Turning the pages back... October 16-20, 1596 (10/13/96)

Turning the pages back...

October 16-20, 1596

This week marks the 400th anniversary of the Union of (Berestia), the agreement between the Ruthenian (Ukrainian-Belarusian) Orthodox Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Vatican which created the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic, a.k.a. Uniate, Church.

Ever since they split in the "Great Schism" of 1054, the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches had both considered the idea of reunion, and cast hostile polemics at each other, denouncing their counterparts in turn as "anti-Christs, heretics and schismatics."

Ukrainian attempts to unite the Churches began as early as the 13th century, and the idea almost came to fruition after the Council of Florence in 1439. For years, understandable Orthodox suspicions that the more powerful Vatican might try to overwhelm their Church (particularly after the seat of their patriarchate fell under Turkish control, in Constantinople/Byzantium/Istanbul in 1453), kept the two sides apart.

However, in the late 16th century, the Ruthenian (Belarusian-Ukrainian) Orthodox Church faced a dire crisis. A breakdown in internal discipline, the rise of a patriarchate in Muscovy (as of 1589), the incursions of Protestant proselytizers, and a gradual Polonization of the Ukrainian Orthodox upper classes were weakening its influence, if not threatening its existence.

Alive to their position of superiority, Polish Catholics, led by the Jesuit Order, worked systematically to persuade leading Ukrainian magnates to support the idea of a union. Piotr Skarga, an advisor to King Sigismund III, the ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (by which a large part of Ukraine had been absorbed), wrote a high-impact tract titled "The Unity of God's Church" dedicated to (directed at) the Ukrainian Orthodox Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky.

In mid-1595, a number of high-ranking Orthodox clergymen, led by Ipatiy Potiy, the bishop of Volodymyr, had been won over to the cause, and later that year, he traveled, accompanied by Kyrylo Terletsky, bishop of Turiv-Pynske, to Rome to formally set forth a confession of their faith before the Papal Curia.

They had become convinced that a union with the well-organized and prestigious Roman Catholic Church would impose much-needed order and discipline among the Orthodox. They also hoped to achieve full equality for the Orthodox within the Commonwealth, and thus an end to discrimination based on religious denomination.

In February 1596, Pope Clement VIII issued papal bulls guaranteeing the rights and privileges of the nascent Uniate Church, based on conditions set out at the Council of Florence.

To say that the Vatican-leaning hierarchs had acted without consulting the Orthodox nobility is putting it mildly. When these developments came to light, an uproar erupted in Right Bank (west of the Dnipro River) Ukraine. Prince Ostrozky denounced the bishops as "wolves in sheep's clothing" who betrayed their flock. He entered into an anti-Catholic compact with the Protestants and threatened to lead an armed uprising. Frightened by this outcry, some bishops, such as Gedeon Balaban of Lviv, declared their opposition to the union.

In order to cool this seething cauldron of religious antagonism, a sobor was called in Brest for October 16-20, 1596. However, the two sides quickly split into two groups and held two councils simultaneously. The opposition was led by Prince Ostrozky, supported by Bishop Balaban, Bishop Mykhail Kopystensky of Peremyshl and the bulk of the Ukrainian nobility and lesser clergy. Representatives of the Orthodox patriarchs in Constantinople and Alexandria also took part in this faction's sobor.

In the other sobor, Metropolitan Mykhailo Rahoza of Kyiv, five bishops, the hegumens and archimandrites of the major monasteries, as well as a small band of supporters from the clergy and aristocracy, accepted the union. The Uniate sobor was attended by the Roman Catholic bishops of Lviv, Lutske and Kholm (as representatives of Rome) and supported by a proclamation from King Sigismund III.

Of course, each group condemned and anathematized the other.

Ironically, an act of unification ensured that Ukrainian society was split in two: on the one hand were the Orthodox magnates, the majority of the clergy, and the masses; while on the other, backed by the king of the Commonwealth, was the former hierarchy and a handful of followers

On the union's 400th anniversary, many of the ancient questions bedevil the arrangement, in different guise, although the pressures exerted on the Ukrainian Church remain remarkably similar.

From the West, the Vatican shows signs of wishing to outlast Ukrainian Greek-Catholic resistance to Latinization, through measures such as the ongoing refusal to formally recognize its patriarchate. From the East, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate, continues to command the largest number of adherents in Ukraine, and thus the specter of Muscovite absorption of all Ukrainian faithful haunts the Uniate hierarchy tempted to return to Orthodoxy.

Sources: "Berestia, Church Union of," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vol. 1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984); Orest Subtelny, "Ukraine: A History," (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988).