Vol. XXXVII
 p25   p25  Kyiv​a

Kiovia or Kiow or Kiev. Archiepiscopal city of European Russia, capital of the district and of the governorate of that name, until recently residence of a metropolitan archbishop of the Two Russias; and at present of the civil governor and of the military governor, as well as of one of the four metropolitans of the Russian Empire, and of a schismatic Greek bishop as metropolitan since 1640. It stands on the right bank of the Dnieper, and on the west bank of the Borysthenes.​b Kyiv consists of four parts, namely: the old city, or Old Kyiv, situated on a height to the north; the Podol or lower city, below the other in the plain; Pechersk or the fortress or citadel, on a hill to the south near the Dnieper; and the City of Volodymyr founded by Empress Catherine II. These four parts each have their own fortifications, and are also surrounded by a vast entrenchment, which encloses them all together. The old city, once the residence of the grand dukes of Kyiv, encloses the cathedral church of St. Sofia, founded in 1037 by the Grand Duke Yaroslav Volodymyrovych, at the very spot where he won a victory over the Pechenegs; it is noted for its magnificence and especially for the marble tomb of its founder: it is one of the oldest and most beautiful shrines in the Russian Empire. The nearby convent of St. Michael contains the relics of St. Barbara. Among the ten other churches still standing in this area of Kyiv, St. Basil's stands out, founded by Volodymyr the Great on the ruins of a temple of the ancient Slavs; as do that of St. Andrew and that of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin also founded by Volodymyr, where this prince had the body of his ancestor Olha laid to rest. The Podol, or new city or lower city, retained the privilege which it had obtained from the kings of Poland, of being governed by its own magistrate, who is still today somewhat independent of the governors of Kyiv. We note the great academic college, one of the most important in the Russian Empire, founded in 1631 by Petr Mohila, metropolitan of Kyiv; the building is made of stone and very large: this college usually has about fifteen hundred students, and a library of about ten thousand volumes. The Pechersk or fortress is the highest and best fortified part of Kyiv: it is reputed to be one of the strongest fortified places in the Russian Empire; here reside the civil and military governor, and you can see the barracks, the arsenal, one of the chief arsenals in the empire, and the warehouses of the troops. Among the churches the wooden church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker should be mentioned: it stands on a hill, in the place where was the sepulcher of the famous Askold. You can also see the Pechersk monastery, one of the first and most considerable in the Russian Empire, founded in the  p26 9th century, and remarkable for the beauty and richness of its ornaments, for the beautiful buildings and vast catacombs which it encloses, in which are the sepulchres of many saints of the Greek rite. These catacombs are divided into two sections; the one bears the name of St. Anthony, who dug them with twelve disciples, and enclosed the bodies of seventy-five saints; the other, called the catacombs of Theodore, contains forty-five. This monastery was the residence of the metropolitan of Kyiv: it has a library of about ten thousand volumes, very rich in Greek and other manuscripts, as well as a printing house. On these catacombs I own a rare book by M. Johannes Herbinius: Religiosae Kijovenses Cryptae, sive Kijovia subterranea, in quibus labyrinthus sub terra, et in eo emortua, a sexcentis annis divorum atque heroum graeco-ruthenorum, et nec dum corrupta, ex nomine atque ad oculum, et ΠΑΤΕΡΙΚΩ sclavonica detegit, Jenae impensis Martini Hallervordi, literis Johannis Nisii anno 1675. A vast suburb adjoins the fortress; there is a large imperial palace, and many churches and convents, among which that of St. Nicholas with a library of five thousand volumes; at the entrance to this suburb there is a hospital.

Kyiv is considered a holy city by the Russians, both because of the many religious buildings and relics that are in it, and because in its bosom Volodymyr the Great converted to Christianity with his entire host in 989. We are told that the number of pilgrims who go there every year far exceeds five thousand; many of them come from the farthest reaches of Siberia, especially the schismatic Ruthenians. Here we will note that the name "Ruthenian" usually applies exclusively to Uniate Greeks. There is a beautiful monument erected by order of Emperor Alexander I, over the font at which Volodymyr's children were baptized. There are twenty-five Greek churches in this city, one Catholic and one Lutheran, nine Greek convents, a hospice for abandoned children, an asylum for orphans, three poorhouses, one for the sick, a gymnasium and many public schools. The industrial establishments are not very important; among them three bell foundries. Trade with the interior of the empire is very active, and trade with Odessa has for some time been considerably increasing. During the Christmas holidays in Kyiv there is a concourse of the foremost Polish and Russian landowners, who travel there from the neighborhood and even from distant places, to transact business in fodder, livestock, and other things up to the value of several million rubles; this sort of fair is called the contracts of Kyiv. In the vicinity of Kyiv there are two imperial gardens. Nothing certain is known as to when this city was founded. Some authors attribute its foundation to the Sarmatians, who would then have been driven out by Slavs come from the banks of the Danube; other writers claim on the contrary that it was founded by three Slavic princes. According to the Polish annals it dates back to the year 430 of our era.  p27 In the 9th century, Rurik, the Scandinavian chief, established his power in Kyiv, which at that time became the capital of the southern part of Rus′. In 1037 it was made the capital of the whole of Rus′ by the Grand Duke Yaroslav, and his successors held their court there until 1157. Then he experienced great disasters through fires and wars, and after passing successively into the hands of Lithuanian, Polish, Tartar princes, and a Crimean khan, in 1667 Kyiv finally fell​d into the hands of the Russians, who secured possession of it in 1686. The year 1824 saw the discovery of the ruins of the famous church of the Desyatinna, built in 996 by Volodymyr, and destroyed in 1240 by the Mongol Tartars. It was in this city that the Latin bishop Załuski had gradually formed a library consisting of two hundred thousand volumes which he left as a legacy to the Republic of Poland. The Empress Catherine II in 1795 had it transported from Warsaw, where it was located, to St. Petersburg, in which city it served as the kernel of the immense imperial library which continues to increase year after year.

