VI - Kalik.pdf - ►► Historia - umkc

Jewish History 17: 229–237, 2003.

229

The Orthodox Church and the Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian

Commonwealth

JUDITH KALIK

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Relations between the Orthodox Church and the Jews in the Polish-Lithianian

Commonwealth followed the same pattern as those with the Uniates and

the Roman Catholics. 1 This is not surprising. The similar institutional and

economic structures of the three churches made patterns of contact uniform,

particularly economic ones, and the ofﬁcial doctrine of Catholic, Uniate, and

Orthodox Churches toward the Jews was identical, as may be seen from the-

ological disputes and from various expressions about Jews and their place

in a Christian society. Catholic literature related to Jews was dominant, and

the Orthodox exploited it. One element in particular ﬂavored the relations

between the Jews and the Orthodox Church, namely, a high degree of vio-

lence – violence that both sides originated, which was not typical of relations

between the Jews and the Catholic and Uniate Churches.

The Orthodox Church adopted positions formulated before the schism

with the Latin West in 1054 – albeit the position of West had itself been

highly inﬂuenced by the East in the early centuries. About the Old Testament

and the New Testament , written by the metropolitan Illarion in 1051, was

typically based on Biblical criticism; there is no hint to the later attack on the

Talmud. 2 Eastern authors like the eleventh century St. Theodosius challenged

Western doctrine 3 by saying Jews should be treated as heretics. 4 The few

original Orthodox anti-Jewish writings all have roots in Western texts; in

most cases, Western literature was simply translated into Church-Slavonic,

especially during the Judaizers’ controversy in Muscovy during the ﬁfteenth

century, for instance, the Letter of Rabbi Samuel, which was translated into

Polish and Slavonic toward the end of the ﬁfteenth century at Novgorod, 5 as

were writings of the convert Joseph, describing Jews supposedly converted to

Christianity in Africa; the translator was Dmitry Gerasimov. 6 Two centuries

later, Joannicyusz Galatowski attacked the Sabbatian movement. 7 The most

popular work of this kind was Gaudenti Pikulski’s eighteenth century On the

Malevolence of the Jews. 8

Synodal rulings of the Orthodox Church display a direct Catholic Polish-

Lithuanian inﬂuence. 9 The regulations were often standard, intended to segre-

gate the Jews, including prohibitions on employing Christian servants, buying

230

JUDITH KALIK

food Jews had prepared food, and, of course, on sexual intercourse. Ortho-

dox prelates like the Archimandrite of Słuck Feodosij Wasylewicz (1669)

repeated these rulings on an individual basis. 10 However, the restrictions were

often ﬂouted. 11 Jews were defended here by Polish magnates interested in fur-

thering the activities of Jewish lease-holders ( arendarze ). Further protection

to Jews living on private estates came from lesser nobles who were lease

holders of villages or estates comprised of several villages. The Orthodox

parish priest of Andrzejewo complained in 1647 to the urban court of Luck

that when, in accord with the resolution of the Orthodox Church synod of

1640 at Kiev, 12 he prohibited his ﬂock from buying meat from Jews, the

lease-holder of the village – Baniewski – had him tried in the magnate’s court

which ruled that he should compensate the Jews for losses his prohibition

had caused. The noble lease-holder also ordered the priest to pay 30 zloty to

the magnate’s treasury. When the priest refused to pay, the noble lease-holder

sealed the church, blocking all religious activity there for two weeks. Later,

as an eye-witness also swore, the noble sacked the priest’s house, desecrated

icons of the Virgin and the Apostles, whom he called “donkeys and dogs,”

and threatened to kill the priest himself. The priest then accused the noble of

being a secret Arian, thus explaining his support for Jews. 13 The accusation of

Arianism, used here by the Orthodox priest, was typical of Polish Catholics,

too, at this time, who said that the Arian sect was similar to Judaism. 14

The most widespread economic contact between the Jews and the Ortho-

dox Church derived from debts Jews owed to the Orthodox Church. These

were part of a uniquely Polish phenomenon in the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries – massive borrowings by Jewish communities and councils from

the Catholic, the Uniate, and the Orthodox Churches. 15 These debts con-

stituted about nine-tenths of all loans taken by Jewish communities. More

than eighty percent of them came from the Catholic Church; the remaining

twenty percent from the Uniate and Orthodox Churches. The average rate

of seven percent was the lowest in the market and always lagged behind the

rate of inﬂation, which made the loans attractive and proﬁtable. The interest

rate in these loan agreements with the Church was also calculated from the

original sum, so that payment was in four identical installments each year,

meaning that the interest rate was ﬁxed, not accumulative. In practical terms,

the amount of repayment constantly diminished. Loans by Jews from the Or-

thodox church also took the form of what was called, “wyderkaf,” buying

proﬁts from mortgaged property by means of a loan. Real estate, usually

urban houses, was mortgaged this way. The creditor received his proﬁt in

the form of rent or proceeds from the other uses of the property. Identical

loans were given Jews by the Catholic Church.

