The Polonization of Christianity in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Abstract

The process of adapting universal religions to local cultures, conditions, and milieux is as old as the religions themselves. As far as Christinity is concerned, it was also subject to the continuous blending of general doctrinal principles with the national form of their expression, especially with age-old traditions in folklore. Consequently, Frankish or Germanic Christianity differed considerably from the Slavic version, while the latter again differed from that prevailing in the Eastern Roman Empire. Although in missionary areas the Church sometimes approved of investing the cult with specific features, taking into account the nationality and mentality of its congregations, in Europe itself conflicts between local church authorities on the one hand and Rome on the other often broke out over these matters. They found expression and were finally ossified in successive divisions of Christianity; beginning with the Great Schism of 1054, through the attempt to organize a national church in Bohemia (the Hussite Movement), to the permanent split brought about by the Reformation.