Dying Evangelical: Conversion and Reconversion in Poland

• In Event: Imperial Modernities: Religious, Ethnic, and Political Identities in Eastern Europe and Eurasia in Historical Perspective

Abstract

Confessional “radicalism” was deliberated at Sejm in 1566. An “evangelical” bloc dissenting from the nomination of Henry de Valois in 1573, in fact, sealed his election under the archbishop interrex. Poland's papal nuncio confirmed this. Did religion matter to the electorate? If so, how much or how so? How much had society changed under the activism (theological, educational, legislative) of Reformation? Five (5) aspects define this project. One, naturally, is geographic. The extents are the transitional linguistic lands of Moravia, Silesia, Lesser Poland, Rus' (sub-carpathian), San River valley, Bełz and Chełm lands, and Volyn (Ukraine). The architectures and metes and bounds of conversion are the foundation of churches.
​The second aspect charts (known and possible known) routes of pre-confessional migrations and displacements departing from the Swiss Cantons, Liechtenstein fields, and campuses in the 1520s/30s where identified Anabaptist “distinctives” among “Moravian,” “Swiss,” and south “German” groups moved and began influencing Poland in the 1530s. A third aspect layers qualitative nobiliary leadership and networks (political sympathies, material support of conversion, intellectual education, pastoral care).
​A fourth aspect dissects the Polish starostwo as relates to crown administration and courts jurisdiction. Reformation (European) studies compartmentalize conversion in one form or another: “state” or crown, magisterial, popular, etc. This aspect examines conversion within Reformation scholarship.
​Finally, the fifth aspect – on freedom in religion — this is an intellectual history on tolerance. This presentation is based on an original geospatial analyses.

Author

• Virginia Paige Zickafoose, Independent Scholar