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Last Updated on :
Saturday, November 22, 2014

 

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Contents|| Preface || 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 9 || 10 || Thanks || INDEX

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Brethren In Christ
BY ALAN EYRE


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The Przypkowski Family

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PAGE 117

Sometime in the 1560's this aristocratic family came under the influence of the Brethren's teaching. Lord Mikolaj Przypkowski died in 1577, but not before his son Jan had freed his serfs, some of whom were also members, deeming the ownership of human beings incompatible with the spirit of Christ.

Jan's son Mikolaj was an elder in the ecclesia in Luslawice but died soon after his father.

Mikolaj's son Samuel (1592-1670), during a long life, dedicated himself wholly to the propagation of the gospel and to the well-being of his fellow-believers (see PRZYPKOWSKI ON RESPONSIBILITY). One of his most interesting works is his "Comparison of the Apostles' Creed with the Creeds of the Present Day" (1630). More than thirty years later, as an elderly man, he published in Konigsberg a vivid account of the expulsions of 1660, a tragedy which he himself experienced.

Samuels' son Matthew (1622-1661 -- he died before his father) was thus a fifth generation member of the Brethren. He was in the team that supported Andrzej Wiszowaty at the debate

PAGE 118

in Roznow castle in 1660.

The Przypkowskis have continued to live in the Jedrzejow district of southern Poland until this day. The Przypkowski Museum there chronicles the family's illustrious history. Lord (the title is merely honorific, of course, in today's communist Poland) Piotr Przypkowski, a man around fifty today, is a Catholic clergyman.

 


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