Orthodox brotherhood

Brotherhoods (Ukrainian: братство; literally, "fraternities") were non-monastic organisations of Eastern Orthodox and Greek Catholic citizens or lay brothers affiliated with individual autocephalous churches.

[1][2] Beginning in the western Ukrainian lands,[3][4] they became common in the cities throughout the Ruthenian part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth such as Lviv, Vilnius, Lutsk, Vitebsk, Minsk, and Kyiv.

[1] The brotherhoods attempted to resist state-supported Catholic missionary activity by publishing books in the Cyrillic script and by financing a network of Orthodox schools which offered education in both Old Church Slavonic and the vernacular Ruthenian language.

[5] The brotherhoods were also simultaneously engaged in defending the rights and liberties of the Orthodox burghers, particularly of those Ukrainian craftsmen and merchants from the arbitrary oppression of the Polish Catholic authorities.

[5] The 19th century Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, formed in the Russian Empire, was barely religious at all in character, and instead promoted Ukrainian national awareness.