www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology St. Peter Mohila: Troparion and Kontakion

What St. Peter's attitude toward St. Athanasius of Brest' was is an aside--St. Athanasius was a representative of the ancien regime of SW Russian Orthodoxy, St. Peter the new scholastic trend...But most certainly St. Peter was a direct product of the Kievan Brotherhoods & Cossack state whose only use for Latins was as a framework for defense of Orthodoxy against encroachment, that is the extent of his "good feelings." Now, ROCOR along with the MP has canonized St. Theophan the Recluse of Vysha; whereas, +Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, Confessor to the Holy Royal Martyrs, awaits canonization. Indeed, he died and was buried unceremoniously by the ruling clique in ROCOR. His cause was taken up by the Platina crowd prior to their regularizations elsewhere, yet it is unclear where it stands today. No, he definitely had little use for Ukrainian separatism or self-consecrated hierarchs--he was an avowed Russian monarchist to the end. "Silliness" is all that can be termed accusations that the Orthodox church in Little Russia was somehow "russified," for since the seventeenth century the UNIFIED Russian church was indeed a UKRAINIAN product. As far as disputing Lipkovsky's kheiritonia and urgency, is Rome prepared to recognize the FATUOUS "Antiochian Canon" which supposedly passes Apostolic Succession through the hands of the presbyterate?! calvin's Geneva might, but I doubt very seriously elsewhere. Why, even Capt. Petlura decided that the Cathedral on Rue de Rue was his legitimate place...and he was a relative of the late hierarch Skrypnik. No, Lipkovsky was an uncanonical pretender. Fyodorovich's work with the Antiochians is more interesting. Likewise, Kopchak's with the ep. Even Waledenski's commissioning/kheiritonias of a collaborationist, vagante body more interesting, but Lipkovsky...Not unless you're nailing theses to the doors of St. Sophia's. (I though the ucc was more Tridentine in mentalite?)

Dear Kollyvas,

I don't disagree with what you've said, only suggest that there was more to it than what you've summarized about St Peter's attitude to the Catholics.

He was not "anti-Catholic" even though he was a defender of Orthodoxy. He cannot be compared to an Orthodox zealot of today or then and the many Latinizations he accepted would certainly make him stand apart from such.

He was also very deeply European by personal and scholastic culture - as were St Dmitri Tuptalenko and others of that time period.

It's simply a disagreement over historic interpretation. Tsar St Nicholas II also had none of the often rabid anti-Westernism and anti-Catholicism that one finds among certain circles of Orthodoxy.

As for your commentary on "Little Russia," we will also agree to disagree, although not on every point.

As for Russian monarchism, aristocracy and high culture, I have nothing but the deepest admiration and respect for all this, including a deep veneration for the Holy Royal Martyrs of Russia.

Thank you for clarifying about the Theophane's!

So St Theophane Zatvornik was glorified - I read on a Russian site that Theophane of Poltava was glorified by ROCOR.

Again, thank you for clarifying.

Lipkivsky broke with Orthodox tradition on a number of points, to be sure. There were many Orthodox Ukrainians who opposed him, but he is honoured by most as a kind of secular hero.

Your view that the Russian Orthodox Church of the 18th century was "Ukrainian" is . . . absolutely correct.

The "Little Russian Mafia" as it was called ensured that ONLY Ukrainian candidates became bishops.

One reason for this is the very low level of education among Muscovite clergy at the time.

Of course, this changed in the 19th century, Muscovite Russification took over and this did untold damage to Orthodoxy in Ukraina Malorossiyska (where "Little Russia" refers to the "heart of Rus'" or the "essential Rus.'"

And there were and are Russian hierarchs and priests who are sensitive to this issue - even more with the Ukrainian movement, both canonical and uncanonical, toward a separate Orthodox patriarchate.

Also, I don't know why you choose to capitalize the "Ukrainian Catholic Church" as 'ucc.'

Perhaps that is an unintended sign of disrespect on your part - perhaps you feel it is justified since Ukrainians are against Russia and vice-versa.

Whatever.

