Stanley Mordaunt Leathes

“ The reign of Sigismund Augustus (1548-72) saw the Polish Reformation at its height. The Synod of Piotrkow in 1552, at which Stanislaus Hosius, the Bishop of Ermland, first took a prominent part as a defender of the Church, initiated a vigorous campaign against the Reform; but although the clergy procured the martyrdom of a poor priest, they found themselves helpless against the nobles. The Diet of 1552 left to the clergy the power of judging heresy, but deprived them of the authority to inflict any civil or political penalty. ”

“ The excessive authority of the Pope, the immunity of the clergy from public burdens and public control, the exactions of the Papacy, the expenses of litigation before the Curia, indulgences, simony, and the requirement of fees for spiritual offices, the unworthiness and ignorance of monks and clergy, the encouragement of idleness, are all put forward with no sparing hand. Owing to the privileges of the Polish nobility the power of the ecclesiastical Courts was less in Poland than elsewhere, and excommunication was openly set at defiance. ”

“ During this era its difficulties arose principally from the dissensions of the Reformers, from the independence of the nobility, the ignorance and apathy of the oppressed peasantry, and the want of sympathy between the country and the towns, where the German element was strong, and between the burghers and the nobles. Thus the evolution of a national Reformed Church was impossible; the Reform movement never obtained any vital hold on the mass of the people ”