achieved movement took the same clearly defined routes. There were greater changes only in the Eastern Church, as the Uniate Church came to assimilate more and more Orthodox people and gradually latinise. In addition, in the second half of the seventeenth century Old Believers came from Muscovy to settle in Lithuania in the wake of Patriarch Nikon's reforms. Thus Lithuania gained another shade to the cloth of her already motley religious mantle. The largest religious denomination in the Grand Duchy on the eve of the First Partition of the Commonwealth in 1772 at the hands of the "enlightened" dictators of Austria, Prussia and Russia, was the Uniate Church, which had 4.5 million believers and 9,650 parishes; second came the Latin-Rite Catholic Church with 2 million souls and 1,234 parishes, while 430 parishes were home to 300,000 Orthodox Christians. [Extract, p. 93]