Warsaw Confederation
It was an important development in the history of Poland and Lithuania, extending religious tolerance to the nobility and free persons (burghers, the townspeople of royal cities) within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
[5] Religious tolerance in Poland has a long tradition (e.g., Statute of Kalisz), and influenced by two significant documents issued by King Casimir III the Great.
Certain restrictions on the access of Orthodox Christians to the highest offices in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were lifted by King Sigismund II of Poland in 1563 and 1568.
In addition to the Orthodox and Armenians, Lipka Tatars, Ashkenazi Jews, and Crimean Karaites living in some cities and more numerous Lithuanian villages also enjoyed tolerance in Poland.
In opposition to the prevailing principles in Western Europe, a doctrine regarding the state's relationship with pagans was formed in Poland in the 15th century, represented by Bishop Andrzej Łaskarz of Poznań and Paweł Włodkowic from the Kraków Academy (Jagiellonian University).
Bishop Andrzej Krzycki, defending the Treaty of Kraków of 1525, referred to the fact that in Poland, alongside Catholics, Ruthenians, Armenians, Ashkenazi Jews, and Lipka Tatars had long lived together in harmony; in this community, there was also a place for Lutherans in the Duchy of Prussia.
In 1570, representatives of Lutherans, Calvinists, and the Bohemain Brethren residing in the Commonwealth gathered in Sandomierz, where they reached an agreement to mutually recognize each other as Christian denominations and to jointly oppose the Catholic majority.
The dissenters presented a draft constitution (the Sandomierz Agreement) to the Sejm (parliament) in 1570, guaranteeing freedom of religion for all, so that "everyone may believe according to their conscience" on an equal footing with Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians.
[1][2] To achieve this, the citizens had to unconditionally abide by the decisions made by the body, and the Confederation was a potent declaration that the two former states were still closely linked.
Religious tolerance was an important factor in a multiethnic and multi-religious state, as the territories of the Commonwealth were inhabited by many generations of people from different ethnic backgrounds (Poles, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Germans, Armenians, Italians, Lipka Tatars, and Ashkenazi Jews) and of different denominations (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Lutheran, Calvinist, Polish Brethren, Monophysite Armenians, Judaism, and even Muslim communities in Poland and in Lithuania).
During the meeting of the envoy with the king-elect in the cathedral of Notre-Dame, he forced the Duke of Anjou, speaking loudly in his direction in the lingua franca of Classical Latin: "Si non iurabis, non regnabis" ("If you do not swear, you will not reign").
Despite some generalities, the Warsaw Confederation provided a legal foundation for Polish Protestantism and was the first act of broad religious tolerance in Europe.
This event held significant importance due to the ongoing threat of war with the Ottoman Empire and the further re-Catholicisation of Poland and other European states.
Among the candidates for the Polish throne were Protestants (Duke Albert of Prussia, King John III of Sweden), the Orthodox Tsar Ivan the Terrible, and Catholics (Archduke Ernest of Habsburg, Prince Henry of Valois from France).
The election of Prince Henry as King of Poland was received with joy in Rome, although it was unofficially said that the Ottoman Sultan Selim II contributed to this.
In Kraków, on 12 October 1574, a crowd demolished the Calvinist church known as the brog, and the Sejm in Środa demanded the expulsion of the Jesuits from Poznań as agitators against the nobility.
The rebellious city of Gdańsk, unwilling to recognise him as King of Poland, not only submitted and paid a contribution but also had to rebuild the Cistercian abbey in Oliwa, which had been destroyed by a mob.
In accordance with the wishes of Pope Gregory XIII, King Stephen significantly supported the Jesuits, who expanded their ecclesiastical activities during his reign.
After the victorious Livonian campaign of Stephen Báthory against the Tsardom of Moscow, when a ten-year truce was concluded in the Truce of Yam-Zapolsky in 1582 through the mediation of Jesuit Antonio Possevino, King Stephen, with the cooperation of Pope Sixtus V, organised an anti-Ottoman league, which was to include the kingdoms of Spain, Germany, Poland, Republic of Venice, and the Tsardom of Moscow.
In 1581, he sent a mandate to Vilnius, noting that he had sworn to uphold the confederation and wished to maintain it, "leaving each person's conscience in matters of faith to the judgment of God."
Late-16th-century Poland stood between the Orthodox Tsardom of Moscow in the East, the Muslim Ottoman Empire to the South, and Western Europe, torn between Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation, to the North and West.
As historian Norman Davies noted, "Certainly, the wording and substance of the declaration of the Confederation of Warsaw of 28 January 1573 were extraordinary with regards to prevailing conditions elsewhere in Europe; and they governed the principles of religious life in the Commonwealth for over two hundred years.
