The Metropolis of Kiev is a metropolis of the Eastern Orthodox Church that was transferred to the Patriarchate of Moscow in 1685. From 988 AD until 1596 AD, the mother church of the Metropolis of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' had been the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Moscow Patriarchate was a Caesaropapist entity that was under the control of the Russian state. While nominally ruled by a metropolitan bishop, since its inception, the secular authorities of the Tsardom of Russia altered the territorial remit of the Kyiv metropolis, stripped it of its suffragan sees and transformed the office from an ecclesiastical province to an archbishopric to an honorific or empty title.
Following the Russian Revolution, it became an exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was transformed into the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) with a degree of independence in the territory of the modern state of Ukraine. The primate of the UOC-MP — Onufriy — is styled the "Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine". It is a matter of debate as to whether the UOC-MP has full ecclesial independence (autocephaly) or merely enjoys extended autonomy while ultimate control continues to reside in Moscow.
It is also a matter of dispute as to whether Moscow abided by the terms of the transfer from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople: it is the contention of Constantinople and of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) that the terms were breached and that the "de facto" transfer is no longer "de jure" or canonical; Moscow denies this claim and considers the OCU to be schismatic. According to the ROC, the 1686 Synodal Letter of the Ecumenical Patriarch gave Moscow the right to ordain the Metropolitan of Kiev. According to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, this act was firstly conditional upon Moscow preserving the traditional rights of the metropolitan and secondly did not affect the authority of Constantinople as the mother church of the metropolis. In this respect, both Constantinople and the OCU regard Moscow's subsequent actions as uncanonical. On 11 October 2018, the "Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate" revoked the Synodal Letter (Act) of 1686. On 5 January 2019, Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople signed the "tomos" that granted the OCU autocephaly.
Background.
Break with Constantinople.
An ecumenical council of the Church — the Council of Florence — took place from 1431 to 1449. Although he resisted at first, the Grand Prince of Moscow — Vasily II of Moscow — eventually permitted the Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus' — Isidore of Kiev — to attend the council on condition that Isidore should return with "the rights of Divine law and the constitution of the holy Church" uninjured. The council healed the Great Schism by uniting the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The union was proclaimed on 6 July 1439 in the document "Laetentur Caeli" which was composed by Pope Eugene IV and signed by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund and all but one of the bishops present. In Moscow, the union was rejected by the Grand Prince who imprisoned Metropolitan Isidore. Having adjudged Isidore to have apostatized to Catholicism, he was deposed by a local synod and later expelled. In 1448, a council of north-eastern Russian clergy was convened in Moscow at the behest of Vasily II. They elected Jonah as the "Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Rus' without the consent of the patriarch of Constantinople. Like his immediate predecessors, he permanently resided in Moscow, and was the last Moscow-based primate of the metropolis to keep the traditional title with reference to the metropolitan city of Kiev. After 1461, the Muscovite clergy abandoned the "Kiev" title and took on the new title of "Metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus'".
Meanwhile, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, the rulers continued to recognise Isidore as metropolitan; Jonah was rejected and was unable to exercise any pastoral control beyond the borders of Muscovy. In 1458, while Isidore was still alive, his nephew Gregory the Bulgarian was appointed to succeed him as the Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' by Patriarch Gregory III of Constantinople with the agreement of Pope Pius II. In 1469, Patriarch Dionysius I of Constantinople also gave his blessing to Gregory's appointment. Furthermore, he stated that Constantinople would not recognize any metropolitan ordained without its blessing.
Reconciliation with Constantinople.
Moscow's "de facto" independence ("autocephaly") from Constantinople remained unrecognized; in 1587, Job of Moscow was appointed as Metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus'. He was the seventeenth to be appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch as had been the norm. Two years later in 1589, Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople regularized Job's canonical status and raised him to the status of patriarch. This decision was finally confirmed by the four older patriarchs in 1593. "De jure", the new patriarch's canonical territory was "all Russia and Northern countries"; his effective control, however, was limited to the Tsardom of Russia.
In 1569, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was established. The Warsaw Confederation of 1573 secured the rights of minorities and religions in the new state. Within this freedom, the Orthodox bishops from their primatial seat in the city of Novogrudok, together with the faithful in the Commonwealth, chose to remain loyal to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople .
Union of Brest.
In 1588–1589, Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople traveled across Eastern Europe. Arriving in Moscow, he finally acknowledged the Russian Orthodox Church which had been estranged from Constantinople since the 1440s. While there, he consecrated Job of Moscow as the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'. It is possible that Jeremias was imprisoned by the Ottomans and by the Muscovites, and may have been forced to elevate the see of Moscow to a patriarchy.
Travelling on to the Commonwealth, Patriarch Jeremias II deposed the Metropolitan of Kiev, Onesiphorus Divochka. With the approval of King Sigismund III, he consecrated Michael Rohoza as the new "Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Ruthenia".
In 1595–96, the majority of Eastern Orthodox hierarchs in the Ruthenian lands of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth agreed to transfer their ecclesiastical jurisdiction from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to the jurisdiction of the Holy See. The Union of Brest as it was known, established the Ruthenian Uniate Church, which currently exists as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church.
Officially, the Orthodox (but not the Eastern Catholic) Metropolis of Kiev in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was eliminated.
Conflicts between Muscovy, Cossacks and the Commonwealth.