The true conversion of Rus′ to the Christian faith occurred in the period between Photius and Cerularius patriarchs of Constantinople, by the first proclaimers of Catholicism sent by the patriarch St. Ignatius. It is said that on their first arrival the first church was founded in Kyiv in 867, made illustrious shortly afterwards, in 879, by two martyrs, Askold and Dir. The pious grand duchess Olha, consort of the grand duke Ihor who reigned from 912 to 945, having converted to Christianity, this religion was no longer prosecuted, indeed was treated with the greatest leniency. Having received baptism with the name of Elena, Olha built a church in Kyiv in honor of St. Nicholas in 956, and died a saintly death in 969. Volodymyr the Great, who reigned from 980 to 1014 and once an ardent idolater, received baptism in 988 and became a zealous Catholic. He struck down the idols of Kyiv; the boyars and crowds received baptism on the banks of the Dnieper. Michael, the first bishop of Rus′, was the one who baptized them. He was from Syria, and was sent from Constantinople in 988 by Patriarch Nicholas Chrysoberges. He occupied the see of Kyiv, which he founded, for four years, and was succeeded by Leo or Leontius, and then by Jonah or John. In the year 1035 Theopemptos became bishop, under whom in the reign of Grand Duke Yaroslav in 1037 the cathedral of St. Sofia of Kyiv was raised to the metropolitan dignity of all Rus′, united with the Roman church, as were then the patriarchs of Constantinople from whom it was derived. However, the patriarchs of that church were divided under Cerularius: the church of Kyiv, and the church of Rus′ maintained union with the Roman longer than its sister the Greek. The bishop of Kyiv became archbishop, metropolitan, and exarch of all Rus′, with twelve suffragan bishoprics; i.e., Lviv, Przemysl, Chełm, Mstislavl, Mahilioŭ, Halych, Lutsk, Volodymyr, Polatsk, Vitebsk, Piaski and Vilnius,​e according to Commanville. Over time, some of these sees were elevated to archiepiscopal rank with suffragans. In 1051 Theopemptos was succeeded by the virtuous Ilarion, elected by the bishops of Rus′ at the behest of Grand Duke Yaroslav in the council of Kyiv, without  p28 any involvement of the patriarch of Constantinople. Although Greek like his metropolitan successors, i.e. George of 1072, John I of 1080, John II of 1089, Ephraim I of 1090, and Nicholas I of 1096, he was altogether uninvolved in the schism of Cerularius; indeed they gave proof of their intimate union with the Roman Church and with the Supreme Pontiff, whose legates were honorably received by the Rus′, after having excommunicated the miserable and perfidious Cerularius. At this time the metropolitan church of Kyiv was called the bishopric of Rus′ par excellence.

Among the other metropolitans of Kyiv we will name the following. John III of 1164 maintained a friendly correspondence with Pope Alexander III. There was still harmony between the churches of Rus′ and Rome; the Latin priests worked quietly alongside the priests of Rus′, even in the center of their Kyiv church. The Latin bishops came to this city by commission of the Catholic princes of the West and in their company, and were most hospitably received by the clergy and people of the country. To this day the Muscovite church still reveres the pious monk Anthony called "the Roman", who came from Lübeck to Muscovy and founded a monastery on the banks of the Volkhov, modeled on that of the caves of Kyiv,​f and worked tirelessly there to propagate Christianity. Metropolitan Constantine who flourished in 1177 is revered by the Russians as a saint. This city also had its Latin bishops, under the patriarch of Constantinople. Ivo the successor of Vincent, bishop of Krakow, having gone to Rome, and been very impressed by St. Dominic the founder of the order of preachers, which St. Hyacinth,​g Ivo's compatriot and a canon of Cracow had joined, asked the holy founder for Hyacinth and received him with three of Dominic's other disciples, whom he led with him to Cracow. He gave them a church, and all that was necessary for divine service, promising to have a larger one built in honor of the Blessed Virgin. Hyacinth worked hard for the propagation of the Catholic faith in Poland and Rus′. He was received in 1222 in Kyiv with his three Dominican companions, namely Godin, Florian, and Bernard or Benedict, with the greatest demonstrations of love and veneration; he lived there for four years and founded the magnificent monastery dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, whose governance on his departure from Rus′ was assumed by Brother Godin. Many priests and clergy­men of Kyiv, who in those times had to belong to the Greek church, wore the dress of the New Order. Bernard was made bishop of Galicia in 1233 by Pope Gregory IX, and there he obtained the palm of martyrdom for the faith of Jesus Christ. As its first bishop the Latin see of Kyiv boasts Alexis, appointed by Pope Benedict VIII in 1021 at the behest of Yaroslav Duke of Kyiv: that Pontiff was thus the founder of the Latin bishopric. The second bishop was the Dominican Gerard appointed by Gregory IX, and the third was Henry, also a Dominican, appointed by John XXII. In 1299 the Metropolitan of Kyiv Maximos moved his see to Vladimir; and the metropolitan  p29 Peter, appointed in 1308, then transferred it to Moscow. Alexis archbishop of Kyiv in 1353 was a strong defender of the Roman Church, and died in the odor of sanctity. At the time of Alexis, the fourth Latin bishop of Kyiv, James the Dominican of the year 1377, flourished. The concord that reigned between the two churches under the metropolitans Peter and Alexius was only temporarily disturbed by the metropolitan Pimen: after the death of the metropolitan Michael, who only occupied the see of Moscow a few months and died in 1379, Pimen began to contend with the pious and most religious metropolitan Cyprian in 1380 for the possession of his dignity; but he was finally deposed by the clergy and people in a council, and ended his life in prison in 1389.​h Cyprian is praised as one of the most loyal friends and venerators of the Roman Church; he acquired immortal merits in his church, and was called the restorer of scholar­ship in Rus′. In his time all the Rus′ bishoprics of Lithuania united with Rome. Cyprian died in 1406.