Alex

The point of the Kievan school, the Kievan and Ostrogh Brotherhoods, was to provide a Latin education and jargon with which to combat the counter-reformation. Whilst St. Peter may have fancied the Latin language and been highly influenced by thomism, there can be no mistaking that his work was aimed at combating that counter-reformation which produced a climate of little sympathies, but many hatreds. St. Peter unapologetically stood on the other side and did not sit on a fence. The whole notion of "russification" by even what you've said becomes fatuous. The Russian church prior to the Kievan and Greek reforms which the Little Russian hierarchy oversaw and implemented, was Old Rite, as was the church in SW Russia prior to Moghila--indeed, the Ruthenian Catholics (Ukrainian and Rusin) retain Old Rite forms and language even now, eg "Obradovannaja Marija" in place of "Blagodatnaja." No return to Moscovite forms was ever advanced on Little Russia or Byelorussia, but, rather, the preeminence and influence of the Kiev Caves Lavra predominated in Russian Orthodoxy (It was the "first" lavra!) into the 1920s, and the Lavra had preserved very much its Little Russian character. I was informed that the acronym for the Ukrainian Catholic Church was "UCC"--I believe I first found it on Ukrainian Catholic literature--and by using this abbreviation I meant no disrespect. As far as animus toward Ukrainians, nothing could be further from the truth--I see them along with Galicians, Carpatho-Russians, Lemkians, Byelorussians, Cossacks, etc. and Great Russians as one common Russian people whom I treat with equanimity and respect: I don't hate myself or my people.

Dear Kollyvas,

I respect your erudition and wide learning!

That is a fascinating point you raise, and your example with respect to the "Rejoice Theotokos" prayer illustrates that you are a VERY scholarly mind.

Could you comment further on why the difference between the Old Rite and "Nikonian" versions of the prayer?

Alex

Dr. Paul Meyendorff has done excellent research on the topic. His book RUSSIA, RITUAL & REFORM is a standard text on the textual differences. His credential is very much realized, mine still incipient. Roman scholars did similar research in the 1960s and 1970s where they introduced reforms in the Ruthenian churches in accordance with, irony of ironies, the Great Russian recension. They even travelled to Russia to complete their research. There was one Ukrainian scholar, whose name escapes me, who, in contradistinction, made it a point to place his emphasis on the Ruthenian Old Rite prior to Zamosc, etc. to restore it. Too bad nothing seems to have come of his work.

Dear Kollyvas,

Yes, I have Dr. Paul Meyendorff's work and I shall review it!

Metropolitan Ilarion Ohienko wrote about the Old Rite publications at Pochaiv Lavra - it seems the Old Believers felt welcome there.

However, there was also St Dmitri of Rostov who opposed their views vociferously (ie. the three-bar Cross is the only valid Cross of Golgotha and the like).

Alex

An excellent article by Dr. Meyendorff:

"The Liturgical Reforms of Peter Moghila, A New Look," St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 29 (1985) 101-114; Ukranian translation: "Liturgichni Reformi Petra Mogili: Novii Pogliad," Vira i Kultura/Faith and Culture 11 (Winnipeg: St Andrew's College, 1997-1998), 71-86; also in P. Moghila: Bogoslov, Tserkovnii i Kulturnii Diiach (Kiev: "DNIPRO," 1997), 61-73.

Thank you, Sir!

Alex

I agree with Alex's assesment of Petro Mohyla and his teachings. He was relatively speaking very cosmopolitain for his time and place. It should also be noted that many of the Kozak elders (Hetmans) sent their children to the best Western European schools which would not have been possible without first being tuitored at the Mohyla Academy. The Academy was a window to the world through which generations of young Ruthenians would receive a first class 'modern education' while retaining their Orthodox heritage. Muscovy on the other hand shunned higher education and all 'foreign influences'. IMHO, this is where the most significant gap developed between the Ruthenians of Ukraine and the Muscovites to the North.

Alex mentioned earlier that the Petro Mohyla Academy continued using Latin long after most Western Universities had ceased using it. I'm no linguistic expert, but Latin was still very dominant language at the turn of the 20 the century, and the Ruthenian Mohyla Academy was closed down by the Muscovite Imperials in St-Petersburg in the earlier part of the 18th century. I think a better statement would have been: "the Mohyla Academy ceased existing, and Latin continued to predominate for another 200 years in Western Universities."

