Road of Losses — the Independence of The Ukrainian Church

The following is a brief account of how the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was first nominally independent and then completely dependent on the Moscow Church. It so happened that the independence, influence, and importance of the Ukrainian Church diminished with the growing influence of the Moscow Church, once a peripheral north eparchy of the Kyiv Diocese. The Moscow Church incorporated a number of other churches in its progress, including the Ukrainian Church. Past experiences offer vivid examples of how the independence, importance, and well-being of any Eastern Orthodox church depends on the state in which it exists.

Before the emergence of the Moscow See, the Kyiv Diocese, dating from the time of Prince Volodymyr’s baptism of Kyiv Rus’, controlled all churches in the territories under that Slavic state’s control, including [what would be known as] Belarus and northeastern territories later to become part of Russia. As a rule, Kyiv metropolitans were appointed by the Patriarch of Constantinople.

After the Golden Horde, Kyiv Rus’ decayed and lost independence, finding itself divided between the Great Lithuanian Duchy, Polish Kingdom, and Muscovy. Beginning in the 14th century, the Moscow Principality, actively “gathering the lands of Rus’,” claimed control over the Kyiv See.

Kyiv was constantly raided by nomads and poorly managed; its metropolitans were used to being constantly cared for by the prince, so they would or could not defend the rights of the see, acting on their own, in contrast to the Roman popes. Thus, in the 14th century, the Kyiv See moved northward, settling first in the Vladimir-Suzdal and then Moscow Principality. Historians associate its final settlement in the north with Metropolitan Peter who chose Moscow as a place of residence in 1325, then a small town under Prince Ivan Danilovich. Still, he and his successors would be referred to as Metropolitans of Kyiv for over a century.

Shortly afterward, Moscow claimed a see of its own. For a long time the initiative met no support in Constantinople, it being traditionally considered the Mother Church. In fact, its strategy was aimed at keeping all Orthodox Slavs under the Kyiv Diocese. But then Constantinople was attacked by the Ottoman Turks. The Byzantine Empire, only recently so huge and powerful, was losing province after province; worse still, it was losing influence in the Orthodox world, especially after the Church Council of Florence (1439), signing a treaty marking a tentative union between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The emperor and the Orthodox faithful went along with the unpopular project in order to get military support, although the sacrifice did not prevent the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Moscow quickly took advantage of Constantinople’s weakness and “diversion from the true creed.” In 1448, Grand Prince of Moscow Vasily II (the Blind, so called because in 1446 he was blinded by his enemy and cousin Dmitry Shemiaka) called a church council that arbitrarily appointed Bishop Iona [Jonas] to the See of Moscow. He was ordained Metropolitan of Moscow, a title heretofore nonexistent in the Orthodox world. In this way the Moscow Metropolis came to be, 460 years after the inception of the Kyiv one, which nominally remained under the Constantinople Patriarchate, with bishoprics scattered throughout Poland and Lithuania. At the time the Moscow See would not even dream of having those eparchies under its control and regard them as its “canonical territory.”

HOW THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE WAS CREATED

The next stage in the evolution of the Moscow Church was to establish the Moscow Patriarchate. This was accomplished under Ivan the Terrible’s son F С dor, culminating in the investiture of the first Patriarch of Moscow. The whole episode was an intrigue orchestrated and performed by the Moscow court, starring Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople, his retinue, Boris Godunov, the omnipotent favorite of Tsar Ivan IV (the Terrible), and costarring Moscow bureaucrats at all levels.

It all started with Jeremiah II and his retinue visiting Moscow in 1588 to ask financial aid (under the Turks, the Patriarch of Constantinople had to do so, for want of other financial resources). Boris Godunov, a farsighted politician, decided to take advantage of the visit.

The guests were welcomed. The delegation was granted a suitable allowance, meaning accommodations and money. Simultaneously the visit was accompanied by strange occurrences. The Metropolitan of Moscow did not meet the dignitaries (considering that the Patriarch of Constantinople was his superior by Orthodox canon), and the high-ranking guests were denied an opportunity to communicate with Moscow hierarchs; they could not celebrate divine services with them, and some sources indicate that Metropolitan Iov [Job] and Patriarch Jeremiah first met half a year after Jeremiah’s visit to Moscow. The Constantinople delegation was generally kept behind closed doors and they could communicate only with officials of the Moscow court of the tsar. And then another trick was performed to humiliated the Ecumenical Patriarch. He was ceremoniously introduced in Moscow as a Metropolitan, not Patriarch. Likewise, the delegation was allowed to meet the Moscow tsar only eight days after arrival, and none was offered a place at the festively laid table, contrary to tradition.