By the early years of the 17th century, the Zaporozhian Cossacks had become a significant military and political force in the south-eastern region of the Commonwealth, straddling both banks of the Dnieper. Their leader ("Hetman") Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny was used by the Commonwealth leaders in their many wars with the Tsardom of Moscow. Under King Sigismund III Vasa, the hetman raided Russian territory and in 1618 laid siege to Moscow itself. To stem the growing panic, the first tsar of the Romanov dynasty — Michael of Russia — was compelled to sign the Truce of Deulino in December 1618 which resulted in the greatest territorial expansion of the Commonwealth.
By that time, the loyalty of the Zaporozhian hetmanate to the Commonwealth was only nominal. The Cossacks' strong historic allegiance to the Eastern Orthodox Church put them at odds with the Catholic-dominated Commonwealth. Tensions increased when Commonwealth policies turned from relative tolerance to the suppression of the Orthodox church, making the Cossacks strongly anti-Catholic. As a result, the Kiev and Chernihiv dioceses which lay in the hetmanate were lost to the Metropolis of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus'.
Establishment of the Exarchate of Ukraine.
The formation of the Ruthenian Uniate Church led to confrontation with those who did not conform to the union. In 1623, the hierarch Josaphat Kuntsevych was murdered. There were numerous revolts culminating in the Khmelnytsky uprising. Opponents of the union called church members "Uniates" although Catholic documents no longer use the term due to its perceived negative overtones. In August 1620, these dissenters prevailed upon Hetman Konashevych-Sahaidachny to agitate for the re-establishment of an Orthodox metropolis in the realm. The hetman persuaded Theophanes III — the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem — to consecrate Job Boretsky as the new "Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus'" and as the "Exarch of Ukraine". There were now two metropolitans with the same title but different ecclesiastical loyalties within the Commonwealth.
The metropolis in the Cossack Hetmanate.
The Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648–1657), also known as the Cossack–Polish War, was a Cossack rebellion in the eastern territories of the Commonwealth, which led to the creation of a Cossack Hetmanate in right-bank Ukraine. The Treaty of Zboriv, negotiated in 1649 by Metropolitan Sylvester Kosiv, brought a temporary respite and the Orthodox Church was granted privileges. In 1654, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky secured the military protection of the Tsardom of Russia in exchange for allegiance to the tsar. By the terms of the Pereiaslav Agreement, the leadership of the Cossack Hetmanate took an oath of allegiance to the Russian monarch; they were followed shortly thereafter by other officials, clergy and the inhabitants of the Hetmanate. Pursuant to the agreement, the Tsardom went to war with the Commonwealth. It quickly occupied, for a while, the lands of present Belarus, and gained some power over the Cossack Hetmanate.
Commonwealth of Three Nations.
The official title of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow was "Patriarch of Moscow and all Greater, Lesser, and White Russia". However, in the Commonwealth, the Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' — Sylvester Kosiv — managed to defend his independence from the Moscow Patriarchate. Kosiv was succeeded by Dionysius Balaban. Metropolitan Balaban supported the pro-Polish policies of Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky and was the co-author of the Treaty of Hadiach (1658). The treaty aimed to establish a "Commonwealth of Three Nations" by transforming the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth into a Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth ("Rzeczpospolita Trojga Narodów"). It would have elevated the Cossacks and Ruthenians to a position that was equal to that of the Poles and Lithuanians in the Polish–Lithuanian union. The treaty provided that Orthodoxy should be the predominant religion in the south-eastern provinces: the Kiev Voivodeship, the Bracław Voivodeship, and the Chernihiv Voivodeship of a new Ruthenian duchy — the Grand Principality of Rus. When the idea of a Ruthenian Duchy within the Commonwealth was abandoned, the proposal collapsed. The Canadian historian Paul Robert Magosci believes that happened because of the divisions among the Cossacks and because of the Russian invasion.
By 1686, Russia had complete sovereignty over the lands of the Zaporozhian Sich and left-bank Ukraine, as well as the city of Kiev. The Treaty of Perpetual Peace (1686) which was concluded by Russia and the Commonwealth affirmed this reality. As a result, the Greek Catholic population in those areas suffered oppression and many deaths. It also spelled an end to the independence and unity of the Hetman state. The Starodub, Chernihiv, and other territories in left-bank Ukraine went to Muscovy; the rest remained in the Commonwealth.
Establishment.
In 1681, the Bishop of Lviv — Yosyf Shumlyansky — secretly converted to Catholicism. He intrigued with the King of Poland — John III Sobieski — to appoint his brother Athanasius as the Bishop of Lutsk. As a result, in 1684 the king demanded that the incumbent bishop — Gedeon Chetvertinsky — accept the Union of Brest. When Gideon refused the demand, some time between July and November 1684 he moved from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to left-bank Ukraine to avoid the royal threat of imprisonment in Malbork Castle. He settled in Krupitsky which was located near Baturyn — the capital of the Cossack Hetmanate. In 1685, the Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host — Ivan Samoylovych — recommended that Gideon be appointed as the Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus'. He was ordained in Moscow by Patriarch Joachim of Moscow and took an oath of allegiance to the Moscow Patriarchate. It was a term of the Treaty of Perpetual Peace (signed in April 1686) that the Kievan metropolis be under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Moscow patriarch. As part of this process, the patriarch forced Chetvertinsky to limit his title to "Metropolitan of Kyiv, Galicia and all Little Rus".
Shortly after the signing of the treaty, through diplomatic pressure on the Sublime Porte and through bribery of leading churchmen, the patriarch of Constantinople gave the transfer canonical recognition. The