Metropolis of Kiev (Patriarchate of Moscow)

[1] While nominally ruled by a metropolitan bishop, since its inception, the secular authorities of the Tsardom of Russia altered the territorial remit of the Kyiv metropolis, stripped it of its suffragan sees and transformed the office from an ecclesiastical province to an archbishopric to an honorific or empty title.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was transformed into the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) with a degree of independence in the territory of the modern state of Ukraine.

It is a matter of debate as to whether the UOC-MP has full ecclesial independence (autocephaly) or merely enjoys extended autonomy while ultimate control continues to reside in Moscow.

[5] It is also a matter of dispute as to whether Moscow abided by the terms of the transfer from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople: it is the contention of Constantinople and of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) that the terms were breached and that the de facto transfer is no longer de jure or canonical; Moscow denies this claim and considers the OCU to be schismatic.

According to the ROC, the 1686 Synodal Letter of the Ecumenical Patriarch gave Moscow the right to ordain the Metropolitan of Kiev.

According to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, this act was firstly conditional upon Moscow preserving the traditional rights of the metropolitan[6] and secondly did not affect the authority of Constantinople as the mother church of the metropolis.

The union was proclaimed on 6 July 1439 in the document Laetentur Caeli [11][a] which was composed by Pope Eugene IV and signed by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund and all but one of the bishops present.

Like his immediate predecessors, he permanently resided in Moscow, and was the last Moscow-based primate of the metropolis to keep the traditional title with reference to the metropolitan city of Kiev.

[15][b] Meanwhile, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, the rulers continued to recognise Isidore as metropolitan; Jonah was rejected and was unable to exercise any pastoral control beyond the borders of Muscovy.

[22] Within this freedom, the Orthodox bishops from their primatial seat in the city of Novogrudok, together with the faithful in the Commonwealth, chose to remain loyal to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople .

By the early years of the 17th century, the Zaporozhian Cossacks had become a significant military and political force in the south-eastern region of the Commonwealth, straddling both banks of the Dnieper.

To stem the growing panic, the first tsar of the Romanov dynasty — Michael of Russia — was compelled to sign the Truce of Deulino in December 1618 which resulted in the greatest territorial expansion of the Commonwealth.

Tensions increased when Commonwealth policies turned from relative tolerance to the suppression of the Orthodox church, making the Cossacks strongly anti-Catholic.

[27] Opponents of the union called church members "Uniates" although Catholic documents no longer use the term due to its perceived negative overtones.

The hetman persuaded Theophanes III — the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem — to consecrate Job Boretsky as the new "Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus'" and as the "Exarch of Ukraine".

The Treaty of Zboriv, negotiated in 1649 by Metropolitan Sylvester Kosiv, brought a temporary respite and the Orthodox Church was granted privileges.

However, in the Commonwealth, the Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' — Sylvester Kosiv — managed to defend his independence from the Moscow Patriarchate.

[40] When Gideon refused the demand, some time between July and November 1684 he moved from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to left-bank Ukraine to avoid the royal threat of imprisonment in Malbork Castle.

In 1685, the Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host — Ivan Samoylovych — recommended that Gideon be appointed as the Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus'.

It was a term of the Treaty of Perpetual Peace (signed in April 1686) that the Kievan metropolis be under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Moscow patriarch.

Shortly after the signing of the treaty, through diplomatic pressure on the Sublime Porte and through bribery of leading churchmen, the patriarch of Constantinople gave the transfer canonical recognition.

[42][43][44][45] As soon as Constantinople learned of Moscow's conclusion of an "eternal peace" with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, opposition to Patriarch Dionysius grew in the Synod.

In 1721, according to the "Spiritual Regulations", the Metropolitanate of Kyiv was formally liquidated as an autonomous ecclesiastical region and became an ordinary diocese of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The functions and rights of the metropolitan were very limited, so Timothy focused on the development of the Kyiv Academy and the restoration of the printing house at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

In protest at Moscow's interference in the affairs of the metropolis, in 1757 he wrote a letter to the Synod requesting his dismissal from the metropolitan chair.

At that time, the Ukrainian church owned huge estates, at the expense of which monasteries carried out extensive cultural and educational work, maintained schools, hospitals, and helped the needy.

In the 1780s, more favorable conditions were created for the implementation of this plan, and on April 10, 1786, the empress issued a decree on the secularization of monastic and ecclesiastical lands.

According to historian Serhii Plokhy, "the abolition of the Hetmenate and the gradual elimination of its institution and military structure ended the notion of partnership and equality between Great and Little Russia imagined by generations of Ukrainian intellectuals.

In 1769, the Archimandrite of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra — Zosima Valkevych — asked the Synod for permission to print Ukrainian primers, because the people did not understand Russian and do not want to buy them.

In 1770, the Romanov civil authorities stripped the metropolis of its suffragan sees, reducing the office's jurisdiction to administration of a diocese.