Merkelis Petkevičius

Merkelis Petkevičius (Polish: Melchior Pietkiewicz; c. 1550–1608) was a Reformation (Calvinist) activist in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

[1] However, book's heavy, artificial language with numerous loanwords make it linguistically inferior to Daukša's work.

According to the military census of 1528, his grandfather Grigas Petkevičius had to send four men to the army in case of war.

[3] Based on analysis of Petkevičius language, linguist Zigmas Zinkevičius determined that he grew up in that area.

[3] In 1598, Petkevičius established his own press in Vilnius specifically for the purpose of printing Protestant books.

The first Lithuanian Protestant books published in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, unlike the Lithuanian Protestant books published in the Duchy of Prussia almost fifty years earlier, were a result of individual efforts of nobles and not of the clergymen or the synod.

[2] The catechism is titled in Polish (Polski z litewskim katechism) and is a truncated version of the Polish catechism most likely prepared by Stanisław Sudrowski and printed in Vilnius in 1595 (its title page is missing which makes it hard to determine its author or date of publication).

[7] In turn, Sudrowski's work drew from the Polish catechism sponsored by Mikołaj "the Black" Radziwiłł and printed in Nesvizh in 1563.

Linguist Zigmas Zinkevičius determined that these translations date back to the 13th century when King Mindaugas converted to Christianity.