Though you might like this news colum I found:

Historical Gallery
back "KYIV-MOHYLA ACADEMY " NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF UKRAINE
Citadel of European Spirit and Ukrainian Enlightenment
By Serhiy Makhun. The Day Ukrainian Newspaper
Kyiv, Ukraine, October 22, 2002

October 15 the Kyiv-Mohyla National University marked the 10th anniversary of its revival and the 370th anniversary of the Kyiv Collegium (the precursor of Kyiv-Mohyla). For the students, the festivities began with the washing the Hryhory Skovoroda statue, meant to symbolize the cleansing of Ukrainian historical memories and a return to genuine historical values. The idea of the "Clean Skovoroda" event was conceived by the academy's Bursar Brotherhood and the washing ceremony has accompanied the celebration of the Academy's Day since 1999.

The Kyiv-Mohyla Academy's history starts in October 1615 when Halshka (Elisabeth) Hulevychivna, a Volyn-born noblewoman of Kyiv, signed thefundush certificate, reading, "I the undersigned donate all this to St. Basil's cloistered community and to a school for children of noble birth and from city residents' families; also to all other ways of life pleasing to God, so as to ensure... education and teaching sciences to Christian children... so that the cloistered community and the school, one and all abide by the law of the Eastern Orthodox Church." The members of the Kyiv brotherhood were thus under the obligation to keep a school on the parcel of land donated by Hulevychivna, a patron of the arts who had her name inscribed in the academy annals with those of Petro Mohyla and Ivan Mazepa.


October 15 the Kyiv-Mohyla National University marked the 10th anniversary of its revival and the 370th anniversary of the Kyiv Collegium (the precursor of Kyiv-Mohyla)
Photo by Mykola LAZARENKO, The Day


The brotherhood's school was the academy's predecessor. In October 1632, 370 years ago, the celebrated Metropolitan Petro Mohyla of Kyiv and Galicia [Halychyna] founded the Collegium of the Kyiv Brotherhood, incorporating the schools of the brotherhood and the Lavra Monastery of the Caves. Humanitarian culture flourished under Petro Mohyla, an outstanding reformer of the Eastern Orthodox Church, enlightener, and ecumenist, as it should in today's Ukrainian society. Owing to this higher school (in 1658, the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium received the legal status of a higher educational establishment and the title of academy), the Ukrainian nation had an inexhaustible intellectual source, even through its hardest of ordeals, in the years of the national-liberation struggle, overall ruination, radical social and Weltanschauung changes in the early 18th century. The academy formed schools, fruitful in the realms of philosophy, poetry, music, architecture, and art. It was also here that the first professional drama company in Ukraine appeared. Students from Moravia, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, Wallachia, Transylvania, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Bosnia, and Croatia were honored to receive higher education at the academy in Kyiv.

It may be said without exaggeration that the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy had become Europe's best institution of higher learning in the late 17th century - and not only in the Slavic world! Among its renowned graduates were philosopher Hryhory Skovoroda, architect Ivan Hryhorovych-Barsky, composers Maksym Berezovsky and Artemy Vedel, historian, poet, and Archbishop Lazar Baranovych, encyclopedist and enlightener Mikhail Lomonosov, Cossack chronicler Samiylo Velychko, historians Mykola Bantysh-Kamensky and Maxym Berlynsky, celebrated church hierarchs, Stefan Yavorsky, Dmytro (Tuptalo), Ivan (Maksymovych), Bishop Josaphat (Horlenko)... Incidentally, Stefan Yavorsky, a noted philosopher and poet, present at the cradle of the Moscow Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy founded in 1701.

Among the academy patrons and benefactors were historical figures such as Hetman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny who bequeathed all his money to the brotherhood schools of Kyiv, Lutsk, and Lviv ("...for the benefit of instruction and perpetuation of the bachelors of art," read the deed), Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, Ukrainian Hetmans Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ivan Vyhovsky, Ivan Mazepa... Under the latter's rule, the Kyiv- Mohyla Academy reached it peak. It enjoyed respect and was cared for by all Ukrainian social strata: clergy, Cossacks, petty bourgeoisie, and peasants.

The academy existed till 1817 when ordered closed by the Holy Synod in St. Petersburg. Tsar Alexander regarded it (with reason) as a threat to the interests of the Russian Empire. A year later, a theological academy opened on the premises, closed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

Finally, on August 24, 1992, 175 years later, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was formally reinstated and the first students were initiated that same day. On May 19, 1994, the president of Ukraine signed an edict whereby the academy was now the "Kyiv- Mohyla Academy" National University of Ukraine.


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The Day: http://www.day.kiev.ua/DIGEST/2002/32/economy/ec1.htm


I.F.

Alex, I also heard that the Old Rite Ukies were not only welcome, but some of the monks acted as startsi for Old Rite faithful when their own monastic numbers greatly decreased.
DRLB

Well, not going into personal things, I can confidently reiterate the opposition of St. Peter and the Kiev of the era to the Latin West: Wittenberg and Geneva of the era were also Latinophone, but, likewise, not particularly positively predisposed to the counter reformation. The Moghilan academy was not closed by "Muscovite imperialists": it continued until after the revolution and was the basis for all other Russian theological academies. And, the Ukrainians were the ones responsible for ruling and structuring the synodal Russian church, so...Latin was one of the languages of instruction in Russian academies into the late 19TH century: Russian Orthodox clergy educated in academies were fluent and spoke it freely. As far as Western education being the reason why a "rift" arose between the Russian north and Ruthenian south, it ignores the fact that jesuit institutions were established in the north during the time of troubles and blossomed during the reign of Alexis I, where the Russian aristocracy had their children taught, and then there's the matter of Russians from the north being taught in protestant universities, so stressing historical trends in one region wjhile ignoring other regions in assessing Russian social movements and cultural shifts does no justice to the requisite accuracy required to adequately approach the topics...I would suggest as a starter Fr. Florovsky's (from Odessa) WAYS OF RUSSIAN THEOLOGY, vols. I & II.

Old Rite survivals amongst Ruthenians?! Really? Were they Orthodox or in union with Rome? Do you mean Bela Krinitsa?

Dear Jean Francois,

Well, the published doctoral work, "Ukrainian influences on Russia" (I forget the exact title) does insist that Latin was used at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy longer than at certain Western universities - perhaps I was being too "black and white" there.

This allowed students to travel westward to study and also acted as a magnet to draw other students to Kyiv. Latin was still the lingua franca for a very long time, as you say.

In Russia at the time of Peter I, Latin was actually viewed as an "heretical" language. Tsar Peter's love of Latin was viewed upon with great suspicion, especially by the Russian Church (and his annoying habit of signing his name "Petrus" ).

St Peter Mohyla and his other contemporaries boldly referred to Muscovy as "barbaric" - along with the rest of Europe.

That Mohyla was devoted to Orthodoxy - of this there can be no doubt.

But his Orthodox Catechism had to be corrected by Orthodox Patriarchs - especially Mohyla's bad habit of accepting the western doctrine of Purgatory!

The Orthodoxy of the Kyivan Baroque era, of which St Peter Mohyla is the "patriarch," was SO very close to Western religious culture that Western Catholic writers, including Dom Aelred Graham closer to our times, referred to the Saints of the Kyivan Church as such including: Dmitri Tuptalenko (who honoured the Immaculate Conception - for which he was called before the Synod to give account - and made the "bloody vow" to defend to the death the IC, Joasaph Horlenko of Bilhorod, Sophrony Krystalsky, Paul Koniuskevich (an amazing poet and scholar of western literature) Innocent Kulchitsky (whose relative became the hero of the defence of Vienna against the Turks), John Maximovych (one of the Academy's greatest academics) Arseny Matsievich (a former EC and scholar), Peter Mohyla, Tikhon Sokolovsky (of Zadonsk), Georgy Konissky (who was very devoted to St Joseph the Betrothed) Paissy Velichkovsky (who always underscored his Ukrainian background by adding "Native of Poltava" after his signature)- these are referred to as saints who were, in every way, "Catholic" and "acceptable" to the West.

(Stefan Yavorsky has been locally venerated for his defence of Orthodoxy by his popular work - in fact, the inclination toward the Latin West was also seen as a way to defend Orthodoxy against Calvinism. Sahaidachny and even Khmelnitsky were considered worthy of canonization for their service to the Orthodox Church of Kyiv as well).

All of these opposed the "Uniatization" of Orthodoxy (as we do today) and defended Orthodoxy.

But any Roman Catholic of the time period would have felt quite at home with any of these Saints, religiously, theologically and culturally.

Alex

Dear Kollyvas,

This link [rumkatkilise.org] discusses how some of the Old Believers joined communion with Rome.

It also presents two pondering statements:

In Christ,

Michael

Kollyvas, both Bela Krinitsa and Greek Catholic communities were present before the Revolution. Several entire parishes came into communion with Rome as Old Rite parises, such as that of Fr. Patapy Emilianov.

Unfortunately most of the Catholics, always a pretty small number overall, became scattered through the various emigrations such as to Harbin, etc.