Przebaczenie w pismach św. Cypriana

Abstract

The period of the 3rd century was extremely difficult in the life of the Early Church. The Church and the clergy, amongst them Cyprian of Carthage, bad to face the problems of persecutions, the lapsed and baptism. The abovementioned problems were linked to other question such as sin, forgiveness and penitention, which were very important in that situation. In my paper I focus on the issue of forgiveness in bishop Cyprian's writings. The paper consists of five main parts: the historical background of Cyprian's teaching on forgiveness; terminology; the essence of forgiveness; the process of forgiving, and the difficulties and errors in forgiving.