Preliminary communication
CHANGING AND UNITING THE CHURCHES: ONE EPISODE OF MARCUS ANTONIUS DE DOMINIS’ ENGAGEMENT CONCERNING THE IRENICISTIC MOVEMENT
Filip NOVOSEL
Abstract
In the period of the constant religious struggles in Western European history of the 16th and 17th centuries, various men of letters who dealt with emerging religious questions played a role on the cultural and political scene of the time. Unlike the more common intolerant standpoints characteristic of wider public, a concept called irenicism, which was connected with the idea of Church unity achieved via reason in a peaceful way, was rather accepted among scholars of all
kinds. This paper brings to light one of the cases connected to the irenicistic concept initiated by the archbishop of Split, Marcus Antonius de Dominis, who was accused of heresy by the Inquisition. This particular initiative dates from the period of the archbishop’s stay in exile in England where he was very active in discussing ecclesiological matters. Namely, this Dominis’ activity resulted with a single letter to Cyril Loukaris, the Patriarch of Alexandria, and the
response. Although quite brief and not yielding any results, the analysis of his correspondence brings some interesting notions about the intellectual efforts of these two protagonists of the irenicistic movement and contributes to the better understanding of the exchange of religious ideas among European men of letters in the early 17th century in general.
Keywords
Marcus Antonius de Dominis; Cyril Loukaris; Catholicism; Anglicanism; Orthodox Church; irenicism
Hrčak ID:
108761
URI
Publication date:
26.9.2013.
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