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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 …

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[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 int…

[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. Jo…

[German Version] (1574, Ruta, near Vilnius – 1637, Ruta), third metropolitan of the Uniate chu…

[German Version] (1722, Chornukhy, Poltava Oblast – 1794, Ivanivka, near Kharkiv), is considered the most important poet and mystic of the Ukrainian Baroque. From…

[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 Gran…

[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…

[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 castellan of Brest. As a prominent advocate o…

[German Version] (1524/1525 – Feb 13/23, 1608 Ostrog, Volhy…

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[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 gene…

[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 …

[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…

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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 (Zionism), while at the same time attempting to justify the national character of the movement before the ultra-Orthodox rabbis in the Russian Empire. In 1893, together with like-minded pers…

[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-…

[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 …

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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 th…

[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, …

[German Version] I. City and Metropolitan See – II. Theological Academy …

[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’ r…

1. Begriff und geschichtliche Entwicklung bis zum 15. Jh.P. bezeichnet zum einen das Amt des Pfarrers, zum anderen das Pfarrhaus als Verwaltungszentrum einer Pfarrei, die entweder die Gläubigen eines bestimmten Bezirks (Territorialgemeinde) oder einer bestimmten Gruppe (Personalgemeinde) umfasst (zur Etymologie der dt. Worte Pfarrei und Pfarrer vgl. [4. 153]).Die christl. Gemeinden der Antike, deren Territorium mit dem einer Stadt identisch war, wurden von einem Bischof unter Mithilfe weiterer Kleriker geleitet. A…

1. To the 15th centuryThe term “pastorate” in English refers to the office of pastor, but the German term Pfarramt encompasses in a kind of personal union both the pastorate and the  rectory or parish house as the administrative center of a parish, which comprises either the faithful within a specific area (territorial parish) or belonging to a specific group (personal parish). (On the etymology of the German words  Pfarrei, “parish,” and  …

[German Version] I. History of Religions – II. Church History – III. Current Situation I. History of Reli…