Stipendiaries of the Calvinist Church of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its Synod in Foreign Universities in the 17th Century

Abstract

The article analyses the organisation of higher education by the Calvinist Church of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Unitas Lituaniae) in the 17th century, in the period of the weakening of the Reformation, covering the first half of the 17th century, and the second half of the century, when Evangelicals became a religious minority. Research reveals that the education of young people at foreign universities was funded by private means, collected in the districts and accumulated by the Synod. This article also investigates the formation of the institution of international alumni at the Synod of the Calvinist Church, which became part of the system of education of that Church. The stipendiaries had to make up for the financial aid by working at locations assigned by the Synod. The continuous operation of the institute of international alumni at the Synod for more than a century permitted cultural contacts and simultaneously promoted the infusion of new ideas into the evolution of Lithuanian culture. The most important of the latter included the formation of groups of clergymen and school teachers with a university education; the nurturing of Adomas Rasijus’ (ca 1575–1627/8) projects for the adjustment of the social structure and the refinement of the education system in Lithuania by the establishment of academic grammar schools for the nobility and merchants from Lithuania with special syllabi; the encouragement of S.B. Chylinski to translate the Bible into Lithuanian in the middle of the 17th century in Franeker and London; understanding the importance of the Lithuanian language as a written language and the language of the Holy Scripture; the possibility to get acquainted with the translation, text and commentaries of the Dutch Statenbijbel; the encouragement to complete the translation of the New Testament into the Lithuanian language and publish it in 1701; planning the translation of a commentary to the Dutch Statenbijbel into Polish.