Graeculus o optimus vir? Quel che resta di Cirillo Loukaris nella Repubblica delle Lettere e nel Calvinismo. La disputa teologica tra Ugo Grozio e André Rivet (1642-1646)

In the last years considerable research had been carried out on Loukaris’ international networks. Thanks to the first Dutch ambassador to the Ottoman Emire, Cornelis Haga, the patriarch became more and more connected to the Dutch foreign policy and to the Gomarist wing of the Dutch reformed Church, like the Huguenot André Rivet, which operated to spread calvinism among the Greek Orthodox. As a result, Arminians like Uytenbogaert or Grotius – whose interest in Eastern Christianity during his last years, when he devoted himself to the irenicist struggle, has been underestimated – became growingly estranged from him. In this article I will discuss the way in which the patriarch was used as argumentative weapon by André Rivet and Hugo Grotius in their theological disputation between 1642 and 1646.