After his death, turbulent times arose for the church of Rus′, due to the seeds of schism sown by Pimen among the clergy, seeds which Cyprian had stifled. To the misfortune of the church of Rus′, the ambitious Greek Photius, a most avaricious man, ascended the metropolitan see by dint of the most hateful scheming. As his iniquities grew and he had become worse than a pagan, the bishops of Rus′, with the princes, boyars and grandees of the empire, gathered in Kyiv in the year 1414 and declared Photius deposed from his dignity, repla­cing him with the pious, modest and learned Gregory Zamblak. He went to Constantinople to receive the canonical institution from the patriarch and the emperor, but he did not find them inclined to listen to the universal complaints against Photius, nor to heed the prayers of the clergy of Rus′, because they both saw the harm arising from the division of the metropolitan see of Rus′, which was an inexhaustible gold mine for them. Nevertheless, as soon as Gregory returned to Kyiv, the bishops of Rus′ gathered in Nowogrodek in 1415, and despite the patriarch of Constantinople confirmed Gregory's appointment, excommunicating Photius, by a solemn act in which Kyiv is called the mother of the churches of Rus′, the mother of all cities of Rus′. This document states that the bishops had formerly had the right of choosing the metropolitan, and in the time of the Grand Duke Iziaslav they elected and consecrated Clement. They preserve the traditions of the holy fathers, condemn heresy, venerate the patriarch of Constantinople, and have the same faith, merely rejecting the illegitimate authority that the Greek emperors had arrogated to themselves, since not the patriarch, but the emperor now appointed the metropolitans, trafficking vilely in the highest ecclesiastical dignities. So for such impropriety they elected themselves a worthy metropolitan. From that time the metropolitan see of Rus′ was divided into that of Kyiv and Moscow; the former governed the exarchates or bishoprics of the south; the latter those of the north. This fortunate event lay the grounds for the union of the Church of Rus′ in the sixteenth century. The metropolitans  p30 of Moscow seized all means to reunite the see Kyiv with theirs, but in vain. The metropolitans of Kyiv stood by their independence, and as the metropolitans of Moscow backed by their grand dukes maintained themselves in their dignity, so also those of Kyiv sought to strengthen theirs thru the protection of the princes of Lithuania and the kings of Poland. The dioceses of Bratsk, Smolensk, Przemysl, Turaŭ, Lutsk, Volodymyr in Volynia, Polatsk, Chełm, and Halych were incorporated into the united see of Kyiv, and they persevered in the union of the Roman Church until about the year 1520. Here we will note that the fifth Latin bishop was Philip the Dominican; and that the restoration of the Latin episcopal see in Kyiv is attributed to Władysław V Jagiełło, king of Poland, in the year 1412.

The emperor Manuel II Palaeologus and the pious and learned patriarch Joseph of Constantinople showed themselves very inclined to approach the union, which was solemnly concluded by the zeal of the aforementioned metropolitan of Kyiv Gregory. In 1418 he was sent by the emperor at the head of twenty Greek bishops, with a splendid retinue of princes and magnates, to the council of Constance presided over by Pope Martin V; whereupon, after a few sessions, the union of both churches was celebrated, the Pontiff showed himself to be very loving, declaring the rulers of Poland and Lithuania, probably at the request of Gregory, vicars of the Holy See each in his own kingdom, but in the states of Rus′ by name. Contemporaries of Gregory were Michael I and Andrew the Latin bishops of Kyiv: the Tartars having stripped the city's cathedral around 1416 under the latter, the Latin bishop Michael II restored it and supplied it with sacred furnishings. In 1419 Gregory was worthily succeeded by Gerasimos, like his predecessor united with the Roman Church, and he showed no less ardor in promoting the union. The union of the Eastern church, and that of the entire church of Rus′, did not, however, enter into full effect until the general council of Florence celebrated by Eugene IV, as it was delayed by the invasion of the Turks. The vacancy of the metropolitan sees of the north due to the death of Photius and that of Gerasimos, who perished the victim of political hatred in 1433, greatly contributed to the achievement of this longed-for goal. Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople, most zealous to cement the union of the Eastern church with the Western one, seized this favorable opportunity, and in 1437 appointed Metropolitan of all Rus′, the no less pious than learned and eloquent Isidore of Thessalonica bishop of Illyria. Thus the metropolitan see of Moscow was again united with that of Kyiv, which facilitated the union of the whole church of Rus′ with the Roman. In 1437, having gone to Moscow, he was received by the Grand Duke Vassili (Basil II), who while in favor of the union, only reluctantly permitted him to leave for the general council, with a splendid retinue in his train of over a hundred notables, clergy­men, boyars and other grandees of the empire, all of whom were greeted with marks of  p31 honor. The celebrated Archbishop Bessarion of Nicaea by his activity and Metropolitan Isidore of Rus′ by his zeal were prime movers in the Council. On the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, 1439, Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini read the decree of union in Latin and Bessarion read it in Greek, to the inexpressible joy of the magnanimous Pope Eugene IV, who wishing at that point to compensate Isidore of Kyiv for his hard work, declared him his legate a latere by a bull of August 17 in Lithuania, Livonia, Russia; and in a bull to Bessarion on December 18 he created him cardinal. Isidore left Florence and arrived in Buda, where he wrote pastoral letters to Russia, in his capacity of metropolitan of Kyiv and all Rus′ and papal legate: and chiefly to the bishops of the southern metropolitanate, in which he notified them of the union of both churches recently concluded in Florence, exhorting them to accept the decree, and at the same time encouraging the Latin bishops of Poland, Lithuania and Livonia to love the Greeks as brothers, and to maintain perfect harmony with them in matters of faith and in divine worship, without regard to their differences in ecclesiastical rites.

