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Socinianism
Socinianism () is a nontrinitarian belief system deemed heretical by the Catholic Church and other Christian traditions. Named after the Italian theologians Lelio Sozzini (Latin: Laelius Socinus) and Fausto Sozzini (Latin: Faustus Socinus), uncle and nephew, respectively, it was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Polish Reformed Church during the 16th and 17th centuries and embraced by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period. It is most famous for its Non-trinitarian Christology but contains a number of other heretical beliefs as well. Origins The ideas of Socinianism date from the wing of the Protestant Reformation known as the Radical Reformation and have their root in the Italian Anabaptist movement of the 1540s, such as the anti-trinitarian Council of Venice in 1550. Lelio Sozzini was the first of the Italian anti-trinitarians to go beyond Arian beliefs in print and deny the pre-existence of Christ in his ''Brevis explicatio in primum Johannis c ...
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Fausto Sozzini
Fausto Paolo Sozzini, also known as Faustus Socinus ( pl, Faust Socyn; 5 December 1539 – 4 March 1604), was an Italian theologian and, alongside his uncle Lelio Sozzini, founder of the Non-trinitarian Christian belief system known as Socinianism. His doctrine was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Polish Reformed Church during the 16th and 17th centuries and embraced by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period. His 1570 treatise ''De auctoritate scripturae sacrae'' (published in English in 1732, as ''A demonstration of the truth of the Christian religion, from the Latin of Socinius'') was highly influential on Remonstrant thinkers such as Simon Episcopius, who drew on Sozzini's arguments for viewing the scriptures as historical texts. Life Sozzini was born in Siena, the only son of Alessandro Sozzini and Agnese Petrucci, daughter of Borghese Petrucci b.1490, and granddaughter of Pandolfo Petrucci. His father Alessandro Sozzini, oldest of ele ...
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Lelio Sozzini
Lelio Francesco Maria Sozzini, or simply Lelio Sozzini (Latin: ''Laelius Socinus''; 29 January 1525 – 4 May 1562), was an Italian Renaissance humanist and theologian and, alongside his nephew Fausto Sozzini, founder of the Non-trinitarian Christian belief system known as Socinianism. His doctrine was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Polish Reformed Church during the 16th and 17th centuries and embraced by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period. Life Lelio Sozzini was born at Siena. His family descended from Sozzo, a banker at Percenna (Buonconvento), whose second son, Mino Sozzi, settled as a notary at Siena in 1304. Mino Sozzi's grandson, Sozzino (d. 1403), was the founder of a line of patrician jurists and canonists, Mariano Sozzini the elder (1397–1467) being the first and the most famous, and traditionally regarded as the first freethinker in the family. Lelio (who spelled his surname Sozzini, Latinizing it Socinus) was the sixth son o ...
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Polish Brethren
The Polish Brethren (Polish: ''Bracia Polscy'') were members of the Minor Reformed Church of Poland, a Nontrinitarian Protestant church that existed in Poland from 1565 to 1658. By those on the outside, they were called "Arians" or "Socinians" (, '')'', but themselves preferred simply to be called "Brethren" or "Christians", and, after their expulsion from Poland, " Unitarians". History The ''Ecclesia Minor'' or ''Minor Reformed Church of Poland'', better known today as the Polish Brethren, was started on January 22, 1556, when Piotr of Goniądz (Peter Gonesius), a Polish student, spoke out against the doctrine of the Trinity during the general synod of the Reformed (Calvinist) churches of Poland held in the village of Secemin. 1565: Split with the Calvinists A theological debate called by the Polish king Sigismund II Augustus himself in 1565 did not succeed in bringing both Protestant factions together again. Finally, the faction that had supported Piotr of Goniądz' argument ...
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Pre-existence Of Christ
The pre-existence of Christ asserts the existence of Christ before his incarnation as Jesus. One of the relevant Bible passages is where, in the Trinitarian interpretation, Christ is identified with a pre-existent divine hypostasis (substantive reality) called the Logos or Word. There are nontrinitarian views that question the aspect of personal pre-existence or the aspect of divinity or both. More particularly, John 1:15,18 says: This doctrine is supported in when Jesus refers to the glory which he had with the Father "before the world existed" during the Farewell Discourse.''Creation and Christology'' by Masanobu Endo 2002 page 233 also refers to the Father loving Jesus "before the foundation of the world". Nicene Christianity The pre-existence of Christ is a central tenet of mainstream Christianity. Most mainstream churches that accept the Nicene Creed consider the nature of Christ's pre-existence as the divine hypostasis called the Logos or Word, described in , whi ...
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Arianism
Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God the Father with the difference that the Son of God did not always exist but was begotten within time by God the Father, therefore Jesus was not coeternal with God the Father. Arius's trinitarian theology, later given an extreme form by Aetius and his disciple Eunomius and called anomoean ("dissimilar"), asserts a total dissimilarity between the Son and the Father. Arianism holds that the Son is distinct from the Father and therefore subordinate to him. The term ''Arian'' is derived from the name Arius; it was not what the followers of Arius's teachings called themselves, but rather a term used by outsiders. The nature of Arius's teachings and his supporters were opposed to the theological doctrines held by Homoousian Christians, regard ...
