Andreas Wojdowski

Andreas Wojdowski (Polish: Andrzej Wojdowski , * around 1565 in Chmielnik ; † 1622) was an important representative of Unitarian socinianism in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, which spread the Unitarian denomination among intellectuals in Germany and the Netherlands.

life and work

Wojdowski grew up in a Unitarian environment. His father, Johannes Wojdowski, was himself a pastor in a Unitarian parish in Chmielnik and later in Rakau . At the age of eighteen Andreas Wojdowski first met Fausto Sozzini , who would have a lasting impact on him. With the help of Sozzini, Wojdowski first became the preceptor (private tutor) of the influential Polish Morsztyn family . In the spring of 1583 he moved to Sárospatak (Patak am Bodrog) in Hungary for a year . A year later he enrolled at the University of Wittenberg . It was here that he met young Valentin Schmalz for the first time . After his return to Poland Wojdowski worked at the grammar school in Lubartów until he moved to Strasbourg in 1591 to continue studying . Here he met Schmalz again, whom he was finally able to win over to Unitarianism. It is reported that both had numerous conversations in the main church in Strasbourg . From 1594 on Wojdowski stayed in Lubin and partly on the estate of a Unitarian aristocrat in Zakrzewo near Thorn . At that time Wojdowski turned increasingly to christological topics and was in close correspondence with Sozzini. In 1597 he enrolled at the University of Leiden , where he met Ernst Soner , with whom he soon became friends.

After Wojdowski, accompanied by Christoph Ostorodt, had transported socinian literature from Poland to the Netherlands in the summer of 1598 , both were detained by the Amsterdam magistrate and ultimately expelled by the Dutch parliament, the States General in The Hague. Most of the books were burned . The three Reformed theologians Franciscus Gomarus , Franz Junius the Elder and Lucas Trelcatius issued an expert opinion in August 1598 that the books were characterized as blashemic and close to Islam . The whole incident led to Unitarianism being viewed as heresy for decades in the Calvinist Netherlands . Nevertheless, Wojdowski and Ostorodt were able to make valuable contacts before they left for Poland, especially with Hans de Ries , a leading representative of the Dutch Mennonites ( Anabaptists ). The visit to Hans de Ries in Alkmaar marked the beginning of regular contacts between Polish Unitarians and Dutch Mennonites. As a result of the incidents in the Netherlands, a Synod of the Polish Brethren, which met in Lublin in June 1600, decided to promote the development of their own educational system, which for The Rakau Academy was founded in 1602. Young Polish Unitarians should no longer be exposed to the danger of arrest or persecution abroad. Wojdowski subsequently traveled to Germany several times in order to win well-known intellectuals for the Unitarian Academy in Rakau. Wojdowski himself later became the scholarch (head) of the academy. In the last active years of his life he worked as a pastor in the Unitarian parish in Łęczyca in central Poland .

literature

• Kęstutis Daugirdas: The Beginnings of Socinianism - Genesis and Penetration of the Historical-Ethical Religious Model in the University Discourse of Evangelicals in Europe , Göttingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-525-10142-1 , pp. 198 ff.