When Cardinal Isidore arrived in Kyiv, he was received there with universal jubilation, not only by the people and clergy, but by the sovereigns of Poland and Lithuania as well. The union did not meet any opposition, all welcomed it with pleasure; but not so in Moscow, where the cardinal went in the spring of 1440: there he was greeted with general irritation, the report of the concluded union having preceded him. Nonetheless, endowed with courage as he was, he immediately went to the church of the Blessed Virgin in the Kremlin, preceded by the Latin cross and three silver pastoral staffs, and was received there by the clergy, the princes and boyars, and a large crowd. Everyone marveled at this novelty and was anxious to see what would follow. Isidore, after having thanked God for his happy return, had a deacon ascend the pulpit who proceeded to announce to those present the decree of union of the Florentine council. All shook their heads, and without publicly expressing their indignation, they returned to their houses dumfounded. Meanwhile Isidore presented Grand Duke Basil II with a brief in Eugene IV's own hand, couched in courteous and very affectionate language, in which he exhorted him to consent to the union, welcome the metropolitan with kindness, and allow him the undisturbed and peaceable possession of his rights. The Grand Duke did not wish to acknowledge the union in any way, although Isidore most eloquently represented it to him as most profitable for the good and improvement of Muscovy; and indeed after a few days Basil had the metropolitan taken and transported to the monastery of Chudov, where he remained for two years in prison along with the monks Athanasius and Gregory, his friends, together with whom on September 15, 1443 he escaped to Rome in the manner described in his biography; there he died and was buried with solemn funeral pomp in St. Peter's in the Vatican. In his time John was the Latin bishop of Kyiv, whose successor was Clement. With the flight of Isidore the metropolitan see of Russia,  p32 that had been united for so short a time, was once again divided into that of Kyiv and in that of Moscow. Isidore was replaced by his faithful and inseparable companion, the pious and peaceful Gregory, under the name of Gregory II. Eugene IV himself consecrated him in Rome in 1444. The following year he returned to Kyiv elected metropolitan of all Rus′, provided with papal letters to Casimir IV, king of Poland and grand prince of Lithuania, and to Casimir II Duke of Lithuania, that is, to one and the same king who in his capacity of prince of Lithuania bore the name Casimir II. The king's attempts to pacify the Grand Duke of Muscovy and to recognize the new metropolitan were unsuccessful. Basil II immediately summoned the bishops of the metropolitanate to Moscow, and in 1447 he bullied them into electing another metropolitan, the hot-headed Jonah, without consulting the patriarch of Constantinople. The virtuous and learned Gregory II was banished in 1451 for his constant perseverance in the obedience of the Roman Church, then betook himself to Rome where he died in 1459. Jonah, as an enemy of the union, did everything to bring the metropolitanate of Kyiv into subjection; so in a letter Pope Pius II rebuked him with bitter reproaches, and reaffirmed the metropolitan rights of the metropolitan see of Kyiv, as the oldest and as the cradle of the Russian church. The rulers of Poland and Lithuania sought with no less zeal than the Popes to maintain the firm union in the metropolitanate of Rus′. Casimir IV's predecessor had by his edict extended to the united bishops of this metropolitanate the same rights and privileges enjoyed by the Latin bishops of his kingdom: now that Casimir IV had joined Kyiv to his domains, he had Albert appointed as Latin suffragan bishop of Lviv in 1475, with the title of senator of the kingdom like the other prelates, but this was to remain an empty title since the Cossacks refused to accept him, according to Commanville who calls Kyiv the capital of Ukraine.

Metropolitan Jonah of Moscow died in 1461, but the two metropolitanates fought: his immediate successors in the Moscow see never ceased firing excommunications at the bishops united with Kyiv and Rome, calling them apostates and traitors of the faith. Gregory II was succeeded by Michael or Michal, who was no less just and pious than his predecessor. On arriving in Rome in 1476, he presented Pope Sixtus IV with the customary tributes of loyalty and obedience of the bishops of Rus′. Authorized by the Pontiff on his return to Rus′, he promulgated the jubilee of the holy year 1475 for the spiritual benefit of the Greek faithful; he died in a state of blessedness in 1489. His successor Jona I did not live long, nor did Macarius I. Josephus, a Lithuanian, was then elected who defended and promoted the union, celebrating in 1509 a council of his bishops in Vilnius to provide for ecclesiastical discipline. Unfortunately, he died not long after that, and under his successors the metropolitan see of Kyiv returned to schism, especially because of the marriage of Alexander I, king of Poland with Helen, daughter of the grand duke Ivan III: she pursued the interests and beliefs of her father,  p33 despising the Catholic cult, and favoring the schismatic Greeks; the latter thus gained the upper hand in Lithuania, and the union was completely dissolved, despite the zeal of Pope Alexander VI. King Stephen Bathory with his attachment to the Roman Church prepared the glorious return of the southern metropolitanate of Rus′ to unity, under his successor Sigismund III; in 1589 Jeremiah patriarch of Constantinople traveled to Moscow, where under the influence of intrigues and bribery declared the metropolitan Job patriarch of all Rus′, and at the same time independent of the patriarch of Constantinople. However, the erection of the new patriarchate of the Muscovite church encountered great obstacles not only in the Constantinopolitan see, but in those themselves subject to the Russian patriarch. The pride of Job and of Jeremiah subjected Michael Rohoza, who had been elevated in 1589 to the metropolitanate of Kyiv, to tyrannical treatment and his suffragan bishops. Unable to continue bearing so many vexations and insults, Michael summoned the bishops of his metropolitanate to a council in Brest, and took counsel with them as to which head of the Church should henceforth be obeyed, whether the recent patriarch Job of Muscovy, or the Pope, the holy patriarch of the entire Catholic Church of Christ. All unanimously declared, that in the future they only wanted to obey the supreme Pontiff of Rome, successor of St. Peter, and return to the bosom of the one true and apostolic Church. After a few sessions they drafted the decree of deliberation of the union on December 2, 1593, in which they expounded to the Christian world with simple but noble and holy words, the reasons for this resolution, and specifically to the faithful of their rite, while Job and his clergy blasted horrendous curses at the deliberations of the fathers of Brest. At this time the fourteenth Latin bishop of Kyiv was the duke Józef Wereszczyński, who had succeeded Mikołaj Pac.​i In the following year the bishops of the metropolitanate of Kyiv met there with Michael in council and sent an embassy to Rome, composed of two learned bishops, to notify Clement VIII of their reunification with the Holy See.

