Between Principles and Practice: Grotius’ Commitment to Religious Peace in a Contemporary Context

Abstract

This article discusses Hugo Grotius’s ‘pamphlet’ Ordinum pietas in the political and religious setting of 1613, attempting to draw some lessons from a contemporary perspective. At a time of religious struggle and strife De Groot felt himself committed to ´religious peace´, implying freedom of conscience as a public-political principle coupled with toleration of religious diversity in practice. It is in the context of religious conflict at a time of transition that his allegiance to an established confession and his rejection of sectarian sectarian concepts of theocracy, may be understood. A connection is made to both modern requirements of ‘religious peace’ and universal human rights as a ‘global faith’.