It was in this atmosphere of restriction and humiliation that Boris Godunov began the talks. He asked Jeremiah II to formally set up the Moscow Patriarchate there and then (without the Moscow Patriarch in attendance). Jeremiah II refused, because he could not accept Muscovy’s ambitions due to serious canonical discrepancies. The Patriarch of Constantinople had no right to approve the institution of the Moscow Patriarchate without convoking a council of all Orthodox churches — and without the knowledge and consent of all the other Orthodox patriarchs. The Greek Orthodox hierarchs said, “Constantine the Great appointed a patriarch only together with the Ecumenical Council, while we are only three... This is impossible. This is infamy!” Moscow kept up the pressure.

The Greek hierarchs were kept under house arrest for many months. Now and then they were allowed outside but their every step, every word were closely followed. They were forced to sign documents in Slavonic, a language they did not know. And they were constantly reminded of the need to ordaina Moscow Patriarch. Jeremiah II, an old and ailing man, was threatened with exile to Vladimir which, to the Greeks, seemed almost the end of the world.

Jeremiah II finally gave up the struggle and agreed to ordain Metropolitan Iov [Job] Patriarch of Moscow, adding miserably, “...whereupon the [Russian] tsar, being a pious, Christ-loving ruler, should let him [Jeremiah] leave for Constantinople.” On January 27, 1589, Tsar F С dor officially notified Metropolitan Iov and the Synod that Jeremiah II was prepared to ordain the Moscow Patriarch, as the tsar wished (In other words, it is obvious that the Moscow Patriarchate was actually created by the regime, not by the Church). Jeremiah II was allowed to visit the Dormition Cathedral for the first time to attend the ceremony of investiture, and it was there he first saw the Metropolitan of Moscow thence to be the Patriarch of Moscow.

The investiture procedure, jealously observed over centuries, was violated, primarily because the Ecumenical Council was not convoked (in fact, a council of Orthodox churches was not held in Moscow either). Last but not least, the canon reading that a bishop could be ordained only once was also violated, as Metropolitan Iov was not “enthroned” but “blessed” to take the post.

After Tsar F С dor’s death, the first Russian Patriarch Iov showed his gratitude to Boris Godunov as best he could. In 1598, he supported his candidacy as the next ruler of Russia (even though his parentage was anything but royal) and finally blessed his enthronement.

At the time the Moscow Patriarchate took shape (1589), the current territory of Ukraine was not part of Muscovy and the Ukrainian eparchies remained subordinated to the Metropolitan of Kyiv. For this reason, considering them a “canonical territory” of the Moscow Patriarchate was out of the question — and the subject was never actually broached. It would become another legend born of centuries.

KYIV METROPOLITAN SYLVESTER’S MISGIVINGS

The emergence of the Moscow Patriarchate did not have an immediate negative effect on the Kyiv See, which remained practically independent until the late seventeenth century (the Patriarch of Constantinople’s influence was minimal and never political, for the simple reason that there was nothing he could do politically). But after the Treaty of Pereyaslav the Ukrainian Church was to suffer a different fate. By politically accepting the Tsar of Muscovy as suzerain, Ukraine doomed the Kyiv See to being absorbed by the Moscow Patriarchate. This happened 32 years after signing the Treaty of Pereyaslav, although the pressure on the Kyiv Church began soon after 1654.

Metropolitan Sylvester Kosiv of Kyiv was opposed to the political alliance with Russia. Russian Boyar Buturlin asked him why he had never sought blessings from Moscow, either orally or in writing, just as Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the whole Zaporozhzhian Host were beseeching his Majesty the Tsar of Moscow to have them placed under his protection and scepter. It is also true that Metropolitan Sylvester refused to send his entourage (including his household help and other servants) to attend the ceremony of swearing allegiance to the Russian tsar after Pereyaslav, insisting that they were people he had hired and could not make them take the oath. But he was eventually “persuaded” to do so.

The story did not end there. After Voivode Kurakin started building fortifications on a hill by St. Sophia’s Monastery, allegedly to protect the territory against Polish and Lithuanian raids, Metropolitan Sylvester declared that it was his land and that he would not allow any such fortifications there, adding that the boyars could build whatever they wanted some 20 miles outside Kyiv, and that, if need be, he would call upon his people to fight the Muscovite intruders, adding that “although the Hetman and all of the Zaporozhzhian Host have sworn allegiance to the [Russian] tsar, I the Metropolitan and the Church Council have not; we and all the faithful remain under no man’s rule.” It was only thanks to Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s intercession that the Kyiv Metropolitan was spared the Russian ruler’s wrath.