These legates of the Ruthenian clergy, with a large retinue of Polish and Ruthenian clergy­men and princes, were received by the Pope with loving courtesy in a public consistory. There the letter of the metropolitans and bishops was read aloud in Ruthenian and Latin, to which the famous Silvio Antoniani, later cardinal, replied in the name of the pope. The union was effected under the same conditions with which it had been concluded in the Council of Florence. The Apostolic See granted them all the rights, freedoms and privileges that they had hitherto enjoyed, and left them all the rites and ceremonies in the administration of the sacraments and in the celebration of other ecclesiastical functions in use among them before the union, provided they did not run counter to the dogmas of the Catholic Church. The Pope confirmed the Metropolitan of Kyiv in his possession of the ancient rights and jurisdictions, including that of consecrating the bishops of his metropolis after requesting the Holy See's confirmation through the papal nuncio in Poland, to be communicated by the congregation of cardinals  p34 established for these affairs, which would later become the Congregation de Propaganda Fide. Thenceforth the Ruthenian episcopate fell under this illustrious and worthy congregation. The election of the metropolitan thus proceeded under the presidency of the same nuncio, who summoned in a council all the bishops of the metropolitanate, the proto-archimandrite and the primary prelates of the secular and monastic clergy. Once the election was effected, the nuncio sent the acts to Rome to the congregation for the propagation of the faith, proposing them to the approval of the Pope. If the Pope confirmed it, the metropolitan was proclaimed by him in the consistory, and received the bull of institution and the pallium. The union of the Ruthenian clergy with the Roman Church thus took place under no force other than that of the persuasion of truth. As soon as the Ruthenian legates returned to their homeland, all the Ruthenian bishops met in council at Brest under the presidency of the metropolitan, and again ratified the union and what had been done in Rome. Job, patriarch of Muscovy, also convened a synod in Moscow, excommunicated Metropolitan Michael of Kyiv, and cursed all the decisions regarding the union issued in Brest; then the most cruel persecutions of the Muscovite clergy broke out against the clergy of Rus′. The powerful prince Constantine of Ostrog separated himself from the union, and so persuaded the bishops of Lviv and Przemysl. Mikhail died in a state of blessedness in 1599 and was succeeded by Hypatius, former ambassador of the clergy in Rome, who was the target of serious persecutions because of his zealous maintenance of the union. In 1613 Joseph Velamin was elected, thanks to whom in the reign of Urban VIII nearly all the united Ruthenians accepted the union, except a few who remained in schism. His enemies persecuted him to death, and this gave to his friend Josaphat Archbishop of Polatsk, whom Urban beatified. and he was succeeded by Hypatius, already ambassador of the clergy in Rome, who was the target of serious persecutions for his zeal for maintaining the union.

By way of response to the lies of the schismatics, in 1615 Paul V confirmed the Ruthenians in the Greek rite, and invited the metropolitan to send four young people to Rome, to be educated in that rite in the Greek college. The kings and bishops of Poland by condescension to the complaints of the schismatics found themselves forced to tolerate their hierarchy. Alongside the episcopal sees of the united states, the schismatics erected and preserved their ancient denominations. The schismatic Metropolitan of Kyiv, by concession of King Sigismund III, bore the same title as a Catholic, and exercised the same rights over his clergy and people; and King Władysław VII in 1635 even approved the famous university of Kyiv, founded for the training of clergy by the schismatic metropolitan Peter Mohyla, a very learned man, but an equally fierce enemy of the Catholic Church. He endowed his university with a fat income and enriched it with a notable printing house, from which many insulting works against the union and the Catholic Church then came out. At this time the eighteenth bishop of the Latin rite of Kyiv was Bogusław [Radoszewski]. John Casimir king of Poland, who had once been a Jesuit and a cardinal, allowed the schismatic metropolitan of Kyiv to pass under the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Moscow. The schismatics banefully also received the faculty of erecting new  p35 bishoprics, although in fact they had no need of them. The Catholic metropolitan of Kyiv Gabriel Korsak,​j expelled from his see due to riots provoked by the patriarch of Constantinople, who had appointed the schismatic, withdrew to Rome in 1642. Under King John III, elected in 1674, the bishoprics of Lviv and Przemysl reverted, however, to Catholic unity, although the political strength of Poland was then notably diminished, so that the resolution of these bishops was widely mocked. But the bishop of Smolensk, a city that fell into the hands of Russia at that time, also submitted to the Catholic Church. In 1678 the Latin bishop of Kyiv Franciszek Prażmowski​k was succeeded by the famous count Andrzej Chryzostom Załuski, the 27th Latin bishop, and author of many valuable works. The metropolitan of Kyiv Lev Kyshka in 1720 celebrated the national synod of Zamoscia in the voivodia of Lublin, a synod confirmed by the Holy See in 1723. Athanasius Sheptytsky became metropolitan of Kyiv in 1729, transferred from Lviv, praised for his fine qualities. In 1748 he was succeeded by Florian Hrebnytsky the former archbishop of Polatsk, to whom in 1756 he was given as coadjutor with the right of future succession Felician Volodkowych bishop of Chełm, who became metropolitan in 1758. Under Clement XIII in 1762 he in turn was given as coadjutor with the right of future succession Lev Louis Sheptytsky of the order of St. Basil, bishop of Lviv and Kamyanets, who succeeded him in 1778. In 1763 in Warsaw this now very rare book was printed, to wit the history and series of the Kyivan bishops of the Latin rite, De episcopatu Kioviensi cujus sedes olim fuit Kioviae nunc vero Zytomiriae in Ukrania ejusque praesulibus, brevis commentatio quam ex Simonis Okolscii opere et ex variis antiquioribus monumentis descripsit ad praesensque usque tempus produxit, Christianus Gottlieb Friesius. As for the series of the Ruthenian metropolitans of the Greek Uniate rite, it is reported in the work that we will quote by the Rev. Fr. Theiner. It is also found in that of the Basilian Ruthenian abbot Ignatius Kulchynsky, entitled, Specimen ecclesiae ruthenae cum sancta Sede apostolica romana semper unita, Rome 1733.

