Zema V. Orthodox Polemical Works in Kievan Metropolitan See in the Middle of the 16th - the Beginnings of the 17th Centuries: Content and Ideology.

The dissertation is devoted to a very important issue in the formation of the early modern religious culture i.e. to the polemics of the Orthodox against Protestants and Catholics. My research is mostly based on Orthodox polemical works and has a time frame from the spreading of Protestant teachings on Ruthenian lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and those of Polish Crown in the middle of the 16-th century until the coming of the Counterreformation at the beginnings of the 17th century. The main polemical ideas are studied comparatively from the primary sources which include also sermons and the works of the early modern historiography, created by the Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants. Archival heuristics and comparative textology were among the main methods of analysis used in the dissertation. The main goal of the study was to reconstruct the ways by which the Orthodox used to perceive Catholics and Protestants.