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The Challenges of Unification and Disciplining Facing the Kyiv Orthodox Metropolitanate in the Eighteenth Century: The Case of Book Publishing

MAKSYM IAREMENKO

The idea that after 1686, when the subordination of the Kyiv metropolitanate changed, church life on its territory was restructured in accordance with the Rus­sian model, and distinctive national features were destroyed, remains widespread among historians to this day.

It is through the lens of this approach that the history of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine is most often presented conceptually. How­ever, these narratives require greater elaboration or even fundamental revision.

First of all, not everything that happened in this church-administrative entity (just like in other Ukrainian Orthodox eparchies in the Hetmanate that were no longer dependent on Kyiv) was the result of synodal innovations. On the contrary, part of the St Petersburg regulations mandated what Metropolitan Petro Mohyla and his like-minded associates had sought even earlier to impose as norms of church life. Also, it is not clear whether it was Ukrainian-born and Kyiv Academy- educated hierarchs in the supreme governing body of the Orthodox Church in the Russian Empire who had brought regulations that were regarded as the norm of religious life at the doctrinal level in Kyiv to Russia and then retransmitted them through synodal decrees and directives. However, the state machine then joined in to implement various directives from the ecclesiastical sphere. On the other hand, even a cursory comparison of the processes of disciplining clergy and laity on the two sides of the Dnipro River indicates that the Uniate Church (which dominated in the Ukrainian palatinates of the Polish-Lithuanian Com­monwealth) and the Orthodox hierarchy in the Hetmanate faced very similar challenges and proposed much the same ways of meeting them (the proper or­ganization of the flock and education of parish priests, unification of liturgical books, and so forth).

The overwhelming majority of eighteenth-century efforts to discipline the clergy and laity were no longer Kyiv's own policies since they emanated from St Petersburg and applied to all the eparchies of the synodal Orthodox Church.

What was happening to the Church in the Russian Empire accords perfectly well with a general blueprint for the building of a well-ordered state, in which there is social disciplining directed from the top (according to Gerhard Oestreich) in various spheres, and in the ecclesiastical sphere is expressed in religious disciplining. Just as the empire had to “weld together” diverse territories in the political, social, and economic spheres, so the creation of a single synodal Church was on the agenda in the ecclesiastical sphere, and the state had a direct interest in this. To realize this goal, it was necessary to reduce to a common denominator disparate Ortho­dox religious cultures on territories that had become part of the empire, but not necessarily on the basis of one of them (the Russian one is usually meant), because church life also had to be fundamentally modernized.1 Thus in the eighteenth century the Kyiv metropolitanate felt the full effect of the process of establishing a synodal Church as it faced the challenges of the unification and disciplining of religious and church life on various levels.2

The question that elicits the fewest answers from historians concerns the success of the processes of the qualitative transformation of Ukrainian eparchies into being a part of the synodal Church. Hence was the proclamation of decla­rations and directives tantamount to their realization, or was there a gap between the two? My investigations of, for example, the advancement of educational dis­ciplining of the white clergy - attempts to compel its members to obtain training at the Kyiv Academy dated as far back as the middle of the seventeenth century (and in the eighteenth century the emphasis was on the need for the sons of priests to study a course on discipline, including theology) - attest to extremely modest progress (compared with the desired situation portrayed in the rules). Thus, in the 1770s, according to data found about approximately a quarter of the priests in the metropolitanate, only 37 per cent of priests and deacons had com­pleted educational institutions, and only a quarter of them had attended or completed theological studies.

Approximately a third had mastered philosophy and rhetoric. This group also included those (less than 6 per cent) who had completed their “universities” at the primary stage, not getting as far as even the middle level (poetics).3

It is extremely important when analyzing the unification of liturgical practices (and, more broadly, the religious culture of the Kyiv metropolitanate) to trace the unification of local book publishing - the systematization and reduction to a sin­gle empire-wide model of liturgical books, which were monopolistically published for a long time by the Kyivan Cave Monastery Press of the stauropegion Kyivan

Cave Monastery. It was on correcting the Kyivan texts, which were the primary influence in forming local traditions of religious culture, that the Muscovite ec­clesiastical authorities, and then the main governing body of the Orthodox Church in the Russian Empire - the Most Holy Synod - focused their attention on im­mediately after placing the Kyiv metropolitanate under their jurisdiction.

