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[German Version] I. Term The term “Ukraine” with the meaning of “borderland” appears in the chronicles of the 12th and 13th centuries as a designation of the border areas lying between the sedentary and the nomadic civilization of the Kievan Rus. From the 16th century onward, Polish sources refer to the middle reach of the Dnieper River as the Ukraine. In the 17th century, the term was used to designate the domain of the Dnieper Cossacks. The territory that has been defined as the Ukraine since Worl…

[German Version] (Apr 17, 1818, Moscow – Mar 1, 1881, St. Petersburg), Tsar of Russia (1855–1881). In domestic policy, the epoch of the “reform tsar” is rightly considered a turning-point. As the core of the reforms, the law abolishing serfdom was issued on Feb 19, 1861, the reform of the justice system, among other things, in 1864. Cultural institutions recei…

[German Version] I. History of Religions – II. Church History – III. Current Situation I. History of Religions Brotherhoods are a special form of community, not constituted by traditional forms of relationship (Covenant). They are mono-gendered groupings (also “sisterhoods”) distinguished by certain homogeneous characteristics. Initiation groups are often the origin of brotherhoods in cultural histo…

[German Version] (1528 – May 23, 1583, Kovelʾ, Wolhynia). Descended from the dynasty of Smolensk/Yaroslav princes, Kurbsky is first mentioned in 1549 as a participant in Ivan the Terrible's campaign against Kazan. He served Ivan as a successful military leader during the Livonian War. Having fallen out of favor, Kurbsky changed allegiance in 1564 and entered the service of King Sigismund Augustus II, who endowed him with estates in Lithuania and Wolhynia. During his exile, as a student of Maksim G…

[German Version] (Feb 28, 1834, Kostroma, Russia – Jan 7, 1912, Sergiyev Posad, Russia). Golubinsky's magum opus is the still indispensable Istoriia russkoi tserkvi [History of the Russian Church]. It covers the 10th–16th centuries and was published in two double volumes (1880–1881, 21900; fragments of vol. II/2 appeared posthumously in 1917). He divides Russian church history into two eras: the age of “scribalism” prior to Peter the Great, and the age of “Enlightenment” after Peter, which Golubinsky hails as progress. His source-critic…

[German Version] (Samuil Emelianovich Petrovskii-Sintianovich; 1629, Polotsk [?] – 1680, Moscow), active as a theologian, educator, poet, and dramatist in Moscow, where he acquired enormous cultural and political influence in a period when formal education and increase of knowledge through closer ties with the Western world were taking on existential significance. After concluding his studies at the Mogila Academy in Kiev (II) in 1651, he studied at Jesuit colleges abroad and then began teaching a…

[German Version] According to tradition, the Holy Dormition Pochaev Laura, 120 km east of Lviv (Ukraine), had its beginning when monks from Kiev, destroyed by the Mongols in 1240, settled on Mount Pochaev, where a footprint of the Theotokos is venerated. The earliest document of the monastery, from 1595, records a generous gift from Anna Goys-¶ kaya, a Volhynian noblewoman. The document forbids the takeover of the monastery by any other denomination. Thanks also to the veneration of St. Job of Pochaev, the monastery’s abbot, the monastery stayed in O…

[German Version] (1574, Ruta, near Vilnius – 1637, Ruta), third metropolitan of the Uniate church (since 1596; Unions with Rome) of the Kiev (II) metropolitanate. His career in the church reflected the situation in the nobles’ republic in the age of confessionalization. After attending the Calvinist school in Vilnius, Rutsky studied at the universities of Cracow, Prague, and Würzburg and at the Greek College in Rome. Pope Clement VIII (1592–1605) won him to the side of the Eastern Rite. In 1606 he…

[German Version] (1722, Chornukhy, Poltava Oblast – 1794, Ivanivka, near Kharkiv), is considered the most important poet and mystic of the Ukrainian Baroque. From 1734 to 1753 (with interruptions) he studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kiev (II). From 1745 to 1750 he pursued his interests in the Stoics, Plato, and Pietism in Europe. In his epistemology, he combined patristic influences with the Plato renaissance of his period. Between 1753 and 1769, he held various teaching positions: initially …

[German Version] After the Union of Brest in 1596, Orthodox laity, supported by the church brotherhoods, opposed a union with Rome (Unions with Rome) and called for the restoration of the Eastern church hierarchy. The election of Vladislav IV (1632–1648) enabled the Orthodox nobility to obtain the decree for the “Establishment of peace for the Russian people of ¶ Greek religion in the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Latvia,” and in 1632 achieved the foundation of the Mohilev archbishopric for the Eastern church in the Grand Duchy, within whose …

