www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West UGCC hx. with Rome

Originally posted by Chance:
So was the UGCC stretching things when they posted this on their website?

Christianity became dominant in the territory with the mass Baptism of Kiev in the Dnieper River in 988 ordered by Vladimir. Following the Great Schism in 1054, the Kievan Rus' that incorporated most of modern Ukraine ended up on the Eastern Orthodox side of the divided Christian world.

Early on, the Orthodox Christian metropolitans had their seat in Pereyaslav, and later in Kiev. The people of Kiev lost their Metropolitan to Vladimir-Suzdal in 1299, but regained a Ukrainian Metropolitan in Halych in 1303. The religious affairs were also ruled in part by a Metropolitan in Navahradak, (present-day Belarus).

After the Breakup of the Kievan Rus

In the 1400s, the primacy over the Ukrainian church was restored to Kiev, under the title "Metropolitan of Kiev and Halicia". One clause of the Union of Krevo stipulated that Jagiello would disseminate Roman Catholicism among Orthodox subjects of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, of which Ukraine was a part. The opposition from the Ostrogskis and other Orthodox magnates led to this policy being suspended in the early 16th century.

Following the Union of Lublin, the polonization of the Ukrainian church was accelerated. Unlike the Roman Catholic church, the Orthodox church in Ukraine was liable to various taxes and legal obligations. The building of new Orthodox churches was strongly discouraged. The Roman Catholics were strictly forbidden to convert to Orthodoxy, and the marriages between Catholics and Orthodox were frowned upon. Orthodox subjects had been increasingly barred from high offices of state.

Union of Brest and its aftermath

In order to oppose such restrictions and to reverse cultural polonization of Orthodox bishops, the Ecumenical Patriarch encouraged the activity of the Orthodox urban communities called the "brotherhoods" (bratstvo). In 1589 Hedeon Balaban, the bishop of Lviv, asked the Pope to take him under his protection, because he was exasperated by the struggle with urban communities and the Ecumenical Patriarch. He was followed by the bishops of Lutsk, Cholm, and Turov in 1590. In the following years, the bishops of Volodymyr-Volynskyy and Przemysl and the Metropolitan of Kiev announced their secession from the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In 1595 some representatives of this group arrived to Rome and asked the Pope to take them under his jurisdiction.

In the Union of Brest of 1596 (colloquially known as unia), a part of the Ukrainian Church was accepted under the jurisdiction of the Roman Pope, becoming a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, colloquially known as Uniates Church. While the new church gained many faithful among the Ukrainians in Galicia and Volhynia, the majority of Ukrainians in the rest of the lands remained within Eastern Orthodoxy with the church affairs ruled by then from Kiev under the metropolitan Peter Mogila (Petro Mohyla). The eastward spread of the Union of Brest led to violent clashes, for example, assassination of the Uniate archbishop Kuncewicz by the Orthodox mob in Polotsk in 1623.

Isidore (Russian: Исидор; died 1462) was Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia. After his death he became known among the Russian Orthodox clergy and grand princes as Isidore the Apostate, as Isidore firmly promoted union with the Church of Rome and the See of St. Peter, which Russian rulers condemned.

In 1437, Isidore was appointed Metropolitan of Kiev and Moscow by John VIII Palaeologus to draw the Russian Orthodox Church into the union with the Roman Catholic Church and secure Constantinople's protection against the Ottoman Turks. Vasili II met the new Metropolitan with hostility. However, Isidore managed to convince the Grand Prince to ally with Catholicism for the sake of saving the Byzantine Empire and the Greek Church.

After Isidor had received funding from Vasili II, he went to Florence to attend an Council of Basel in 1439. He was made a cardinal-presbyter and a papal legate for the provinces of Lithuania, Livonia, all Russia and Galicia (Poland). During this holy meeting, Isidore was fervently defending the union between the Churches, but he was opposed by the only secular representative from Russia - ambassador Foma (Thomas) of Tver. Finally, the union agreement was signed and Isidor went to Russia.

The Russian princes denounced the union, but Isidor persisted. On his return from Italy, during his first divine service in the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Moscow Kremlin, Isidor had a Catholic cross carried in front of the ceremony, prayed for the Pope during liturgy, and read aloud the decree of union. Isidor passed a message to Vasili II from Pope Eugene IV, containing a request to assist the Metropolitan in spreading Catholicism in Russia. Three days later Isidor was arrested and placed in the Chudov Monastery. He was condemned by the Russian clergy for refusing to repent and renounce the union.

In September of 1441, Isidor fled to Tver, then to Lithuania and Rome. In 1458, he was ordained as a nominal Patriarch of Constantinople.