Socinianism

Lelio Sozzini was the first of the Italian anti-trinitarians to go beyond Arian beliefs in print and deny the pre-existence of Christ in his Brevis explicatio in primum Johannis caput – a commentary on the meaning of the Logos in John 1:1–15 (1562).

Many years after the death of his uncle in Switzerland, Fausto Sozzini was consulted by the Unitarian Church in Transylvania, attempting to mediate in the dispute between Giorgio Biandrata and Ferenc Dávid.

Sozzini never joined the ecclesia minor, but he was influential in reconciling several controversies among the Brethren: on conscientious objection, on prayer to Christ, and on the virgin birth.

Sources in the 18th and 19th centuries frequently attributed the term Socinian anachronistically, using it to refer to ideas that embraced a much wider range than the narrowly defined position of the Racovian catechisms and library.

[citation needed] However, the original Polish Socinians were believers in miracles and the virgin birth,[11][12][13] although there were a few radicals, such as Symon Budny and Jacobus Palaeologus, who denied these.

[14] Although not directly a doctrinal belief, the principle of conscientious objection and the obedient relation of the believer to the state became a distinct position of Socinianism as it was formalized in the Racovian publications.

Before F. Sozzini's arrival in Poland, there had been a wide range of positions from the total otherworldliness, common property, and withdrawal from the state of Marcin Czechowic of Lublin through to the advocacy of military service by Symon Budny.

The next generation of Polish Brethren stabilized between these two positions, carrying wooden swords to follow the letter of the law and allowing senior Socinians such as Hieronim Moskorzowski to vote in the Sejm.