Otvinovius

By Bonnie Withers

Let’s take a dip back into the early history of belief in Unitarianism, specifically that
God is a single entity. Imagine a street corner in Rakow, Poland, in the early 1600’s.
A small crowd has gathered to watch yet another street corner debate between a
Roman Catholic priest and…a Unitarian! Erasmus Otvinovius, a Polish knight (no
less), was headmaster of a Socinian (worth looking up) school and well-known for
his anti-Trinitarian views and his street debates. That fearless behavior brought
many threats his way.

Otvinovius translated Ovid’s Metamorphoses and much of the New Testament into
Polish. He wrote a collection of poems about the lives of all the women in both the
Old and New Testaments. Sad to say, I was unable to find any of these verses among
my limited resources. Otvinovius died on May 31 in 1614.