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Nontrinitarianism
Nontrinitarianism is a form of Christianity that rejects the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity—the belief that God is three distinct hypostases or persons who are coeternal, coequal, and indivisibly united in one being, or essence (from the Ancient Greek ). Certain religious groups that emerged during the Protestant Reformation have historically been known as antitrinitarian. According to churches that consider the decisions of ecumenical councils final, trinitarianism was definitively declared to be Christian doctrine at the 4th-century ecumenical councils, that of the First Council of Nicaea (325), which declared the full divinity of the Son, and the First Council of Constantinople (381), which declared the divinity of the Holy Spirit. In terms of number of adherents, nontrinitarian denominations comprise a small minority of modern Christians. After the denominations in the Oneness Pentecostal movement, the largest nontrinitarian Christian denominations ar ...
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Racovian Catechism
The Racovian Catechism ('' Pol.'': Katechizm Rakowski) is a nontrinitarian statement of faith from the 16th century. The title ''Racovian'' comes from the publishers, the Polish Brethren, who had founded a sizeable town in Raków, Kielce County, where the Racovian Academy and printing press was founded by Jakub Sienieński in 1602. Authors The Polish Brethren or ''Ecclesia Minor'' were an antitrinitarian minority of the Reformed Church in Poland who had separated from the Calvinist majority, or ''Ecclesia Major'', in 1565. Several authors had a hand in drafting the Catechism: Valentinus Smalcius, Hieronim Moskorzowski, Johannes Völkel and others. It is likely that some of the text had been prepared by the Italian exile Fausto Sozzini, who had settled among the Polish Brethren in 1579, without ever formally joining, and who died in the year before the Catechism was drafted. Despite his lack of any official status in the church Sozzini had been influential in bringing the Polish c ...
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Calvinist
Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Calvin and other Reformation-era theologians. It emphasizes the sovereignty of God and the authority of the Bible. Calvinists broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century. Calvinists differ from Lutherans (another major branch of the Reformation) on the spiritual real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, theories of worship, the purpose and meaning of baptism, and the use of God's law for believers, among other points. The label ''Calvinism'' can be misleading, because the religious tradition it denotes has always been diverse, with a wide range of influences rather than a single founder; however, almost all of them drew heavily from the writings of Augustine of Hippo twelve hundred years prior to the Reformation. The ...
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Council Of Venice
The Council of Veneto or Synod at Venice 1550 was a meeting in Venice of the anabaptist radicals of Northern Italy. History The Council had been preceded by the antitrinitarian ''Collegia Vicentina'' (Lat. ''Vicenza colloquia'') in Vicenza in which Lelio Sozzini took a leading role in 1546. In late 1549 or early 1550 Anabaptists began to assemble again in Vicenza. In September 1550 sixty Anabaptist leaders, including 20 or 30 exiles from Switzerland, assembled in Venice. Under the impetus of two followers of Servetus, "Camillo Renato" (Paolo Ricci) and a "Tiziano" (possibly Lorenzo Tizzano) the synod agreed on a set of anti-Trinitarian principles.Roberto De Mattei ''A sinistra di Lutero: sette e movimenti religiosi nell'Europa del '500'' 1999 "Il gruppo manifestò la sua consistenza nel sinodo di Venezia del settembre 1550, una specie di concilio che rappresenta ... Aveva partecipato al concilio di Venezia e aveva quindi percorso come "ministro" l'Italia centro-settentrionale," ...
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Radical Reformation
The Radical Reformation represented a response to corruption both in the Catholic Church and in the expanding Magisterial Protestant movement led by Martin Luther and many others. Beginning in Germany and Switzerland in the 16th century, the Radical Reformation gave birth to many radical Protestant groups throughout Europe. The term covers radical reformers like Thomas Müntzer and Andreas Karlstadt, the Zwickau prophets, and Anabaptist groups like the Hutterites and the Mennonites. In Germany, Switzerland and Austria, a majority sympathized with the Radical Reformation despite intense persecution. Although the surviving proportion of the European population that rebelled against Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed churches was small, Radical Reformers wrote profusely, and the literature on the Radical Reformation is disproportionately large, partly as a result of the proliferation of the Radical Reformation teachings in the United States. History Some early forms of the Radical ...
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Protestant Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in particular to papal authority, arising from what were perceived to be errors, abuses, and discrepancies by the Catholic Church. The Reformation was the start of Protestantism and the split of the Western Church into Protestantism and what is now the Roman Catholic Church. It is also considered to be one of the events that signified the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period in Europe.Davies ''Europe'' pp. 291–293 Prior to Martin Luther, there were many earlier reform movements. Although the Reformation is usually considered to have started with the publication of the '' Ninety-five Theses'' by Martin Luther in 1517, he was not excommunicated by Pope Leo X until January 1521. The Diet of Worms of May 1521 ...
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Polish Reformed Church
The Polish Reformed Church, officially called the Evangelical Reformed Church in the Republic of Poland (Polish: ''Kościół Ewangelicko-Reformowany w RP'') is a historic Calvinistic Protestant church in Poland established in the 16th century, still in existence today. Structure and organisation According to Poland's Central Statistical Office, the Polish Reformed Church has 3,461 members (2015). The majority of church members live in central Poland; in 2014 out of a total number of 3464 adherents, 1800 lived in Łódź Voivodeship and 1000 in the city of Warsaw. There are eight congregations in Poland: * Warsaw * Łódź * Zelów * Bełchatów * Kleszczów * Żychlin * Strzelin * Pstrążna (part of the town of Kudowa Zdrój) Furthermore, emerging congregations exist in some other cities, including Poznań, Wrocław, and Gdańsk. In 2003, the Church ordained its first female minister and two more female students are in training. The Polish Reformed Church is a minority ch ...
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