29. Renaissance humanism in Europe

Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval scholastic education, emphasizing practical, pre-professional and -scientific studies. Scholasticism focused on preparing men to be doctors, lawyers or professional theologians, and was taught from approved textbooks in logic, natural philosophy, medicine, law and theology. The main centers of humanism were Florence and Naples.

Rather than train professionals in jargon and strict practice, humanists sought to create a citizenry (sometimes including women) able to speak and write with eloquence and clarity. Thus, they would be capable of better engaging the civic life of their communities and persuading others to virtuous and prudent actions. This was to be accomplished through the study of the studia humanitatis, today known as the humanities: grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy…

31. Religious life after the Church Union of Berestia

Church Union of Berestia agreement, proclaimed in 1596, between the Ruthenian (Ukrainian-Belarusian) Orthodox church in Poland and Lithuania and the Holy See. The recognition of the pope as the head of the church and the implications of this position for the faith, morals, practices, and church administration were accepted by the Orthodox clergy. For his part, the pope agreed to the retention of the Eastern rite and confirmed the administrative-disciplinary rights and autonomy of the Kyiv metropoly.

Various circumstances brought about a crisis in the Ukrainian Orthodox church in the second half of the 16th century: the Turkish conquest of the seat of the patriarch of Constantinople in 1453; difficulties in the Ukrainian-Belarusian Orthodox church, such as declining discipline; the creation of the Moscow patriarchate in 1589; Protestant influences; and the Polonization of the Ukrainian upper classes. The Orthodox bishops worked out a plan for establishing ties with Rome at their sobors in 1590–4. The initiators of the plan hoped to gain not only ecclesiastical benefits from the union, but also an end to the Polonization of the upper classes and equality for the Orthodox church and its clergy in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The union was supported by leading Polish circles because it was politically and religiously advantageous to them.

The union was announced by the papal bull Magnus Dominus on 23 December 1595. In January and February of 1596 the rights and privileges of the Uniate church were worked out and were guaranteed by the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem of 23 February 1596. After Ipatii Potii and Kyrylo Terletsky returned from Rome, a sobor was called in Berestia for 16–20 October 1596. The sobor split into two groups—for and against the union with Rome—and thus two councils went on concurrently. The Polish king Sigismund III Vasa issued a proclamation in support of the union. The Apostolic See was represented at the sobor by the Roman Catholic bishops of Lviv, Lutsk, and Kholm, and the Polish government and crown were represented by several senators.