Лелио Соццини: Итальяндық теолог және социнианствоның негізін қалаушысы

Italian theologian and co founder of Socinianism (1525–1562)
[[File:Lelio Sozzini. jpg|thumb|right|230px|Lelio Sozzini (Latin: Laelius Socinus; 1525–1562), the Italian theologian namesake of Socinianism. and, alongside his nephew Fausto Sozzini, founder of the Nontrinitarian Christian belief system known as Socinianism. His doctrine 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.

Lelio Sozzini was born and raised in Siena, capital city of the Republic of Siena. At this period, the standpoint of Sozzini was that of evangelical reform of the Christian faith; he exhibits a singular union of enthusiastic piety with subtle theological speculation. At Chiavenna in 1547 he came under the influence of Paolo Ricci "Camillo Renato" of Sicily, a gentle Christian mystic whose teaching at many points resembled that of the early Quakers. Pursuing his religious travels throughout early modern Europe, his family name and his personal charm ensured him a welcome in the Old Swiss Confederacy, the kingdoms of France and England, and the Republic of the Netherlands.

Returning to Switzerland at the close of 1548, with commendatory letters to the Swiss Protestant churches from Nicolas Meyer, envoy from Wittenberg to Italy, we find him at Geneva, Basel (with Sebastian Münster), and Zürich (lodging with Konrad Pelikan) between the years 1549–1550. He was next at Wittenberg (July 1550–June 1551), first as Melanchthon's guest, then with professor Johann Forster, for the improvement of his knowledge of Hebrew. From Wittenberg he returned to Zürich (end of 1551), after visiting Vienna in the Holy Roman Empire, then Prague and Kraków in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Political events drew him back to Italy in June 1552; with two visits to Siena. In the Republic of Siena, freedom of speech was for the moment possible, owing to the siege of Siena (1552–1559) and shaking off of the Spanish yoke. This brought him into contact with his young nephew Fausto. Lelio was at Padua (not Geneva, as is often said) at the date of Michael Servetus's execution (27 October 1553), burned at the stake with the accusation of heresy. Thence he made his way to Basel (January 1554), Geneva (April), and Zürich (May), where he took up his abode. John Calvin, like Melanchthon, received Sozzini with open arms. Melanchthon (though a phrase in one of his letters has been strangely misconstrued) never regarded him with theological suspicion. To Calvin's keen glance Sozzini's over speculative tendency and the genuineness of his religious nature were equally apparent. A passage often quoted (apart from the context) in one of Calvin's letters (1 January 1552) has been viewed as a rapture of amicable intercourse; but, while more than once uneasy apprehensions arose in Calvin's mind, there was no breach of correspondence or of kindliness. Of all the Protestant Reformers, Heinrich Bullinger was Sozzini's closest intimate, his warmest and wisest friend. Sozzini's theological difficulties turned on the resurrection of the body, predestination, the ground of salvation (on these points he corresponded with Calvin), the doctrinal basis of the original gospel (his queries to Bullinger), the nature of repentance (to Rudolph Gualther), and the sacraments (to Johann Wolff). It was the fate of the Spanish theologian Michael Servetus that directed his mind to focus on the doctrine of the Trinity. At Geneva (April 1554) he made, incautious remarks on the common doctrine, emphasized in a subsequent letter to Martinengo, the Italian pastor. Bullinger, at the instance of correspondents (including Calvin), questioned Sozzini as to his faith, and received from him an explicitly orthodox confession (reduced to writing on 15 July 1555), with a frank reservation of the right of further inquiry. A month before this Sozzini had been sent with Martino Muralto to Basel, to secure Ochino as pastor of the Italian church at Zürich; and it is clear that in their subsequent intercourse the minds of Sozzini and Ochino (a thinker of the same type as Camillo, with finer dialectic skill) acted powerfully on each other in the radical discussion of theological problems.

In 1555, Lelio turned 30 years old. From 1556 following the death of his father, who left him nothing by will, Sozzini was involved in pecuniary anxieties. With influential introductions (one from Calvin) he visited in 1558 the courts of Vienna and Kraków to obtain support for an appeal to the reigning duke at Florence for the realization of his own and the family estates. Curiously enough Melanchthon's letter introducing Sozzini to Maximilian II invokes as an historic parallel the hospitable reception rendered by the Emperor Constantine to Athanasius when he fled from Egypt to Trier. Well received out of Italy, Sozzini could do nothing at home, and apparently did not proceed beyond Venice. The Inquisition had its eye on the family; his brother Cornelio Sozzini was imprisoned at Rome; his brothers Celso Sozzini and Camillo and his nephew Fausto were "reputati Luterani," suspected of Lutheranism, and Camillo Sozzini had fled from Siena. In August 1559 Sozzini returned to Zürich, where his brief career was closed by his death on 4 May 1562, at his lodging in the house of Hans Wyss, a silk weaver.