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Szlichtyng kept the lightstand burning in Krakow with "bravery and doggedness" through its most trying times.²⁸⁷ The kind of man we are dealing with in Jonasz Szlichtyng is indicated by the following note by a contemporary: "God endowed his servant (Szlichtyng) with Christian fortitude to compose commentaries in imprisonment, amidst the terrors of war, and the calamities of five sieges. God so guarded them (the ecclesia in Krakow) that they were preserved untouched by the hands of rapacious soldiers, and the violence of flames''. ¹⁶⁹

Born at Bukowiec near Poznan, of parents who were themselves members of the Polish Brethren, he studied at Rakow college and later in Leiden. He returned to Poland when he was twenty-seven.

For the next forty years he was workhorse, counsellor, guide and trouble- shooter for the Brethren. He went to Transylvania to smooth relations between David and Biandrata, and worked tirelessly to convince the Polish government that the Brethren should be treated as harmless law-abiding citizens and not dangerous heretics.

The output from his pen was prolific. As a sixty-nine year old elder he had to flee in the expulsion of 1660 and died in the home of a friend in Silesia.

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