In the pontificate of Clement XIII by a treaty imposed by Russia on Poland, the non-Uniate Greeks acquired the same civil and religious rights as the Uniate Catholics, it being decided that the churches under the metropolitan of Kyiv would belong perpetually to the Eastern Greek religion. In 1772 Russia, Prussia and Austria sentenced Poland to a dismemberment, thus the Greek Uniate church found herself exposed to travails and persecutions imposed by Russia. She put up a vigorous resistance, and gloriously fought for her freedom and safety. The secular clergy displayed heroic virtues, whereas the Basilians, in the interest of preserving their rich possessions, remained idle spectators. In the group of magnanimous champions of the faith, the students of the pontifical seminaries of Vilnius and Lviv stood out, and were therefore rightly lauded by the zealous and learned prelate Garampi nuncio to Poland who was witness to the events, and with pain blamed the cowardice of the Basilians. In early times, this  p36 religious order had acquired many merits in the Greek-Catholic church, but latterly its zeal has slackened and it has tried to escape the jurisdiction of the metropolitan of Kyiv, and has also sought to dominate the secular clergy. The order was divided into two congregations, one of the Holy Trinity, the other of Our Lady or of the Patronage of the Blessed Virgin, which soon took possession of all the primary dignities of the secular clergy: the chapters and collegiate churches, especially in Lithuania, came to consist only of Basilians, in the face of the repeated admonitions of the Holy See from Benedict XIV onwards. Most of the Basilians were Poles who had passed from the Latin rite to the Greek, with the intention of being promoted to bishoprics, prelatures and other dignitaries of the Greek Uniate church. In the first dismemberment of Poland, the Uniate church hierarchy underwent significant alterations. However, the metropolitan continued to exercise his rights of jurisdiction over all the Ruthenian bishops of all three kingdoms, as before the division, retaining to the end the title of archbishop of Kyiv, of Halich and that of metropolitan of all Rus′. Metropolitan Lev Sheptytsky, treading in the footsteps of his ancestor and kinsman Athanasius, acquired immortal merits for the conservation and restoration of the Uniate church, while also holding the portion of the diocese of Kamienec left to Poland. He deserved worthy praise for having, although a Basilian, called to the most conspicuous offices of his diocese in a co-ordination with monks of his order, the most learned and deserving of the secular clergy. The raging storm which as early as the sixth decade of this century tore over the united church awakened in the clergy and people a new zeal for religion. Recognizing the need for better education in the clergy, Maximilian Ryllo Basilian of Klusco diocese of Vilnius, made coadjutor to the bishop of Chełm since 1759, and more than worthy of the church, founded a seminary of his own for the clerics of his diocese, endowing it with one hundred thousand Polish florins; in 1779 he had become bishop of Chełm. He entrusted the regiment to the Basilians of the Lithuanian congregation of the Holy Trinity, calling him the most learned and most worthy men of the order. Pius VI by a brief of 1780 approved and confirmed this foundation, already in the previous year sanctioned by the Congregation of Propaganda Fide.

Unfortunately, Metropolitan Lev did not long survive, dying in 1781. His successor Jason Junosza Smogorževsky, also a Basilian, however continued in his footsteps and governed in the same spirit; he implored and obtained from Pius VI distinctions and privileges as a reward for secular priests who stood out to keep the union firm. In 1785 he was given as coadjutor Teodozy Rostocki, a former student of the Greek college in Rome, and bishop of Chełm as well as a Basilian. He succeeded to the metropolitan see in 1787, and then by his mirrored piety and vast erudition and keen zeal there sprang a ray of hope that he might change the mournful state of the united church for the better; for which he did not interfere to work as a tireless supporter. The famous statute issued in 1791 by the Polish diet,  p37 and of the other rite, was destroyed by the Empress of Russia Catherine II. In 1793 she became sovereign of the rich palatinates of Kyiv, Braclavia and Podolia; the third dismemberment of Poland therefore took place in 1795. Meanwhile the worthy Teodozy Rostocki in 1794 was torn from Kyiv, with which he could no longer communicate during his unhappy life; after many years of captivity and holy life he died a victim of schismatic fury in St. Petersburg, and with him ended the metropolitanate of Kyiv. Previously in this city there were twenty-five Catholic churches, which then passed into the hands of the schismatics. There was a large secular clergy, or three Basilians who had many monasteries there. There were also several convents and pious establishments of charity, both Ruthenian and Latin, all equally occupied by schismatics. The Metropolitan enjoyed eight thousand crowns of income; Catherine II assigned six thousand to Rostocki, and three thousand to the suffragan Butrimowicz. We will note here, that his metropolitan see, with apostolic authority, became vacant after it was overrun by schismatics. Lately it was in Rutomiria​c near Kyiv in Ukraine. He was titled the metropolitan of Kyiv and of Galicia. The reason is that there were two principalities in these parts, Ukraine and Galicia; two capitals, Halych and Kyiv; and two metropolitans. Halych having been destroyed by the ravages of time and by arms , the principality of occupied Galicia Kyiv moved to this city, where also the metropolitan of Galicia went to live. So it came about that only one remained of the two metropolitans, who however retained the titles of Kyiv and Galicia, where a vicar general resided. The latter had the right to give the canonical institution and to consecrate the bishops, who had to take the Basilian monks, among whom the sciences could be cultivated.