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The conventional version of the history of Ukrainian book publishing from the end of the seventeenth through the eighteenth century invariably points to the repressions directed against it, first by the Muscovite patriarchal and then by the synodal authorities. Attempts to put pressure on the Kyivan Cave Monastery and Chernihiv printers are recorded immediately after their subordination to the Kyiv metropolitanate of the Moscow patriarchate. However, a consistent policy of con­trol over the production of books dates to the decree of 1720, which permitted Ukrainian Orthodox printing houses to publish only traditional reprints of Church Slavonic texts and required old copies to be checked against the Russian originals to ensure that there were no differences between them as well as no spe­cial “dialect.” After that, similar directives, which regulated both the language and the repertory of publications, appeared regularly (for example, in 1721, 1726, 1766, and 1775).4 In addition to suspicions that Ukrainian publications were deviating from the purity of Orthodox teaching that were of immediate interest at the end of the seventeenth through the beginning of the eighteenth century, which are most often mentioned by historians, there were also other important reasons throughout the eighteenth century that prompted the Synod to exercise control.

Church services, and therefore also the corresponding books with their liturgical texts, also performed the role of an important political or ideological means of mass information sharing with often illiterate church members, and of consol­idating their political allegiance. It was from the litanies and services of suppli­cation (molebeni) that the faithful regularly learned of the existing authority, changes in it, and so forth. The forewords and title pages also contained mentions of the then reigning monarch. It was not because of language or religious teaching that this information required careful monitoring.

Another important detail: in the eighteenth century, not only the Kyiv and Chernihiv publications were checked but also those published in Moscow. It was the corrected Russian books that the Ukrainian printers were to use as a guide in their publications. Sometimes errors in the Russian texts were found in Kyiv, making it necessary to correct them at the Moscow printing house. In 1769, owing to the need to make Russian books uniform, the Synod even issued a special decree requiring Ukrainian presses to report errors in Russian examples not just occa­sionally, as they had done before, but as a matter of routine. If mistakes in Moscow books (“the meaning of which is doubtful,” except for wrong letters) were dis­covered in Kyiv or Chernihiv, St Petersburg had to be informed of this.5 There was also influence in reverse, of Ukrainian liturgical books on Russian publica­tions, although, understandably, on a much more modest scale. This applied not only to individual typographical errors and such. There were also more substantial matters. For example, in 1796, after receiving a request from Metropolitan Samuil of Kyiv, the Synod gave permission to print the life of Saint Michael, the purported first metropolitan of Kyiv, in the relevant liturgical books. The right to mention his name and a respective service had been strongly championed by the Cave Monastery Press in preceding decades.6 This time, the Synod instructed on 17 January 1796 that the liturgical Moscow Psalter was to include under 30 September a short list of lives that had been compiled for Kyiv books, and under the same date include a mention of “Saint Michael, the first metropolitan of Kyiv and all Russia, miracle worker” in the Menology (misiatseslov).7

In general, neither within the framework of the dominant presentation in Ukrainian historiography of the past of domestic book printing in gloomy colors (“russification” of the Ukrainian book in the eighteenth century), nor in the more restrained academic excursions, can we talk about the success of the unification efforts of St Petersburg.

The gloomy narratives are based on an analysis of strict legal norms rather than on a special study of their implementation. Yet quite a few facts in the history of Kyiv book printing attest to a rather obvious postulate: the proclamation of legal norms is one thing, but their realization is another. Back in 1727, the Synod had made a concession and permitted the Kyivan Cave Monastery to sell books printed as exact copies of Russian models “without any hindrance, not having to wait for a special certificate that they were exact copies without any additions, of books published by the Most Holy Synod, to save the Most Holy Synod needless trouble, and the monastery needless losses and delays because of red tape.” Now the archimandrite had to “strictly” monitor the fidelity of the Cave Monastery’s books to their Russian models and send a copy of each book to the synodal archive. At the same time, the Synod had to check new fore­words even to identical books. In 1728, permission was also granted to print books that were traditionally published in Kyiv but had no Russian equivalents. Two Cave Monastery monks, specially trained in “theological science,” were to “strictly supervise to ensure that they contained nothing contrary to the Holy Church or any inaccuracies.”8 As we can see, the control was weakened somewhat, inasmuch as the monitoring was transferred to the producer.

