Orthodox versus Uniate
Despite the compromise of 1632, hailed in Polish governmental circles as the ‘Pacification of the Greek Faith,’ the struggle among the Rus' people between adherents of Orthodoxy and of Uniatism continued unabated through the whole first half of the seventeenth century.
The struggle took many forms: court cases, debates in the Diet, and the publication of polemical pamphlets in defense either of the Orthodox faith and Ruthenian language or of the rightness of union with Rome.Meanwhile, Orthodox defections to the Uniates continued among all strata of society, and included that of the once-staunch defender of Orthodoxy Archbishop Meletii Smotryts'kyi, who in 1628 became a Uniate. Even more pronounced were conversions to Roman Catholicism among members of the powerful Rus' magnate families (the Ostroz'kyis, Sangushkos, Chartorys'kyis, Korcts'kyis, Zbaraz’kyis, and Zaslavs'kyis) and the further spread eastward of Roman Catholic influence through the establishment of several new Jesuit schools between 1608 and 1646 (in L'viv, Luts'k, Kam*ianets'-Podil's'kyi, Ostroh, Brest, and Ovruch and as far east as in Novhorod-Sivers'kyi and Kiev). It was the advance of Roman Catholicism that prompted discussion of the possibility of a ‘new union,’ including a proposal put forth in 1645 by none other than the Orthodox metropolitan of Kiev, Petro Mohyla.
The passions and zeal of the Orthodox-Uniate struggle produced intellectual debates and legal battles as well as physical violence against individuals and the destruction or forcible acquisition of rival churches. Among the more brutal and memorable instances of violence was the assassination of the Uniate archbishop of Polatsk in Belarus, losafat Kuntsevych (reigned 1617-1623), by the angered Orthodox citizens of Vitsebsk, where the prelate’s residence was located. Following his death in 1623, Kuntsevych was hailed by the Uniates of Poland-Lithuania as a martyr for their faith, and in 1867 he was canonized by the Roman Catholic church.
The intensity of the Orthodox-Uniate antagonism in the early seventeenth century is conveyed in the following contemporary description, from Bishop lakiv Susha’s biography of Kuntsevych (1665):The ringing of cathedral bells and the bells of other churches spread. This was the signal and call to insurrection. Prom all sides of town masses of people - men, women, and children - gathered with stones and attacked the archbishop’s residence. The masses attacked and injured the servants and assistants of the archbishop, and broke into the room where he was alone. One hit him on the head with a stick, another split it with an axe, and when Kuntsevych fell, they started beating him. They looted his house, dragged his body to the plaza, cursed him - even women and children.... They dragged him naked through the streets of the city all the way to the hill overlooking the river Dvina. Finally, after tying stones to the dead body, they threw him into the Dvina at its deepest.*
•Osyp Zinkewych and Andrew Sorokowski, comps.,.'I Thousand Years of Christianity in Ukraine (New York, Baltimore, and Toronto 1988), p. 121.
had supported the deposed and still-smarting Metropolitan Kopyns'kyi and the other hierarchs secretly ordained in 1620. Kopyns'kyi, together with other proMuscovite sympathizers, looked to the tsar and hoped for reconciliation with the patriarch in Moscow. Consequently, they worked against what they considered Mohyla’s pro-western (i.e., Roman Catholic) orientation. Hearing the complaints of such traditionalist clerics, the Cossacks even threatened to do away with Mohyla and his ‘Latin-oriented’ intellectual circle, whom they considered infiltrators poisoning the minds of Orthodox youth.
Despite his critics, Mohyla moved ahead in trying to implement his vision for the revival of Orthodoxy within Poland-Lithuania. While he was still archimandrite of Kiev’s Monastery of the Caves, the monastery school he founded in 1631 was merged the following year with the city’s brotherhood school into one institution, the Kievan, or Mohyla, Collegium.
