Turning the pages back... April 12, 1541 (04/06/97)

Turning the pages back...

April 12, 1541

Adam Potii was born on April 12, 1541, in Rozhanka, in the Podlachia region, to a Ukrainian Orthodox nobleman. Raised at the Polish royal court in Krakow, he attended a Calvinist school run by the Lithuanian Chancellor A. Radivilas (Radziwill). After attending Krakow University, Potii entered the service of King Zygmunt II August, moving to Brest, where he rose in influence from zemstvo judge, tax collector and castellan to senator.

Potii was continually involved in religious affairs. In 1574 he reconverted to Orthodoxy from Calvinism. In 1593, at the initiative of Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozkyi, he was made bishop of Volodymyr and Brest, adopting the name Ipatii. As bishop he began formal negotiations with Roman Catholic representatives, who had long been pushing for a Church union. He tried to convince his erstwhile patron, the staunchly Orthodox Ostrozkyi, to back a union.

In June 1595, all nine Orthodox hierarchs signed a letter to Pope Clement VIII declaring their readiness for a union and authorizing Potii and Bishop Kost Terletskyi to travel to Rome as representatives of the Church in Ukraine and formally set forth their confession of faith. Upon the pair's return from the Vatican in mid-1596, the fateful sobor was held at which the Ruthenian (Ukrainian-Belarusian) Church split into two groups - those favoring union with Rome, led by Kyivan Metropolitan Mykhailo Rahoza; and those opposed, led by Prince Ostrozkyi.

After the proclamation of the union in October 1596, Potii was one of its leading supporters, and sought equal rights with Roman Catholics in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was also active in exerting pressures on his Orthodox counterparts and confiscating property from the now officially "schismatic" Orthodox Church. After the death of Rahoza in 1599, Potii became the second Uniate metropolitan of Kyiv and Halych.

A noted polemicist, Metropolitan Potii wrote in Ukrainian, Polish and Latin. He also founded a seminary in Vilnius and a Greek-Catholic school in Brest. He died in 1613.

Sources: "Potii, Ipatii," "Berestia, Union of," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vols. 1, 4 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984, 1993); P.R. Magocsi, A History of Ukraine (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).

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