As it turned out, the liberalization at the end of the 1720s did not promote the establishment at the Cave Monastery Press of the kind of publishing discipline of which St Petersburg dreamed. In 1766, the Synod noted that the Kyiv and Chernihiv printing houses had not sent their books for review since 1728, that is, from the time that the Cave Monastery was given permission to print liturgical books that had no Russian equivalents without synodal approval. In 1744, the Synod reminded the Cave Monastery of its failure to submit newly printed books for nearly two decades and about the need to fulfill the relevant decrees and sub­mit for inspection two copies of each batch of books that had been published since 1727.9 The following year, the Cave Monastery sent “some kind of excuses” but did not submit any books for review or proof of receiving permission to print, either then or subsequently, except for requests in 1762 and 1764 to permit the publication of services to Cave Monastery miracle workers and Latin and Polish grammars.10 The Synod claimed that because of this failure to follow the directives in Kyiv and Chernihiv “some of them [liturgical books] again contain many discrepancies between them and the same books published by Moscow printing houses.” Historians also pointed to deviations from Moscow publica­tions during the nearly four decades of “freedom.” According to Fedor Titov, the Cave Monastery took advantage of the 1728 decree to return to its earlier practices of book publishing.11

In November 1766, the Synod ordered the Cave Monastery Press to send a list of its printing products and a copy of each book that had appeared at the monastery press since 1728, including information about who had given permis­sion for its publication, and an indication of deviations from the Moscow models.

In December of the same year, the head of the Cave Monastery Press, Isaak, gave the monastery’s leadership a list of more than forty titles published as of 1722. In the hieromonk’s opinion, on the whole the Kyiv products corre­sponded to Moscow’s, or as, for example, the 1746 altar Gospel, differed [in the use of] “some words, infrequently.” The additions to the Cave Monastery’s books had obvious distinctive characteristics. For example, the Apostolos of 1752 and 1757 contained a menology, which, in turn, included commemorations of the Cave Monastery saints who were missing from the Moscow books. Added from old Cave Monastery copies to the various-format Service Book (Liturgicons) of 1735, 1736, 1737, 1746, and 1762 were Holy Communion rules, “beneficial suppli­cations,” and even individual prayers. To the Moscow model of the Monthly Menaion12 of 1750 they added the All-night Vigil or the service with the Polyeleos (instead of the Moscow Doxology) to Saint Michael of Kyiv (30 September), Saint Barbara (4 December), the Conception by Saint Anna (9 December), Saint Stefan (27 December), Saint Mark the Evangelist (25 April), the Twelve Apostles (30 June), the Placing of the Robe of the Holy Mother of God (2 July), the Dormition of Saint Anna (25 July), the Holy Martyr Panteleimon (27 July), the Translation of the Relics of Saint Feodosii (14 November, this included a service with the Polyeleos,13 while the Moscow version did not even mention it), and the Placing of the Holy Sash of the Holy Mother of God (31 August). This publication also included additions from the Moscow Octoechos14 and “in some places words and phrases were changed, but without changing the original sense and meaning.” As in the Menaion, so in the Trefologion,15 which appeared twice, they added the Polyeleos, All-Night Vigil, and services to certain saints. On the other hand, “some” services contained in the Moscow model were not included in the Gen­eral Menaion of 1757. The 1739 Octoechos “sinned” against the model only by changing the order of the structure of the liturgical ordo, while the liturgical Psalter changed its composition and included additions from other Moscow and Cave Monastery books. These included: among the prayers before sleep, “a prayer to the Mother of God and devotions taken from old Cave Monastery copies”; two prayers from the earlier Cave Monastery Akathist were included in the Akathist in honor of the Mother of God; and the canon of repentance, also “from the old Cave Monastery copy.” From the older Kyiv Akathist, they included the prayers for Holy Communion, and printed them “according to the old version”16 in the menology of Cave Monastery saints.

