Between Traditions

Religious Identity and Self-Identification in the Case of Simeon of Polotsk

Abstract

This article re-examines the confessional identity of Simeon of Polotsk (1629–1680), a key Belarusian intellectual and the first professional poet and playwright in Moscow. Building on textual, contextual and intellectual-historical analysis, the study reassesses Simeon’s religious affiliation by examining his sermons, catechisms, didactic poetry and the confessional character of his library. By situating Simeon within the contested religious landscape of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and seventeenth-century Muscovy, the article challenges established interpretations that present him as strictly Orthodox or covertly Uniate. Instead, it argues that Simeon’s identity emerged at the intersection of Catholic, Orthodox and Uniate traditions, shaped by the ideological, political and cultural pressures of his time. Through a multi-method approach, the study offers a more historically grounded understanding of confessional hybridity in early modern Eastern Europe.