To reduce the Uniate Greeks to the Russian church, Catherine II in 1794 established a college of schismatic missionaries dependent on a bishop of the Russian church, to which she appointed Viktor Sadkowski archimandrite of Sluck, archbishop and vicar of the Russian metropolitanate of Kyiv, the palatinate zzzz lost most churches. Then by a special edict Catherine II abolished in perpetuity the metropolitanate of Kyiv. Assumed to the empire Paul I nourished milder and more human feelings for the Catholic Church and for the Holy See. He did not delay in entering into negotiations with Rome, asking Pius VI for an apostolic nuncio to recompose the affairs of the Latin and Ruthenian churches. The Pope assigned Monsignor Lorenzo Litta, archbishop of Thebes, former apostolic nuncio to Warsaw, there. When the prelate arrived in 1797 in St. Petersburg, the points on which he particularly insisted were the restoration of the Greek Uniate metropolitanate of Kyiv and of all the bishoprics abolished by Catherine II; the return of Metropolitan Rostocki to his church and of all the other Ruthenian bishops to their sees with the former jurisdiction, freedom of worship already promised by Ivan III and other Russian princes to Catholics of both rites, and solemnly sworn a good three times by Catherine II. But the favorable intentions of Paul I and the solicitude of the nuncio did not produce the desired effect, due to the firm obstacles they encountered in the  p38 so‑called holy synod and in the new archbishop of Mahilioŭ Siestrzencewicz, who seconded the schismatics in rejecting the re-establishment of the Ruthenian metropolitanate, since he was very eager to obtain for himself the metropolitan title and lordship of the Catholic Church of both rites, since in the face of papal remonstrances, he had arbitrarily assumed its style and duties. Muscovy had always coveted absolute conquest of the see of Kyiv, the cradle of Christianity in the realm; which was very close to the heart of the Muscovite bishops, not so much for being the most ancient and primatial episcopal see in Rus′, but because it continually reminded them of their separation from the true Church of Jesus Christ. To cast from their eyes this unwelcome reminder, and to shore up their vaunted orthodoxy, they now wanted it destroyed forever. Nevertheless, by the supreme justice of the emperor and the tireless zeal of the nuncio, the Ruthenian church was revived, from which various bishoprics were re-established, such as Polatsk, Lutsk and Brest. The order of the Basilians was restored; and another nuncio Tommaso Arezzo, archbishop of Seleucia, brought to completion the things established by his predecessor, under the emperor Alexander I.

The aforementioned history and series of the Latin bishops of Kyiv is completed with Kajetan Ignacy Sołtyk of Krakow, former coadjutor of Samuel Ożga, and bishop of Emmaus in partibus since 1749. Then follows the life of the 34th Latin bishop of Kyiv, Józef Andrzej Count Załuski of Seldeck diocese of Gniezno, written in 1759, with a number of his works, several of which belong to the ecclesiastical and civil history of Poland. The successors can be read in the annual Notizie di Roma and are as follows: the Piarist Józef Olędzki, of the diocese of Chełm, in 1763 was made bishop of Cambysopolis in partibus and suffragan of Józef Andrzej. Franciszek Kandyd Ossoliński, a former coadjutor, succeeded the latter in 1774 as a friar minor conventual of the diocese of Poznań. In 1775, Kasper Kolumna Cieciszowski of the diocese of Poznań was given to Franciszek as coadjutor with future succession, made bishop of Tebessa in partibus. He became effective in 1784; but in 1781 he had already been made by Pius VI bishop of Dardana in partibus. Francesco Remigio Zambrzycki of the diocese of Polatsk, and suffragan of the Latin bishop of Kyiv. With the end of the eighteenth century the Latin bishops of Kyiv also ended due to the events of the times, many prominent characters flourished renowned for holiness of life, doctrine, conspicuous nobility, and other singular qualities. The Latin chapter consisted of eight prelates or dignitaries, namely the dean, the provost, the archdeacon, the scholastic, the custodian, the cantor, the chancellor and the archdeacon, and of eleven canons. The ancient cathedral of the Latin bishop, chapter and clergy was dedicated to St. Sophia; it was destroyed by the Tatars and although Jagiello or Władyslaw V restored it in 1412, it then fell into ruin again, so it was rebuilt again. When the schism arose, the Greeks took office there, but it always remained the property of the Latins, until in 1632 they seized it under Pietro Mohila,  p39 in spite of the fact that the king of Poland Sigismund III repelled zzzzzz, leaving the ancient metropolitanate of St. Michael. The wooden church of Sts. Peter and Paul also served as a cathedral for the Latins, and then the one from St. Hyacinth built in the area granted to him by Volodymyr, near the Kozomiacka or Kamiriana gate near Mount Iadnow.

In 1805, the distinguished Rostocki having died without having been reinstated in the metropolitan rights of Kyiv and Halich, the archbishop of Polatsk Heraclius Lisowski, head of the Ruthenian session of the Catholic college founded in St. Petersburg in 1801, in the name of his two fellow bishops, pleaded with the emperor for the return of the metropolitan of the Greek church. The nuncio seconded the investigation, and Alexander I for the justice of the request granted it despite the remonstrances of the Latin metropolitan of Mahilioŭ, and those of the schismatics of the so‑called holy synod. The same archbishop of Polatsk Lisowski on July 24, 1806 was appointed metropolitan of the whole Greek-Catholic church in the Russian Empire, and restored to the possession of all the ecclesiastical rights and privileges enjoyed by his ancestors. With all this, thanks to a report of the so‑called holy synod to the emperor, the ninth Lisowski managed to obtain neither the see, nor the title of Kyiv, but was only called in the imperial decree of appointment, metropolitan unitarum ecclesiarum in Russia; his successors were also to be known by the same title. Pius VII by the brief In universalis Ecclesiae regimine, of February 25, 1807, removed from the metropolitan authority of Kyiv the episcopal churches of the Ruthenian rite: Lviv, Chełm and Przemysl. In 1809 Lisowski elected Gregory Kochanowicz bishop of Luck as successor, and invested him with all the rights proper to metropolitans: the emperor approved these provisions with his decree. Gregory died in 1814, and Alexander I appointed Jehoshaphat Bulhak, of the Greek Uniate church, as metropolitan in Russia, an eminent prelate who had been a student in the urban college of propaganda in Rome, and ordained a priest of the church of St. Athanasius of the Greek rite. He asked the Holy See for canonical institution, which his predecessors Heraclius and Gregory had not been able to obtain, and he obtained it in 1818 with the bull of Pius VII. Having furthermore begged the Pope to use his good offices with the emperor, so that the confusion of an indeterminate and wandering metropolitanate, noted above, repugnant to the canons and the ecclesiastical discipline of the Church, could be removed, and where this question is not had the desired effect, the Pontiff made up for it with apostolic authority, confirming the rights and privileges enjoyed by the metropolitan predecessors. Greek Uniate, due to the opposition of the so‑called holy synod and the Latin metropolitan, Pius VI conferred the metropolitan dignity on Bulhak as papal delegate, confirming his rights and privileges, reserving the right to proceed with the usual forms in the future. Bulhak who went to St. Petersburg to assume the presidency of the Ruthenian session of the Catholic ecclesiastical college,  p40 he governed his church in peace until the death of the magnanimous Alexander I, by whom he was held in reverence and honor. In 1825 he was succeeded by the reigning emperor Nicholas I, who among his reforms decreed that the office of metropolitan should be limited to a mere mark of honor, repla­cing him in power with the ecclesiastical college of St. Petersburg, under the dependence of the minister of ecclesiastical affairs. Then another decree introduced into the Greek Uniate church many innovations harmful to its discipline, its hierarchy, and its constitution.

