History of Poland during the Jagiellonian dynasty major towns. Polish science reached its culmination in the first half of the 16th century, in which the medieval point of view was criticized and more rational explanations were formulated. Copernicus' "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium", published in Nuremberg in 1543, shook up the traditional value system extended into an understanding of the physical universe, doing away with its Christianity-adopted Ptolemaic anthropocentric model and setting free the explosion of scientific inquiry. Generally the prominent scientists of the period resided in many different regions of the country, and increasingly, the majority were of urban, rather than noble origin. Nicolaus Copernicus, a son
Christianity in the 16th century thereby turning the Grand Duchy of Moscow into Tsardom of Russia, as it was called in the coronation document. The growing might of the Russian state contributed also to the growing authority of the autocephalous Russian Church. Realizing the necessity of strengthening the ecclesiastic authority in Russia, Boris Godunov managed to persuade the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Jeremias II to establish a patriarchate in Russia. In 1589, Metropolitan Job of Moscow became the first Patriarch of Moscow and all the Rus', making the Russian Church one of the Orthodox patriarchates. Christianity in the 16th century In 16th-century Christianity, Protestantism came