18 Facts About Mojsije Putnik

Mojsije Putnik was known for publishing the Toleranzpatent meant to ensure equal rights for the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Catholic church in Sremski Karlovci.

Vasilije Putnik was born in 1728, in Novi Sad, at the time part of Kingdom of Hungary in the Habsburg monarchy.

Mojsije Putnik was the grandson of Stevan Putnik, a captain of the Military Frontier who served in the Imperial Guard Cavalry and achieved minor nobility status which was conferred to him in 1621 by Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor.

Vasilije Mojsije Putnik went to the Lycee of Novi Sad as a student of theology and philosophy, and soon thereafter he decided to take orders at the age of seventeen.

Vasilije took the monastic name of Mojsije Putnik and began his clerical career.

Mojsije Putnik was noticed by Arsenije IV Jovanovic Sakabenta and was made a deacon.

Mojsije Putnik was then entrusted to an important diplomatic mission to suppress the Uniates who were propagating their confession in one of the Orthodox dioceses.

Mojsije Putnik's mission was a success, as the correspondence kept in the Archiepiscopal Archives confirms, and he managed to persuade the local congregation that was forced to accept the Uniate Church to return to the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Mojsije Putnik was then, at the age of 29, the youngest ever Orthodox cleric to be raised to the episcopate.

Mojsije Putnik was responsible for inviting Jovan Rajic to Novi Sad as well as other Serbian and Russian scholars.

Mojsije Putnik remained in that position for eighteen years, and during that period he took particular care to improve the educational system of his diocese, which culminated in the foundation of its first seminary.

Mojsije Putnik's congregation desired to have him elected archbishop immediately after Metropolitan Pavle's death, but numerous intrigues developed during the sabors of 1769 and 1774 which prevented Putnik from taking the high office.

Mojsije Putnik stayed in the diocese of Banat until 1782, when he was at last unanimously elected the Metropolitan of Sremski Karlovci.

In 1783 Mojsije Putnik was given further dioceses of Bukovina and Erdelj.

Mojsije Putnik continued his educational policies, and founded the first secondary school in the Military Frontier, better known as the Vojna Krajina, after a permission was received directly from Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1782.

Mojsije Putnik decided that it was now an appropriate time to establish "a People's Congress" for the Serbs and Vlahs of Temisvar in particular and the Banat region in general.

Mojsije Putnik owned famous works such as "the Spiritual Alphabet" and The Rock of Faith by Russian theologian Stefan Yavorsky, the representative of the scholastic theology of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and the popular "Spiritual Regulations" of Peter the Great, the work widely copied in the ecclesiastical reforms in the archbishopric.

Mojsije Putnik was interested in Erasmus of Rotterdam and philosophical works by the German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.