Born in the region of
Kyiv, he received his
secondary education (including a course in rhetoric and a two-year course in philosophy) at the
Jesuit College in
Ostroh. On 13 August 1643, he joined the Jesuit Order in
Kraków and was ordained
priest in
Poznań in 1652. He was a professor of rhetorics, philosophy, polemical theology and moral theology in many Jesuit schools in Poland (in 1656–57 also in Bohemian
Głogów). He served as a professor in the years 1653–76, with short breaks for being a court missionary (1657–58, probably for the Inowrocław voievode
Krzysztof Żegocki), a missionary to the
Crimean Khanate (1661), a
poenitentiarius in
Loreto (1663–64), and a missionary to
Constantinople (1672–73). In the years 1676–1700 he served as a court missionary for the Ruthenian voievode
Stanisław Jan Jabłonowski. Rutka wrote in
Latin, but he has also published translations of his works into
Polish. He is renowned mainly for his works on rhetorics, primarily for his tractatus
Rhetor polonus. He was a very prolific writer, beside of the rhetorics, an author of many polemical and ascetical works. Rutka was deeply interested in the problem of the relations between Eastern and Western Christianity, which was very vivid in the 17th century Poland, especially among the Jesuits. He wrote many books on the problem, especially on the
filioque question. He has also acted for conversion of the
Muslims, writing some books on the subject and trying to promote the idea of a league against the
Ottoman Empire to be organized by the Christian monarchs. == Bibliography ==