The Jesuits In Ermland, The Conversian Of The Cossack's, Cardinal Stanislas Hosius And The Counter Reformation

STANISLAS HOSIUS, bishop of Ermland, was one of the presidents of the COUNCIL OF TRENT, where a thorough reform of the Catholic Church as well as steps to regain the population of territories lost to protestantism was decided upon.

Hosius became the driving force of the COUNTER REFORMATION in Poland. In 1564 he convinced King Sigismund II., who previously tended toward protestantism. The Jesuits were called in, they established a college ( Colegium Hosianum ) in Braunsberg (Ermland) and an academy in Vilnius.

Most of Poland and Lithuania returned to Catholicism; only the autonomous territories of Livonia, Courland, the Duchy of Prussia and the cities of Riga, Danzig, Thorn and Elbing remained protestant. In 1589, Moscow's metropolit had seceded from Constantinople, had declared himself PATRIARCH OF ALL RUSSIA, a claim including the Orthodox communities within Lithuania, a claim Poland could not accept.

In 1596, King Sigismund III. Vasa and his chancellor Zamoyski established the CHURCH UNION OF BREST-LITOWSK, the merger of Poland-Lithuania's Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches. The orthodox church provinces of Lithuania had been integrated in the Catholic church organization, but continued to follow their traditional rites.

However, a part of the Greek-Orthodox clergy rejected the union. So, a Greek unified church and a traditionally independent Greek Orthodox church coexisted in the Eastern Provinces.

After the Counterreformation, the Greek Orthodox and Protestant Church continued to be a factor. However, they had been marginalized, reduced to fairly autonomous territories in the north respectivelly to provinces on the eastern fringe. The Counterreformation had changed the quality of religious tolerance into a mere toleration; Catholicism had forcefully been reestablished as the dominant religion.

Formally, Protestantism and the Orthodox were tolerated, but the Jesuits actively pursued a policy of converting souls to Catholicism. When Poland and Sweden agreed on the border in Livonia, leaving the Daugavpils area in Polish hands (1635, Polish Livonia), it was recatholicized.

The Jesuits also were active converting the Cossacks, and the Cossack uprising of 1648 was directed as much against the Jesuits as against the Polish state.

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