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[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 …

[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 fou…

[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…

[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] (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 …

[German Version] (1530?–1607), Orthodox bishop of Lemberg (Ukrainian L'viv) from 1569. He opposed the introduction of the Gregorian …

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[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 du…

[German Version] (1824–1871), one of the most prominent Orthodox theologians during the reform era of Tsar Alexander II, became a mo…

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[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…

[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] (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] 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…