THE KYIV SEE UNDER THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE

Practically as soon as the Treaty of Pereyaslav was signed, Moscow (the tsar and the Church acting together) set about making the Kyiv See part of the Moscow Patriarchate. Many Ukrainian clergymen were opposed to this; they knew only too well that they would suffer misfortune under the command of the poorly educated Moscow clergy. The Western Reformation and Counter Reformation were still having their effect, while struggling against and competing with the Union had a positive aspect, in that the clergy had constantly to defend their creed and status in the eyes of the faithful. A substantial number of the hierarchs were aware of their rights and refused to surrender them. To them it was important that the Patriarch of Constantinople did not interfere in the domestic religious affairs of Ukraine, while the Moscow Patriarch made a point of doing just that. Some of the clergy, resolutely opposed to that, were prepared to lock themselves up in monasteries and “die rather than accept the rule of the Metropolitan from Moscow.”

There were, however, rumors that the Russian tsar “had ordered Kyiv to be ruled by the Metropolitan from Moscow.” The Moscow administration went about its policy. After the Andrusovo Armistice of 1667 partitioned Ukraine, marking the period of Ruin in its history, the Ukrainian Orthodox clergy found themselves in difficult financial straits; the Orthodox in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were persecuted, and Moscow spared little money and gifts like sable furs in having the Ukrainian Church join the Moscow See.

The Kyiv Metropolis was finally subjugated by Moscow under Ukrainian Hetman Ivan Samoilovych (1672-87) who favored the idea. Muscovy was then ruled by Tsarina Sofia, sister of the little Tsars Peter and F С dor. Innokenty Gizel, Archimandrite of the Pechersk Monastery of the Caves, passed away in 1683. His successor, Varlaam Yasynsky, was ordained courtesy of Hetman Samoilovych and issued with a scroll attesting his post as Archimandrite, endorsed by Patriarch Joachim. In church language this meant subordinating the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra Monastery of the Caves, the heart of the Orthodox community of Rus’-Ukraine, to the Moscow Patriarchate.

The first Metropolitan in Ukraine appointed by Moscow was Bishop Gideon of Lutsk, Prince Sviatopolk- Chetvertinsky, Hetman Samoilovych’s father-in-law (the latter’s daughter was the wife of the prince’s son). The Hetman once invited him over (he had quite some influence on the hierarch) and talked him into filling the vacant post (created, after all, by Moscow) as head of the Kyiv See. Gideon cut the proper figure, being of noble birth but weak-willed and loath to pick fights. In 1648, Gideon sent a humble letter to Moscow, attesting to his complete obedience.

In 1685, Moscow formally instructed Hetman Samoilovych to have the Metropolitan of Kyiv elected. The Archives of South and West Russia have the text reading, “The newly elected Metropolitan shall not abide by the Patriarch of Constantinople, nor shall he write any letters or send any messengers, take any orders, or have any ties with that congregation; all contact shall be severed, owing to distance... By its rank the Kyiv Metropolis shall be the first among the Russian bishoprics... The newly elected Metropolitan shall be allowed to travel to Moscow to be ordained by the Archpriest.” The metropolitan was elected on July 8, 1685, the ceremony attended by many noblemen, including Ivan Mazepa and Colonel Pavlo Polubotok of Pereyaslav. By contrast, few clergymen were present. Under canon law the election should have been declared null and void, but the hetman’s envoys insisted and had their way. Gideon Chetvertinsky was “unanimously” elected Kyiv Metropolitan. The man humbly consented to the honor of accepting the crosier from the Patriarch of Moscow.

The Ukrainian clergy refused to recognize the investiture as legitimate. They held a church council and proclaimed that the previous one had no right to make a decision of such scope as subordinating the Ukrainian Church to Moscow. They insisted that this was a matter to be decided upon by the whole Orthodox Church. Their resolution read that, by succumbing to Moscow, the Ukrainian Church would lose its ancient rights. They cited the Belgorod Eparchy as an example. It was then made part of the Moscow Patriarchate and [parish] priests failing to pay church dues were whipped. The resolution further stated that the church books were nullified and ordered replaced by books sent from Moscow, that they were instructed to celebrate the divine service in the Muscovite manner, that their parishioners would have a hard time getting used to the new rites, that there were children to baptize, and that many of those baptized the Muscovite way (by full immersion) had perished during the ritual. This resolution, along with the accusations, remained unanswered and without consequence.

