Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. We are continuing our theme of

confessing like it's 1559 and this week we are in

Poland. Poland was a place of religious tolerance in the 16th century and particularly the town of

Pienchove was a center of the reformation. It had an academy that was modeled

after Calvin's Academy back in Geneva and it was the location for the

synods of the Polish Reformed Church. No less than three confessions came

out of synods held at Pinchov.

There was the confession of 1559, of 1562, and of 1570.

We will look at the first one. Let's look at who wrote it and then what it says.

John Lasko is his anglicized name, his Polish name is Jan Laski.

He was the key architect of this confession. He was born

in 1499 and he came from a noble family. His uncle was an archbishop. He went on to

Basel and studied under Erasmus and he was also influenced by Zwingley.

He became a pastor in East Friesia. That's between the Netherlands and Germany.

And while there he moved much closer to the theology

of Calvin and Geneva.

By 1550 he was invited to England.

He was there for the second half of Edward the sixth reign.

He pastored one of the stranger churches.

These were churches for foreigners who were living in England. Under Edward, these churches were granted a royal charter,

and much of that was at the prompting and the work of Thomas Kramer.

Lasko's church was called

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