In 1832 Poland was declared an integral part of the Russian Empire, and very serious disasters fell due to imperial provisions for the Catholic Church of both rites, both in Muscovy and in the Polish provinces. The Ruthenian ecclesiastical college which had been incorporated into the schismatic synod had as president of the Ruthenian session of the so‑called holy synod, the prelate Giuseppe Siemaszko bishop of Livonia, a man of immoderate ambition and lost conscience, by the illustrious metropolitan Jehoshaphat Bulhak was forced to appoint his vicar in Lithuania, repugnant there for a long time because he knew the schismatic sentiments. Joseph swore to ask the Holy See for canonical institution, but then he did not blush to perjure himself. From this point the unhappy Ruthenian church became a mere part of the schismatics. The Synodals in agreement with Joseph formed the vast and deplorable design of redu­cing the whole Greek-Catholic church to schism, with all manner of machinations. The respectable Metropolitan Bulhak was barred from any interference in religious affairs; he resisted the innovations, and generally rejected all the tricks and flattery with which they procured to bribe him. Several schismatic bishoprics were established, bearing the same name as those of the ancient Greek Catholics, in order to bring about the ruin of the Ruthenian undergrounds of Belarus and Lithuania. Most of the Ruthenian priests distinguished themselves among the people for heroic firmness, but were severely punished; entire cities and vast estates were forced into schism; useless the complaints and prayers of those champions of religious fidelity, prepared to die rather than renounce the true belief of their ancestors. Siemaszko and Luzinski, another metropolitan vicar, longing to see every vestige of Catholicism disappeared in their metropolitanate, multiplied corruption and harassment to deceive the weakest and most ignorant priests of their dioceses, making them sign a formal oath not to put the lightest obstacle to the union of all the Ruthenian churches with the Muscovite one. The major clergy, with few exceptions, he showed himself willing to renounce Catholic unity; only the lower clergy resisted worthy of their vocation, defying death to keep the sacred deposit of faith: the courage of the simple priests and the Ruthenian people reached heroism, and by their martyrdom redeemed the pious Ruthenian people from the horrendous crime committed by his bishops against God and the Church. Among the illustrious confessors of the faith, the father of the apostate and unworthy bishop Siemaszko excelled, who  p41 out of deference to his gray hair contented himself with having him deported to Siberia.

Finally in 1838 the act of union of publicly professing the schism took place in Polatsk, which Metropolitan Bulhak refused to sign with ecclesiastical and admirable intrepidity from flattery, orders and threats. After forty-two years of episcopate, this ornament and support of the Ruthenian church, this prelate died a holy death in the decline of 1838, and the emperor rendered him great honors with a schismatic rite, and was buried in the tombs of the Muscovite metropolitans in the convent of Alexander Newski. Then Siemaszko and his colleagues having nothing more to fear, resolved to publish the act of the fatal schismatic union with the Muscovite Church; then on February 2, 1839 they issued the lamentable decree of separation of the only true Catholic Church, the Roman, and of union with the schismatic Muscovite, Holy Synod of All Rus′. Siemaszko, as representative of the people and Greek Uniate clergy, happy to have achieved the longed-for intent, flew to St. Petersburg to have the emperor approve the acts of the consummated schism, whereby he and the so‑called holy synod confirmed and praised them, subscribing among others schismatic Metropolitan Filaret of Kyiv. They wanted to make a triumph of such an event, and to solemnize it with great pomp; thus the Ruthenian church passed into the womb of the Muscovite through the work mainly of Siemaszko, who was therefore raised to the archiepiscopal rank. Gallicia also in 1839, as in 1795, opened its hospitable doors to the illustrious Ruthenian priests. The Austrian government pitifully received the unfortunate victims of the persecution with paternal love, providing the poor of honored sustenance. Therefore the schism of the united, which occurred in 1839, can be memorable in the ecclesiastical annals, as the representatives of the Muscovite church say, not already for the free and unanimous consent of the Ruthenian clergy and people, but rather for the unheard of and unspeakable violence, with which the move was given, and it was put into effect, all of which can be widely read in the learned work of the ch. or. Augustine Theiner a priest of the Philippine order, entitled Events of the Catholic Church of both rites in Poland and in Russia, from Catherine II up to the present day, preceded by a quick reference to the origin and relations of the Russian church with the Holy See up to the time of Peter the Great, Lugano 1843 by the Veladini typography. How much the reigning Pope Gregory XVI did for the Greek Uniate church, how much he deplored the mournful event of the fall of the Ruthenian bishops (See) we have indicated in that article. In the consistory of 22 November 1839 he announced the sad event to the world, with the simple, moving and inimitable candor of truth, and he handed it down to the impartial judgment of posterity with words of very sweet charity towards the miserable seduced, and of those who cooperated in the enormous crime. Then in the consistory of 22 July 1842 the same Pontiff with evangelical moderation manifested the cruel wounds of the Polish church, advocating the rights of  p42 Church in Poland and in the Russian Empire violated by the secular power, with words of truth he revealed to the whole Christian world and to the universal Church the facts of such a serious and painful subject. So in December 1845, on Emperor Nicholas I's visit to Rome, it is said that the same Pope Gregory XVI in coherence with the things done, with the same zeal, apostolic frankness and paternal gentleness, having affectionately pleaded the cause of the Catholics, his heart was comforted with flattering hopes by the courteous monarch; who was moved by the benign presence and sweet words of the venerable head of the Catholic Church. From this wonderful event, the whole world, especially Catholics, have conceived a happier and more glorious future. See Russia and Ruthenians.

(my translation)