[German Version] (Mikhail Ragoza; c. 1540? – 1599, Kiev?), metropolitan of Kiev and Halič. In Rohoza’s period in office, union with Rome (Unions with Rome) was agreed. He came from the lesser Ruthenian nobility, and appears in 1579 as archimandrite of the Monastery of the Ascension in Minsk. On his appointment in 1589, Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople had high hopes for the renewal of the church province of Kiev. At synods in Brest in 1590 and 1594 Rohoza worked for reforms within the churc…

[German Version] I. Catholicism – II. Orthodoxy – III. Protestantism The term parish comes from the Greek παροικία/ paroikía (“resident alien’s dwelling”), which in early Christianity expressed the foreignness of Christians in society. Resulting from this basic feeling, individual congregations were called παροικίαι/ paroikíai from the 2nd century. Until Late Antiquity, paroikía remained a technical term for a bishop’s congregation. Only after the rise of pastoral subcenters in large towns and rural areas, which became the main point of reference for ¶ believers’ religious li…

[German Version] (Hypatius, secular name Adam; Aug 12, 1581, Rozhanka, Grand Duchy of Lithuania – Jul 18, 1613, Vilnius) is considered the most learned Ruthenian church dignitary in the era of confessionalization. After attending the Calvinistic school of Prince Nicholas Radziwiłł (“the Black”), he left the Orthodox Church but returned to it in 1574. Before he became a monk and was appointed bishop of Volodymyr-Volynskyi (1593) by Sigismund III, he served as a senator and held the office of castel…

[German Version] (1524/1525 – Feb 13/23, 1608 Ostrog, Volhynia [Ukraine]), voivode of Kiev and marshal of Volhynia, played an important role in the public life of Poland-Lithuania in the age of confessionalization. He was concerned at times with reaching an agreement with representatives of the Reformation, as well as an understanding with Rome. He rejected the union of an Eastern Orthodox state church with Rome without the participation of all patriarchs of the East, a…

[German Version] I. City and Metropolitan See – II. Theological Academy I. City and Metropolitan See According to legend, Kiev (Ukrainian: Kyiv) was founded by the brothers Kij, Šček, and Choriv on the west bank of the river Dnieper ( Dnepr). Owing to its favorable location on the trade route “from the Varagians to the Greeks,” Kiev developed into a political center of the ¶ medieval Rus', which was characterized by the integration of Slavic and Scandinavian elements. Kiev owed its growing prosperity above all to its economic-political and church-cultural r…

[German Version] (Tuptalo; 1651, Makarovo near Kiev – Oct 28, 1709, Rostov), was influenced by scholasticism and the early Enlightenment during his education in Poland-Lithuania. As archbishop of Rostov, from 1702, he founded there the first eparchial school in Russia. It was considered the paradigm for the educational model of the 1721 Spiritual Regulation. For Dimitry, winning back the Old Believers to the Orthodox Church was also a matter of enlightenment and education. Dimitry's Monthly Readings( čet'i minei), influenced by Western sources, have …

[German Version] (Dec 19, 1773, Moscow – Dec 4, 1844, Feodosiya, Crimea) dictated the religious and educational policies of Russia during the reign of Alexander I. Appointed procurator general of the Senate in 1802 and procurator general of the Holy Synod in 1803, Golitsyn carried out a reform of the church school system in 1808. He supported the Russian Bible Society (Bible Societies: I, 3), which had been founded in 1813. In 1817 he became head of ¶ the combined Ministry for Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Education. The merging of these two departments was based on t…

[German Version] (1724, Korotsk, Novgo­rod region – Aug 13, 1783, Zadonsk), one of the most important 18th-century Russian hierarchs. The son of a church sexton, he was baptized Timofey. He attended the seminary at the court of the bishop in Novgorod, and after being tonsured as a monk in 1758 he took the name Tikhon and served as the bishop’s prefect. In ¶ 1759 he was called to the seminary in Tver as professor of theology; soon he was made its rector. Consecrated “bishop of Keksholm and Ladoga” in 1761, he served as suffragan bishop of Novgorod. In 1763 b…

[German Version] (250 km northeast of Lviv [Lemberg], Ukraine), chosen seat of the Ruthenian Udel princes of Ostrog; from the mid-14th century steadily built up as a defensive fortress against Tartar attack. With the rise of the princes of Ostrog to the highest rank of the Polish-Lithuanian aristocratic republic, Ostrog gained particular importance as a political and cultural center for the defence of Ruthenian interests, and the strengthening of the position of the Eastern Church in the process o…

