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Concept
Socinianism
Summary
Socinianism (səˈsɪniənɪzəm) is a Nontrinitarian Christian belief system developed and co-founded during the Protestant Reformation by the Italian Renaissance humanists and theologians Lelio Sozzini (Latin: Laelius Socinus) and Fausto Sozzini (Latin: Faustus Socinus), uncle and nephew, respectively.
It was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Polish Reformed Church between the 16th and 17th centuries, and embraced by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period. Socinianism is most famous for its Nontrinitarian Christian beliefs about the unitary nature of God and the human nature of Jesus but contains a number of other distinctive theological doctrines, such as the denial of divine foreknowledge regarding the actions of free agents and rejection of the pre-existence of Christ.
The beliefs of Socinianism date from the wing of the Protestant Reformation known as the Radical Reformation and have their root in the Italian Anabaptist movement of the 1540s, such as the anti-trinitarian Council of Venice in 1550. 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). Lelio Sozzini considered that the "beginning" of was the same as and referred to the new creation, not the Genesis creation. His nephew Fausto Sozzini published his own longer Brevis explicatio later, developing his uncle's arguments. Many years after the death of his uncle in Switzerland, Fausto Sozzini consulted with the Unitarian Church in Transylvania, attempting to mediate in the dispute between Giorgio Biandrata and Ferenc Dávid.
He moved to Poland, where he married the daughter of a leading member of the Polish Brethren, the anti-trinitarian minority, or ecclesia minor. In 1565, it had split from the Calvinist Reformed Church in Poland. 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.
Official source
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