On January 28, 1573, the act of the Warsaw Confederation was signed. It was an epochal and groundbreaking document, introducing religious tolerance and formally guaranteeing the nobility freedom of religion in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Work on the legal act establishing freedom of religion for the nobility was undertaken at the Convocation Sejm, which was held from 6 to 29 January 1573. It was convened after the death of King Sigismund Augustus, who died on 7 July 1572, ending the Jagiellonian dynasty that had ruled Poland for 186 years. During the Sejm sessions, it was planned to determine the date and place of the election of the new king of Poland. The Sejm also addressed the issue of religious freedom, the formal guarantee of which was an extremely important topic for the Polish nobility. Among others, the deputies representing Greater Poland pressed for this. Sigismund Augustus was a king who guaranteed freedom of the Augsburg or Lutheran faith. Previously, such freedom had been guaranteed in Poland to Jews, Armenians, Tatars and Ruthenians. Therefore, concerns arose about the maintenance of the guarantee of religious tolerance by the new elective king.
The original act of the Warsaw Confederation, signed on 28 January 1573 by over 200 members of parliament, each with their own wax seal. (Source: Wikipedia)
In order to develop the final wording of the document, a special commission was established, chaired by Bishop Stanisław Karnkowski of Kujawy. The deliberations of the 15-person body lasted several days and ended on January 27. The key was to work out a compromise between Catholics and Protestants.
The Act of the Warsaw Confederation was adopted during a vote in the Sejm. It was a document that ensured that all representatives of the nobility, regardless of religion, had access to dignities and offices as well as land rights. The state had no right to interfere in the religious matters of this social group. It formally sanctioned unconditional and eternal peace between followers of different religions, while guaranteeing the prohibition of any fights resulting from differences in worldviews.
To this day, the compromise worked out at that time is held in very high regard. The act of the Warsaw Confederation testified not only to political maturity, but above all to the ability to reach compromises in extremely important and difficult matters, as they touched on general worldview issues. Thanks to this, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a state covering 800 thousand square kilometers, it was possible to extinguish potential conflicts, smoldering in connection with the interregnum that existed after the death of the last Jagiellon.
It should be emphasized, however, that the Polish church hierarchy officially protested against the adoption of the document. On the part of the church authorities, only the Bishop of Kraków, Franciszek Krasiński, signed the document.
The confirmation of the act of the Warsaw Confederation took place during the elective Sejm held from April 3 to May 15, 1573 in Kamień near Warsaw. In 1579, the text adopted by the Sejm six years earlier was published in a collection of Sejm constitutions. Each newly elected elective king was obliged to confirm the act of the Warsaw Confederation at the coronation ceremony. Poland became the country in Europe where representatives of various denominations could safely stay, with the certainty that they would not be repressed because of their religious beliefs.
It is worth adding that in 2003, the act of the Warsaw Confederation was entered onto the UNESCO World Program "Memory of the World" List as a document of particular importance for the history of tolerance, civil society and democracy. The original is kept in the Central Archives of Historical Records.
Translation from Polish by Andrew Wozniewicz.