ORTHODOX CHURCH AND JEWS IN THE COMMONWEALTH

231

Jewish debts to the Catholic, Orthodox, and Uniate Churches were of

three kinds: direct loans, debts inherited by the Church from nobles who

often willed incomes from Jewish debts to a local church or monastery which

promised in return to pray for their souls, or simply the nobles’ proﬁts from

Jewish debts, which were given as outright donations. 16 Both Orthodox and

Catholic Churches often failed to collect Jewish debts, primarily because

of the protection magnates gave their Jews, especially in these cases. The

Archimandrite of Słuck, Feodosij Wasylewicz, wrote to Bogusław Radziwiłł

on October 4, 1699, that he had to go the Kraków (presumably to attend the

session of the Sejm there) in order to ﬁnd justice in the matter of 120 grziwny

owed him by the Jews of Słuck, which he had not received despite all his

appeals to the town’s lord, Prince Radziwłł. He asked Radziwiłł to treat him, a

Christian cleric, with the same degree of respect and good will, with which he

treats the Jews of his estate (emphasis added). 17 Jews also had to contribute

other payments, known as “kozubalec,” to Catholic, Uniate, and Orthodox

ecclesiastical institutions. These were payments for cemeteries and so-called

pro tolerantia payments which were meant to compensate a local cleric for

tithes Christian owners, now replaced by Jews, had once paid. 18 Thanks to

the magnates, Jews, especially those on private estates, used to avoid these

payments.

When Jews avoided paying Catholic institutions, the conﬂict rarely de-

teriorated into violence. When the Orthodox church was involved, violence

was often the rule, as hundreds of documents testify. The court of Brest reg-

istered a complaint made in 1680 by an Orthodox priest from Grodno, Jakub

Jasi nski, against Leyzer Jozefowicz. The priest claimed that on March 3, of

that year, Jozefowicz had been driving his wagon near the church in Grodno.

Two boys, pupils of the priest, had gone out of the church and begun to

to demand a kozubalec for paper, as was the custom. The kozubalec which

Jozefwicz gave them was in the form of heavy blows to the neck (. . . pocz ał

im dawac kozubalec po szyi ...).Jasi nski, ill at the time, went out to the street

to ask Jozefowicz, “Why are you beating my boys.” In response, Jozefowicz

revealed no respect toward the Christian cleric, cursing him and calling him,

“son of a whore.” When Jasi nski remonstrated, Jozefowicz jumped out of his

wagon, threw the priest to the ground, tore his clothes, and began to kick

him. Only when the priest began to cry out did passers-by come to save him.

He said that Jozefowicz would surely have killed him otherwise. Later, a

rumor reached the priest that Jozefowicz had been boasting and threatened

to kill him. He said he had ﬁled the case for self-protection. 19 Commonly,

in such cases, though not this one in particular, the Jew immediately ﬁled

a counter-complaint claiming that the one who initiated the beating was the

priest.

232

JUDITH KALIK

Sometimes, the antagonist was the Jew. Jews beat priests, church servants,

and novices. Countless documents attest that even after 1648, this picture

remained unchanged in Eastern Polish and Lithuanian, where the Jewish eco-

nomic role on the estates continued to be formidable and the protection Polish

magnates offered ﬁrm. 20

So ﬁrm was this protection granted that the Orthodox clergy identiﬁed

“Jesuits, Uniates and Jews” as one in oppressing the Orthodox in the eastern

parts of the Commonwealth. A letter written on January 5th 1658 by various

Orthodox clerics in Kiev wrote to Czar Aleksei Mikhailovich begged him to

conquer these territories and release them from this situation. 21

Much of the contact between clerics and Jews took place on those es-

tates which housed a church, monastery, or other ecclesiastical institution,

creating direct contact with the local Jewish lease-holder. 22 These Jews often

collected taxes paid to the magnate by the local church, or they transferred

charitable payments and other donations made by the magnate to the church.

