Marcin Ruar

He was a polyglot making frequent travels through Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands and the countries of Germany, promoting non-trinitarian teaching and pleas for tolerance, publishing and earning a reputation as one of the most educated men of his era.

Journeying to the Netherlands Ruar established contacts between the Polish Arians and the Dutch Remonstrant movement and with Jacobus Arminius.

Following the 1638 decision of the Sejm which drove the Polish brethren from Raków and closed the Racovian Academy, the Gdańsk city council moved to exile Ruar.

After five years Ruar received from King Władysław IV Vasa a certificate of immunity, and began again to convert Lutheran burghers of the city, which in 1643 resulted in a further banishment from Gdańsk - with his father in law Voss, the doctor Florian Crusius, Daniel Zwicker, the secretary of the council Ladebach and the eighty-year-old barber Werner David Buttel, with their families.

Although he was conditionally allowed to return to Gdańsk, henceforth Ruar preferred to live outside the city, in Straszyn, where he spent the rest of his life, writing, preaching, corresponding with the congregation in Gdansk, and with scholars abroad under the protection of the hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski.