Балканските светци и свети места като аргумент в полско-рутенската религиозна полемика през XVI–XVII в.
The Saints and Holy Places in the Balkans as an Argument in the Polish-Russian Religious Polemics in the Sixteenth and the Seventeenth Centuries

Summary/Abstract: After the conclusion of a union between the Roman Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, a religious polemic between the supporters and the opponents of the ecclesiastical union started in the territories of Polish Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita). It has lasted for over two centuries, and aimed at the transfer of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Papal power. The literary aspect of the dispute intended to show which of the two Churches maintained the purity of ancient faith and the true sacraments, which one of the Christian communities preserved the original God’s orders, and – most importantly –through which Church (Eastern or Western) the believer would be granted salvation. The hagiographic examples are frequently quoted among the countless arguments preserved in old manuscripts. References to the Balkan ritual and the cults of saints cited in these religious polemics aimed at presenting religious, moral and social models for the followers of the Orthodox Church, interpreted, each time, as examples of the true orthodoxy and as an adherence to the ancient patristic tradition. In this respect, the writings of the Ukrainian monk from Mount Athos, Ivan of Vishnya (Iwan Wiszeński) offer one of the most interesting and telling examples. They preserve an account of the martyrdom of Barlaam, Archbishop of Ohrid, unattested in any other written source. This valuable monument from the seventeenth-century hagiographic literature of the Balkans adds new data to the rather modestly presented Bulgarian literary culture under the Ottoman rule.

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