Lubieniecki, Stanisław
LUBIENIECKI, STANISŁAW
Socinian knight, pastor, and historian; b. Raków, Poland, Aug. 23, 1623; d. Hamburg, Germany, May 18, 1675. The son of the pastor in Raków and educated in the academy there, Lubieniecki was appointed traveling tutor to a young count and with him visited Holland and France (1646–48). In 1652 he was ordained in the Minor Church, serving first in Czarków. In 1655 he besought Charles X Gustav of Sweden, whose troops occupied Cracow, for protection of the Minor Church. By 1660 all remaining Socinians were obliged to flee Poland or suffer death (see socinianism). After brief stays in Fredericksburg, Copenhagen, Stralsund, and Stettin, he settled in Hamburg, where he was opposed by the Lutheran clergy. Of his 32 works, two were published posthumously: Historia reformationis Polonicae (Amsterdam 1685), a major source of Polish religious history from the point of view of an exiled antitrinitarian leader, and Theatrum cometicum (Amsterdam 1688), a history of comets and a demonstration that they had no significance in presaging human affairs.
Bibliography: b. stasiewski, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 6:1167. r. wallace, Antitrinitarian Biography, 3 v. (London 1850) 3:294–306. j. tazbir, Stanislaw Lubieniecki: Przywódca ariañskiej emigracji (Warsaw 1961), with genealogical tables.
[g. h. williams]