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SMOTRYC'KYJ'S THRENOS OF 1610 463Catholic antagonists were equally impressed by the effectiveness of hisrhetoric. King Sigismund III Vasa forbade the buying or selling of the bookon pain of a fine of 5,000 ri., and he ordered the author and printersarrested. 4 Heliasz Morochowski (Ilija Moroxovs'kyj) responded to Threnoswith a work entitled Paregoria, or Relief from the Acrimonious Lament(Vilnius, 1612), in which he referred to Smotryc'kyj as, among other things,"Theomach Pornolog." 5 A further sign of the work's success is the factthat Piotr Skarga, by then old and in failing health, felt the need to respondto this threat to his long-sought goal of church union by issuing his ownWarning against the Threnos and Lament of Theophil Ortholog (Cracow,1610), in which he dubbed Smotryc'kyj a "Krzywolog." 6 In his later years,now as a Uniate, Smotryc'kyj himself singled out the writing of Threnos,and the "lamentable errors and heresies (lamentowe bledy y Haerezye)" itcontained, for expressions of special regret and remorse. 7Scholarly discussions of Ruthenian writing in the late sixteenth and earlyseventeenth centuries have continued to remark on the unusual persuasivenessof Threnos, devoting special attention to the style of the first chapter.It is in this chapter that the actual lament is contained; here, in cadencedprose, a personification of the Eastern church complains of the wrongs shehas suffered at the hands of her children, who have abandoned her. Inchapter 2, she admonishes them to return to her before they are punished byGod. In the remainder of the book (about 85 percent of the entirety), thedevice of personification recedes into the background; here the Orthodoxfaith is defined and defended against Catholic and Protestant criticisms in adiscussion of debated points of doctrine, which include the primacy of thepope, the procession of the Holy Spirit, leavened and unleavened bread,purgatory, communion under both species, and the invocation of the saints.4Akty, izdavaemye Vilenskoju arxeograficeskoju kommissieju, vol. 8 (Vilnius, 1875), pp.93-95.5Heliasz Morochowski (Ilija Moroxovs'kyj), Paregoria Albo Vtulenie vszczypliwegoLamentu mniemaney Cerkwi Swietey wschodniey zmyslonego Theophila Orthologa (Cracow,1612).6Piotr Skarga, Na Threny y Lament Theophila Orthologa do Rusi Greckiego Naboienstwa,Przestroga (Cracow, 1610). On Skarga's efforts in support of the Union of Brest, including achapter devoted specifically to Skarga and Smotryc'kyj, see J. Tretiak, Piotr Skarga w dziejachi literaturze unii brzeskiej (Cracow, 1912). Smotryc'kyj's Greek pseudonym, Theophil Ortholog,makes him a God-loving speaker of true or upright words. By substituting new Greekattributes—Theomach Pornolog—Morochowski makes of the author one who struggles againstGod, using words of idolatry or fornication. Skarga's epithet—Krzywolog—deridesSmotryc'kyj in two ways: it not only substitutes krzywy (i.e., "crooked") for orthos, makingthe author a twister of words; by injecting a Polish root into a Greek compound word it alsoturns the author into someone of much less dignity, a mere scribbler rather than an authority.7See Smotryc'kyj, Apologia (L\i\, 1628), pp. 104-107 [575-77],