Meletij Smotrycki—philologist/grammarian, paedagogue, polemicist, man of the upper Ruthenian Church hierarchy, first translator of large readings from the New Testament into Ruthenian—was a central figure in the Orthodox Reform that took place in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the sixteenth and the first half of of the seventeenth centuries in response to Roman Catholic, Uniate, and Protestant challenges.
Much remains obscured by the silence of the extant sources concerning the biography of Meletii Smotryts′kyi (Mialetsii Smatrytski; Melecjusz Smotrycki). What we can piece together comes from his own works, as well as from the responses of his opponents. He was born Maksym ca. 1577. His father was Herasym Smotryts′kyi, a founder of the Orthodox “Trilingual
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Citation: Frick, David. "Meletii Smotryts′kyi". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 May 2016 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13581, accessed 27 November 2024.]