Many parish priests were forced to cede liquor production to the Jewish

lease-holders and were forbidden to produce liquor at home; they were often

also obliged to mill their grain at the lease-holder’s mill, just as were the

rest of the estate’s inhabitants. In the case of Orthodox priests, the leasing

of propination rights, the right to produce and sell liquor, was a principal

cause of conﬂict that might deteriorate into violence. A letter of the Orthodox

bishop of Belarus Jerzy Koni nski 23 to Radziwiłł on February 4, 1762 (it is not

clear whether the letter was addressed to Michał Kazimierz or to his son) said

that it was unjust that the pastor in Pupowiec be subjected to the Jewish lease-

holder in matters of propination and milling. A new Jewish lease-holder, the

letter explained, had come to the parish and asked the pastor whether he kept

vodka in his house. When the honest pastor showed him a quart meant for his

private consumption, the Jewish lease-holder turned the house upside down,

although he found anything. He later returned to the parish accompanied by

Cossacks (the name for armed servants), conﬁscated all the parish priest’s

property, and sealed the church ( cerkiew ). The Bishop asked Radziwiłł for

the sake of God to restrain his Jewish lease-holder. 24

This document, as well as many similar ones, 25 raises the question whether

the Jews leased Orthodox churches and could seal them at will, as vari-

ous historians at the turn of the twentieth century claimed, a claim that, in

turn, provoked loud protest, especially from Jewish historians such as Galant.

Galant thought that the “legend” of the Jews leasing Orthodox churches orig-

inated because the Jews leased payments due to the lord when peasants need

sacraments performed, in particular, marriages, baptisms, and liturgies. 26 Ye t

there are few references to such Jewish leases, and these are mostly with

reference to the Catholic Church. 27

In the event, any possible conﬂict was

ORTHODOX CHURCH AND JEWS IN THE COMMONWEALTH

233

not between the Jewish lease-holders and the Church, but with the local

population, since in the case of non-repayment, the lease-holder might delay

the sacrament being administered. Hence, the idea that Jews leased Orthodox

churches was based not on the leasing of churches per se, but rather on Jewish

leases of the lord’s rights pertaining to churches situated on the lord’s estate(s)

and the rites performed in them.

In addition, Jewish lease-holders sealed Orthodox churches as a sanction

against the violation of propination rights, the prohibition on ﬁshing in the

lord’s river, or the non-payment by the priest of taxes, and so forth. This,

however, was much the same procedure as that which led Roman Catholic,

Uniate, and Orthodox ofﬁcials to seal synagogues when Jews failed to pay

interest on wyderkaf loans. Dov Ber of Bolechow described such a case:

“ ... an order came from the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Lwów, Wacław

Hieronim Sierakowski, and they sealed the synagogue which remained sealed

from Passover to Pentecost, until I settled this matter for 20 zloty, which

I paid from my pocket; and immediately I received the signed and sealed

letter of release from the Bishop, which is in my hands.” 28 In Ostróg in 1746,

the lord of the town ﬁled a complaint in court against the Franciscans, who

had conﬁscated merchandise, money, and property belonging to the Jews and

sealed their synagogue as a pledge for the unpaid interest the local Jewish

community owed them. 29

Contacts between Orthodox clerics and Jewish lease-holders and tavern-

keepers were of a different nature. Priests, monks, and other clerics used to

buy and drink liquor in Jewish taverns, which, as might be expected, often led

to friction. In 1621, an Orthodox parish priest in Włodzimierz, Jakub Załuski,

complained to the deputy governor ( podwojewoda ) responsible for judging

the Jews. Załuski said that when he left his parish on business, the church

with all its property remained in the hands of one of the priests, whose custom

it was to drink in the tavern run by a Jew called Bieniasz. In lieu of payment,

this second priest had pledged the church book with all its records. Załuski

now demanded the book’s immediate return. 30 A similar situation is revealed

in a letter by the hegumen of the Orthodox monastery in Solomierieck, one

Father Jaworski, to his counterpart in another monastery in Wilno on January

7, 1750. Jaworski laments the fate of a third hegumen, Tomilowicz, from a

monastery in Mi nsk, who owed a great deal of money to a Jewish woman

called Rebbeca. He had already sold ﬁve loads of rye and spent 16 thalers

of monastery money to cover this debt, but was still unable to complete the

repayment. He now wanted the Wilno monastery to pay Rebecca with the

bread it was producing. 31 The consequences of situations like this are revealed

in the memoirs of Solomon Maimon, in which Maimon described his youth

in mid-18th century Lithuania. He tells of the local Orthodox priest who used

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