The collegium maintained the traditions of scholastic education then prevailing in Catholic Jesuit schools, and great emphasis was placed on the study of Latin. Mohyla believed that the future of Orthodoxy in Belarus and Ukraine lay in an accommodation with Poland - albeit on an equal basis - and for this reason he tried to undermine the traditional attitude of the Ukrainian Orthodox clergy, who until then had looked eastward to Muscovy as their only salvation. During the first half of the seventeenth century, discontented Orthodox clergy and monks had continued to seek refuge in Muscovy. Now, under the leadership of the capable and intellectually brilliant Mohyla, the Orthodox church and its centers of learning in Ukraine could hold their own as a source of cultural attraction against the Catholic West.The calm before the storm
By the 1630s, Cossack pressure had succeeded in restoring the legal status of the Orthodox church in Poland-Lithuania. Its own demands, however, remained unmet. The registered Cossacks were not recognized as a distinct social estate, and the Zaporozhians continued to clash with Poland’s governmental authorities, either because of their disagreements with frontier officials in Ukraine or because of their unauthorized attacks on the Crimea and the Ottoman Empire. As a result, the cycle of Polish-Cossack friction continued: Cossack service in Poland’s foreign military ventures was followed by their discontent with unfulfilled promises and then by Polish military efforts to subdue them (including the construction in 1635 of a new fortress at Kodak, near the bend of the Dnieper River, to stop Cossack flights to Zaporozhia).
The Polish reactions, in turn, prompted two major Cossack rebellions - 1637 (led by Pavlo Pavliuk-But) and 1638 (led by Dmytro Hunia and lakiv Ostrianyn) - in which the registered Cossacks as well as the unregistered Zaporozhians participated. The first ended with the beheading of the Cossack leader by victorious Polish forces following their victory at the Battle of Kumeiky.
The second ended with the surrender of one Cossack leader (Hunia) and the departure of the other (Ostrianyn) with his regiment of 900 men to Muscovite lands farther east. After the 1638 defeat, the number of registered Cossacks, which had continued to fluctuate during the seventeenth century, was reduced to 6,000; they were allowed to live only in the districts of Cherkasy, Chyhyryn, and Korsun'; their elective offices above the rank of colonel were abolished; and a large Polish force was stationed at the Kodak fortress. Finally, all the unregistered Cossacks farther down the Dnieper in Zaporozhia were declared outlaws.For the next ten years, the situation remained relatively quiet, and some Poles felt that perhaps the Cossack problem was at last under control. Yet nothing had really changed. The magnate-dominated manorial system continued to increase its hold over the agricultural sector; discontented peasants, townspeople, and lesser gentry continued to flee to Zaporozhia; and the Orthodox church, while restored to legal status, was forced to compete with the government-favored Uniate church for the control and maintenance of individual parishes. Meanwhile, the Cossacks were drawn into the vagaries of Polish politics, which had traditionally set the king in opposition to the nobility.
The latest instance of Cossack involvement came during the reign of Wladyslaw IV, a king who was particularly fond of foreign ventures, whether against Sweden (as a member of the Vasa dynasty, he had claims to the Swedish crown), against Muscovy (Poland still interfered in the yet-unstable Muscovite state), or against the Ottoman Turks (the traditional enemy). In 1646, Wladyslaw made plans for a crusade against the Turks, but when the Polish Diet refused to grant him funds, he naturally turned to the registered Cossacks. The latter received a secret charter and banner from the king, and an army was assembled, but the Diet got wind of the agreement and before the end of 1646 demanded the demobilization of the army. The following year, Wladyslaw capitulated to the Diet’s wishes, and the potential advantages accruable to the Cossacks from the venture were lost.
All these factors - socioeconomic, religious, and political - contributed to an increase in the heritage of hatred between the Cossacks and the Polish nobility, who, because of their political power, came to represent the whole Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. Continual tension could erupt into conflagration at any time. In 1647, the spark was finally lit by the personal misfortune experienced by one Cossack official, Bohdan Khmel'nyts'kyi.