BOOK NOTE: Crisis and reform in Ukrainian Church history (01/31/99)

BOOK NOTE: Crisis and reform in Ukrainian Church history

Crisis and Reform: The Kyivan Metropolitanate, The Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of Brest by Borys A. Gudziak; Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies. 516 pp., 25 illus. and maps (4 in color), ISBN-0916458-74-1. Hardcover. $34.95.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - "Crisis and Reform" explains and reevaluates one of the most controversial events in Slavic church history, the Union of Brest (1596), through which the majority of the Ruthenian hiearchy recognized the supremacy of the pope in Rome while retaining its Slavonic-Byzantine liturgical tradition and ethos. Dr. Gudziak analyzes the movement of spiritual and cultural reform in the Kyivan Metropolitanate in light of its traditional relationship with the Great Church in Constantinople and in the face of the vibrant challenges presented by the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Reform movements flourishing in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and in the broader European context. He demonstrates how the dilemmas within Ruthenian society, coupled with the consequences of the journey to Russia of Patriarch Jeremiah of Constantinople (1588-89) - during which he was forced to create the Patriarchate of Moscow and then instituted far-reaching reforms in the Kyivan metropolitanate - led to the initiative of the Ruthenian hierarchy to move away from the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The book provides an excellent overview of ecclesiastical structures in Eastern Slavic lands from their Christianization to the late sixteenth century and surveys interconfessional relations in Poland and Lithuania before and during the age of Reforms. It also presents an original and nuanced analysis of the relationship of the Slavic East with the Greek Orthodox world after the fall of Byzantium to the Ottomans (1453). Finally, the volume investigates how faith, culture, and politics were intertwined in the decisions that faced the lay and clerical leadership in Ukraine and Belarus' in the period before the Union. With its insight into early-modern mores, psychological portraits of leading protagonists, illustrations of Church figures, polemicists, and sites important to the Union and guide maps, Crisis and Reform will be of interest to specialists in East European cultural and religious history and to all interested in understanding the religious landscape of Eastern Europe today. Available from: Harvard University Press, 79 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138; tel., 1-800-448-2242; fax, 1-800-962-4983.

Borys Gudziak received his Ph.D in Slavic and Byzantine Cultural and Ecclesiastical History at Harvard University in 1992. He is the vice-rector of the Lviv Theological Academy and director of its Institute of Church History. He recently has edited six volumes of conference proceedings on the Union of Brest and is the co-editor of Kovcheh, a journal of Church history.

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