The monograph analyzes the polemical works of uniate writers from the position of rhetoric and dominant ideas of Christianity. The treatises of metropolitan Hypatius Potiy, Elijah Morohovskyy, Leo Krevza, metropolitan Joseph Velamin-Rutskyy, Timothy Symanovich, Antony Seliava, Ivan Dubovich, Pachomius Voyna-Oranskyy are researched in direct link with the books of orthodox polemicists, historical and cultural circumstances and artistic practices of that time. The works of uniate writers are systematized in the book; it reveals the contents and the course of interconfessional dialogue in Ukraine at the end of XVI-th and the first half of XVII-th centuries.
The rhetoric and the early Christian writings are observed as a key to the philological reading of the treatises of uniate theologians, which lead to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of polemical literature. It is researched the used by uniate writers the principles of text construction, narrative of historical and theologian material, the ways of proving and the methods of biblical exegetics of Catholic Church.
The rhetorical technique of writing of the polemical works continued among uniate theologians the bishop of Volodymyr Elijah Morohovskyy. The uniate writer, using in the work «Παρηγορια albo Utulenie uszczypliwego lamentu mniemaney Cerkwie Świętey Wschodniey zmyślonego Theophila Ortologa» the means of art style as antinomy, allusion, metaphor, sarcasm, amplification, anaphora, rhetorical question, asyndeton and quoting the works of authoritative Byzantine historians and theologians, gave a thorough response to Meletius Smotrytskyy.
The enormous contribution to the history of uniate polemical literature had Leo Krevza, the archimandrite of the monastery in Vilnius and bishop of Smolensk and Chernigov. Metropolitan Joseph Velamin-Rutskyy, Antony Seliava, Ivan Dubovich cited in their treatises the book of Leo Krevza «Obrona Jedności Cerkiewney». The dominant traits of author's manner are the rational usage of rhetorical figures, conciseness, logicality and the consecution in the narrative of the historical facts and doctrine of the Catholic Church about the authority of the Bishop of Rome.
The works of metropolitan Joseph Velamin-Rutskyy, Timothy Symanovich, Antony Seliava, Ivan Dubovich and Pachomius Voyna-Oranskyy, covering a wide range of political and church questions, encloses the elements of the Renaissance and Reformation system of text organization and the means of baroque style, which certify a fact of the gradual occurrence of Ukrainian literature in the polemical discourse of the Counter-Reformation. The polemicists sporadically used the rhetorical figures (anaphora, amplification), the scriptural allegories, antitheses and metaphors, which subserved the persuasiveness of the written text.
The used in monograph synchronous and diachronic approaches to the analysis of Ukrainian polemical literature at the end of XVI-th and first half of XVII-th centuries gave an opportunity to reconstruct the panorama of intellectual movement, literary trends, which are determined by religious and cultural circumstances, to trace the reasons of the spiritual crisis of catholic and orthodox societies. It has reinterpreted the influence of the Renaissance and Reformation style of the polemical writing, the ideas of Western Europe on Ukrainian literature and the thoughts of theologians.
