Palinodiia

Palinodiia ... (Palinode ...). An important Orthodox polemical work (see Polemical literature) written by Zakhariia Kopystensky in 1619–21. Subtitled ‘A Book in Defense of the Catholic Holy Apostolic Eastern Church and the Holy Patriarchs, and about the Greeks, and about the Ruthenian Christians [rossokh khristianekh],’ it is a defense of the Orthodox faith written in response to a 1617 Polish book by Lev Krevza, the archimandrite of the Uniate monastery in Vilnius. The erudite author cited over 100 works in his theological tract and embellished it with baroque pathos, satire, witticisms, proverbs, panegyrics (to Prince Kostiantyn Vasyl Ostrozky), and Jan Szeczęsny Herburt's speech to the Polish Sejm. Palinodiia circulated in manuscript form among Orthodox polemicists until 1876, when it was finally published in vol 1 of the series Pamiatniki polemicheskoi literatury v Zapadnoi Rusi. It has been the subject of a book in Russian by Volodymyr Zavitnevych (Warsaw 1883) and of an article in Latin by Andrii Ishchak in Bohosloviia (1930–2).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]