[German Version] (1530?–1607), Orthodox bishop of Lemberg (Ukrainian L'viv) from 1569. He opposed the introduction of the Gregorian calendar (1582). In 1590, he participated in unification negotiations (Unions, Church) with the Roman Catholic Church, but remained opposed to union following the conclusion of the Union of Brest in 156…

[German Version] Przemysl, on the River San on the Polish-Russian border, originally a staging place on the trade route from Regensburg to Kiev. In 1078 it became part of the principality of Halich. After Christianization, there is evidence of both Latin and Byzantine-Slavic congregations. The first mention of an Orthodox bishopric in Przemysl in a chronicle dates from 1220. After Przemysl was incorporated into the kingdom of Poland in 1344, a Latin bishopric was established in 1387. During the pr…

[German Version] (Apr 15, 1824, Glubokoye near Vilnius – Jun 9, 1898, Bialystok), scholar and rabbi. Even before the notorious Russian pogroms of 1881, he called for the return of the Jews to Palestine on the basis of an active settlement effort in the spirit of the Torah. With great organizational and propagandistic dedication, he set about reconciling the secular and orthodox elements within the emerging Chibbat Zion (Heb. “Love of Zion”), the Russian forerunner of the Zionist Organization (Zion…

[German Version] (in Scandinavian: Helga; after her baptism: Helena; c. 890–969, Kiev; feast day Jul 11), grand duchess of Kievan Rus. As duchess of Pskov from the Rjurikid dynasty, she became regent in Kievan Rus in 945, after the murder of her husband, Grand Duke Igor. Through the formation of tax districts she made a significant contribution to the strengthening of territorial power, which was also furthered by the increasing Chris-¶ tianization of the eastern Slavs. Olga herself received baptism in 955 or 957. Negotiations conducted in Constantinople in connect…

[German Version] (1824–1871), one of the most prominent Orthodox theologians during the reform era of Tsar Alexander II, became a monk (religious name: Feodor) in 1846 and taught as professor of Bible and dogmatics at the Theological Academies of Moscow and Kazan. In 1848, he attracted public attention with his Three Letters to N.V. Gogol (N. Gogol), supporting the latter's embrace of the Orthodox tradition. In 1860, there appeared his controversial On Orthodoxy and its Relationship with the Contemporary World. His effort in this work was to bridge …

[German Version] (Gumilevsky; Oct 23, 1805, Konobeev, Tambov, Russia – Aug 9, 1866, Konotop, Ukraine), archbishop of Chernigov; he founded the his-¶ toricist school of church history through intensive study of sources and historical-statistical descriptions. The most important works among his 159 listed publications are a history of the Russian Church ( Istorija russkoj cerkvi, 1848) and a survey of Russian religious literature between 862 and 1720 ( Obzor russkoj duchovnoj literatury, 1859). As spiritual leader, he was at pains to raise the level of education and …

[German Version] (Ivan Železo; 1551, Polutʾja – 1651, Počaev, Volhynia), revered for preserving the ascetic tradition of the Eastern Church in Poland and Lithuania in the epoch of confessionalization. He became a priest and monk around 1580 and initially headed the monastery of the Exaltation of the Cross in Dubno. The limited number of writings which can be attributed to him consist primarily of citations from the church fathers and represent an exception in the confessionally polemic literature …

[German Version] White Russia or Belarus became independent in 1991, keeping the 1945 borders of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (see below). In the 17th century, the territory between the upper Neman and the middle Dnieper settled by East Slavic tribes was officially called Belorussia (Lat. Alba Russia). The element Rus’ indicates its relationship to the medieval Kievan Rus’ (Kiev, Russia), while bela (“white”) remains unexplained, despite many attempts. ¶ Shortly after the baptism of the Rus’ in 988, the eparchy of Polotsk was founded. In parallel with…

[German Version] “the Great,” tsarina of Russia (1762–1796; born princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, Apr 21, 1729, ¶ Stettin, died Nov 6, 1796, Carskoe Selo); on her marriage to Peter III (1761–1762), she converted to the Orthodox Church. As a representative of an enlightened absolutism, she practiced religious tolerance so long as state interests were not affected. In the acquired territories of Poland, Courland, the Crimea, and the Black Sea region, both Christian and non-Christian faith co…