Turning the pages back...

January 10, 1647

Often regarded as the leading Orthodox churchman of 17th century Ukraine, Petro Mohyla was greatly responsible for bringing a measure of calm to the internecine battles that raged between Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholics over church property in the early years of the 17th century.

After the assassination of Greek-Catholic Archbishop of Polotsk Josaphat Kuntsevych in 1623, subsequent failed attempts at compromise between Ukrainian Catholic and Orthodox leaders spurred the Polish government in 1623 to step in and recognize the banned Orthodox Church.

Mohyla, the newly elected Orthodox metropolitan of Kiev, working with the Polish king, negotiated a compromise dividing the disputed properties between the two Churches, which also resulted in the return of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev to the Orthodox.

Metropolitan Mohyla then led a rebirth of the Orthodox faith with the aid of learned theologians, called the Mohyla Atheneum, implementing reforms in the Church's cultural and educational institutions. In 1632, he combined the school of the Kievan Cave Monastery with the Kiev brotherhood school to form the Mohyla Collegium, which would become one of the most important educational institutions in the Slavic world.

Metropolitan Mohyla was born on July 7, 1596, ironically the same year the Union of Brest, which split the Ukrainian Church into Catholics and Orthodox, was concluded. He died on January 10, 1647.

Source: "Ukraine: A History," Orest Subtelny, University of Toronto Press, 1988.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 10, 1993, No. 2, Vol. LXI

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