Dear Pavel,
Russified in the sense of the Muscovite- Rus' Orthodox tradition.
St Peter Mohyla was Moldavian, yes, but he defended and protected the authentic Kyivan Church tradition (by the way, he considered Muscovites/Great Russians to be "barbaric" and said so!
).
He saw the Kyivan Church as his ecclesial Mother, so much so that he was seen as the best possible candidate as head of the Kyivan Church -before entering the Church as a monastic and leader, he was a commander in the Kozak forces and the Ukrainian Kozaks were among his staunchest supporters for the position of Metropolitan of Kyiv, Halych and all Rus'.
He also spent considerable sums of his own inherited money (he was of royal blood and was slated to be the sovereign of Moldavia) on renovations to the Kyivan Lavra, the Cathedral of St Sophia (which he referred to as the "Mother of all Rus' Churches").
As a Moldavian, he was the best darn Ukrainian Church leader we ever had!
(Ironically, many of the best leaders we ever had were NOT ethnic Ukrainians).
A major difference between him and Muscovite Rus' was St Peter Mohyla's ability to embrace the best of European civilization and education that solidified the "Kyivan Baroque" period.
He sent many students to Paris and other places and these returned having embraced Western education and even Latin devotions (among which was the formation of the Orthodox Immaculate Conception brotherhoods in the Kyivan region - these took the "bloody vow" to defend it to the death).
His "Catechism" was, of course, based on Western models and he was quite serious about defending the Western doctrine of Purgatory as perfectly compatible with Orthodoxy (even after the EO Patriarchs took that part out of his Catechism, St Peter refused to do so and kept it in within the jurisdictional context of his Metropolia.
The Kyivan Mohyla Academy used only Latin and this well into the 19th century.
The Muscovite Orthodox tradition, which only in the reign of Peter the Great changed its name to "Russian" opposed this, but because of a perceived lack of a solid intellectual tradition at that time, was unable to do much about it.
The liturgical differences are really beyond, I'm afraid to say, my level of interest in these matters and so I'm not up on them. But others certainly are.
Russification in this way has also to do with a certain inculturation of groups like Ukrainians within the Great Russian cultural orbit.
It "infected" not only Ukrainian Orthodox (and others, like the Georgians), but also even the UGCC which has always had Russophile priests promoting that agenda. We still do and our parishioners immediately know a "Russophilist" when they see one.
To this day, the Russophile debate within the UGCC is organized around the use of specific symbols and whether they are "Russian or Ukrainian" - such as the three-bar Cross with slanted footrest (which even the Ukrainian Orthodox Church historian, Vadim Scherbakivsky has termed "Muscovite"), certain forms of dress of the clergy (beards used to be a sign that one of our priests was being influenced by Russophilism) etc.
Certainly, the Austro-Hungarian experience helped solidify certain, quite legitimate, aspects of the Kyivan Church as "Russophile" and these have not been overcome without great difficulty - for example, the Austro-Hungarian empire, in the 19th century and as a result of its fear of Russophilism and its political ramifications in the conflict with Imperial Russia, actually had the Greek-Catholic Metropolitan of Lviv remove certain Saints and miraculous Icons from the Greek-Catholic calendar as being "too Orthodox."
In any event, so the story goes!
Alex