Moscow was happy with the election’s outcome and Patriarch Joachim wrote to Gideon, inviting him to visit Moscow to receive the blessings. He made the trip and was accorded a VIP welcome: three rubles a day (a hefty sum at the time — Ed.), in addition to room and board, courtesy of the tsarist administration. He was invested at the Dormition Cathedral. Standing by the ambo, facing the Moscow Patriarch, Gideon swore allegiance to the new church authority. The scroll he was then presented with read that Tsars F С dor, Peter, and Tsarina Sofia confirmed all the rights vested in him as Kyiv Metropolitan (a short-lived privilege, as it turned out).

MOSCOW AND CONSTANTINOPLE

Immediately after the investiture of Metropolitan Gideon, Moscow began pressuring Constantinople for its consent post factum . Three days after Gideon had sworn allegiance, a message was addressed to the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Patriarch of Moscow wrote that he had invested Gideon Kyiv Metropolitan as requested by the people of Ukraine — and because of the perils involved in long trips to Constantinople. He further requested that the Ecumenical Patriarch “surrender” the Kyiv See to Moscow ad infinitum. His requested was seconded by the tsars sending gold and sable furs. Hetman Samoilovych also dispatched an envoy to Constantinople with gifts and the same request: Give up the Kyiv See.

The Constantinople Patriarch at the time was the recently elected Dionisius, who at first adamantly refused to put up with Moscow’s arbitrary action. He responded in kind, issuing messages to the envoys, whereupon the Moscow delegation turned to the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, asking for pressure on the Patriarch. The Turks were then at war with Poland, Austria, and Venice. They wanted good relations with Moscow. Also, the Vizier had received precious Moscow gifts, so he pressured the Ecumenical Patriarch and the latter did surrender the Kyiv See to Moscow in 1686. There is a document signed by Patriarch Dionisius and addressed Moscow envoy Nikita Alekseyev, reading, “This is to testify that we the undersigned have received Dei Gratia three foursomes of sable furs and two hundred gold coins from your sovereign.” Docipheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, also proved instrumental, digging up clauses in the canon allowing every archpriest to surrender his diocese to another bishop.

Thus, the Ukrainian Church suffered the lot of the Ukrainian state 32 years after the Treaty of Pereyaslav. Thus began a long period of Russification of the Kyiv See, a topic rating a separate discourse. Suffice it to say that the Church Council of 1690 expressed doubts about the legitimate status of the Kyiv clergy and accused it of a “bread-worshiping heresy,” concerning its allegedly “incorrect” celebration of the Eucharist.

IN LIEU OF EPILOGUE

Those championing an autocephalous Ukrainian Church might be comforted to know that some of the participants in that sad religious transaction also came to a bad end. In 1686, Hetman Samoilovych was arrested, along with his sons, transferred to Moscow, tortured, and exiled to Siberia (other sources read that he was killed in 1687). This was his punishment from Moscow for losing the Turkish campaign, although Prince Golitsyn, Tsarina Sofia’s paramour, was actually to blame.

Metropolitan Gideon was not destined to hold his post for long, passing away in 1690, but the period marked the beginning of what proved to be the active ruination of the Kyivan Church. The Chernihiv See was now under the Moscow Patriarchate; the Kyiv Pechersk and Mezhyhirsky Monasteries were placed under the direct command of the Moscow Patriarch.

Practically as soon as the Russian delegation left the Ottoman Empire (and despite the favor done by the Grand Vizier), Moscow declared war on it. Patriarch Dionisius also suffered as the Eastern hierarchs called a Church Council and forced him to step down, primarily because of his uncanonical transfer of the Kyiv See to Moscow. Above all, they could not forgive him his light-mindedness. In fact, Constantinople has since declared that the canonical territories of the Moscow Patriarchate are reduced to the lands under its control since its inception, meaning as of 1589, less Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and the Baltic states. What lies in the future for the Ukrainian Church? Most probably the same as for the Ukrainian state.

This author wishes to acknowledge the historical works by Mykola Arkas, Borys Gudziak, Heorhy Konysky, Natalia Kochan, Ivan Ohiyenko, Sergei Platonov, Pлtr Smirnov, Sergei Solovлv, and excerpts from the book, Signs of the Times: Apropos the Problem of Understanding Between the Churches, that were incorporated in the above feature.