Drozdowicz, Zbigniew2013-12-112013-12-112011Przegląd Religioznawczy, nr 3(241) ,2011, ss. 3-13.1230-4379http://hdl.handle.net/10593/8821Zbigniew Drozdowicz – RATIONALIZATION OF RELIGION AND SOCIAL DOMINATION. FROM NICOLAS OF CUSA TO ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM AND ERASIANISM This article makes a continuation of polemics with the weberian thesis on the social exclusion of those intellectuals whom rationalizations of religion did significantly differed from the ruling standards of religious propriety. However the life paths of the people recalled here do differ they all are quite typical for social careers in the times of rejecting the world of culture created in the ages of Christian Middle Ages and turning towards the world created during the Renaissance. The rationali-zations of religion proposed by those extraordinary intellectuals of their times did significantly con-tribute to the situation, when the use of the term „Catholic” stopped to mean „General Church” and started to mean „Roman Catholic Church”. Although the latter still hold the dominant position in many parts of Europe, but it was also forced to confront protestant denominations and in many cases lost that confrontation.plArtykuł