Republikańskie teokracje kalwińskie w Europie

Abstract

The illiberal democracy is the political system where majority of citizens rule, but where is not the freedom of consciousness or where the liberal dividing of power is absent. In the modern history of Europe the best example of this political system we find in the Calvinist Republics as Geneva, Emden and Netherlands. It’s not the democracy in the contemporary meaning of this word because the notion of “citizen” is aristocratic. The citizens are the members of aristocracy and patricians of towns. But in this time the citizens are the people only. This system is not liberal, because the Catholics are persecuted. The aim of this text is the presentation vision and ideology of theses Republics. It’s the mixture of sovereignty of the people-citizens with the theocratic tendency of Calvinism. In the theory of Calvin, and in the practice of theses Republics we are the tension between the “too swords”: spiritual (Calvinist consistories) and temporal (political power). In the literature we are many of allusions that the theological-political thought of Jean Calvin is inspired by medieval papal theocracy. It’s theocracy with “purified” Word of God, and inspired by the fear of the “caesaropapism”. This fear was just. Every theocratic rule in the Calvinist republican regime is finished by the supremacy of temporal swords. This text present the process of change from papocaesarism to caesaropapism in every republican case.