Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

also anti-Socinian. Calixtus himself was even prepared, for unity‟s sake, that the Pope should
be acknowledged as the titular head of the Church.
There was a naivety about his hope that the entrenched ecclesiastical position of the
Reformed, Lutheran and Catholic Churches could be laid aside in the interest of unity.
Calixtus tried to find in the faith and confessions of the Early Church the basic confession
which could bind all Christians together in the Apostles‟ Creed. Could not all true Christians
confess the faith of the early martyrs? Would not the Vincentian Canon suffice?
He had many enemies, who disliked his mediating position, and many sorrows in the deaths
and disabilities of his children and in the decline of the University as a result of the War. But
the University recovered and Calixtus soldiered on to the end, outliving his wife by only two
years, yet confessing in his loneliness as he sat in the dark trying to read, „Christ‟s death and
merit is all my merit,‟ and dying peacefully in Christ.
German Protestantism was rent into two major divisions in Calixtus‟ day, Reformed
(Calvinistic) and Lutheran; and, of course, there was the long-standing opposition of the
Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches. A Conference was convened by King Wladyslaw
IV of Poland at Thorn (Torun) in 1645 in West Prussia, at that time under his protection, to
attempt to bring about some sort of reconciliation between the warring factions.
The Conference opened with much pomp and met in the Rath-Haus in the city. There were
present 27 Roman Catholic theologians, 23 Lutherans and 15 Reformed (authorities differ on
the exact numbers). There were 36 sessions altogether, and both Komensky and Calixtus
were present, but Calixtus took no part in the proceedings because of wrangling between the
Lutherans and the Reformed. Some Lutherans were offended that Calixtus had been invited
to the Conference by an Elector who was Reformed! Calixtus was supposed to be a Lutheran
and the Reformed were glad to have his allegiance.
The Conference, as one might have guessed, achieved no lasting result; some Lutherans were
suspicious of Catholic motives for being there. It is significant that when there were times of
worship, especially after the opening ceremony, the factions met separately! There was
objection from some delegates that the opening prayer had been assigned to a Roman
Catholic Bishop. Komensky left the Conference a month before its end, „disgusted with
haggling.‟ 60
What is important for our studies is that the principle of looking to the early days of the
Church as a model for present ecumenical thinking was accepted by many at this
Conference.
Calixtus held that what was believed in the Church in the first five centuries was conformable
to Scripture, though he thought Rome had introduced many „intolerable opinions‟. Despite
these „opinions‟, Calixtus was still open to ecumenical debate with Rome. Komensky‟s plan
for a universal Church also guarded against innovations by urging that „no one imports new
rituals into the Church, or even old and spurious ones which do not date back to Christ or the
60 Rouse, Ruth and Neill, Stephen C, A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517-1948, SPCK,
London, 1954, p 90.
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