When printing the Horologion (Chasoslov) in 1742, 1752, and the Akathists with canons in 1765, the Cave Monastery Press used old editions as its models: in the first instance, the similar publications of 1682 and 1713, and in the second, their own products of 1693 and 1709. However, according to Isaak, even though they used the old publications as the basis, they prepared the Horologion “using the pronunciation of words contained in the Moscow liturgical Psalter,” and the Akathist had “corrected stresses as against Moscow speech,” as did, incidentally, the Breviary with Psalter of 1742, which used the Cave Monastery version of 1691 as its model (“with the pertinent stresses corrected”).17

The Cave Monastery Press published an entire series of books that it composed in full or in part based on its own earlier copies, such as the Service with Akathist to the Dormition of the Mother of God of 1757, 1761, and 1764; the Akathist to Saint Nicholas with his life and miracles of 1751, 1754, and 1761; Prayer Rule in Preparation for Holy Communion (published four times); the Irmologion of 1753 that differed from its Moscow equivalent; the Spiritual Alphabet of 1755, 1760, and 1766; a teaching primer (published six times; but the primer with interpre­tations of 1741 and 1753 was modeled on its Moscow equivalent); Prayer Book (Molytvoslov) (seven editions), the Collection of Canons (Kanonik) (twelve edi­tions); and a collection of canons selected from the Kanonik (eight editions). All in all, in the nearly four decades that the Cave Monastery did not comply with the instruction to send its products for approval, the Cave Monastery Press, ac­cording to its head, published nineteen books “consistent” with their Moscow equivalents (they had not received the necessary permission for eleven of them), and nine “not consistent” with their Moscow counterparts (two of them, the Irmologion1* and Trefologion appeared without the permission decree). Seventeen other publications did not have a Russian equivalent, and of them, nine were printed without synodal authorization: Akathist to the Dormition of the Mother of God, Akathist to Saint Nicholas, Services to Saints Antonii and Feodosii, the Monastic Rule (Pravylnyk), Synopsis, a teaching primer, Collection of Canons, a collection of canons from the Collection of Canons, and the Horologion.19

As we can see, the discrepancies in the Cave Monastery publications precisely involved those elements that form a distinctive religious culture, its unique mem­ories that are different from those of its neighbors, and, consequently, its local identity. Given the repertory of the press' books, it can be assumed that Ukrainians heard church services that differed somewhat from those of the Russians and honored different saints.

A check of the Cave Monastery books in Moscow showed that the assurances of the head of the press were overly optimistic. The monastery's monk-agent, who “held his hand on the pulse” in Moscow by consulting informally with var­ious hierarchs and obtaining information before it was officially announced, wrote in one of his reports to Kyiv (February or March of 1767): “The prayer to Amvrosii recently included in the Liturgicon (Sluzhebnyk) is extremely repugnant to the Holy Church, as the Reverend [Archbishop] of Novgorod says.”20 A short time later, the monk found out and wrote to Kyiv on 12 March that

Cave Monastery books are checked at the Moscow printing house in such a way that every last letter is read and discrepancies are noted in notebooks designed especially for that purpose, and, what's more, I observed that in addition to the divergences from the Moscow exemplars of which the Cave Monastery is aware, there are countless omissions and obvious inaccuracies found. Although the benefactors also gave reason to hope that after the re­view they would throw out the superfluous, correct the errors, and permit the rest to be printed, and not to impose penalties on the Cave Monastery, but because of the many errors and inaccuracies found in the monastery's books, I fear lest some harm be the consequence ultimately. God willing, that this passes, and in the future the printing house must better monitor its books, [for] even though they are not berating [us], my eyes are burning [with shame] owing to the decent treatment for [our] failings.21

The following day, in a letter to the archimandrite of the Cave Monastery, the monastery’s representative again confirmed that the administrator of their print­ing house could not even assess the volume of their discrepancies.

The Cave Monastery copies are checked against their Moscow equivalents at the printing house and they are finding not only discrepancies between the two but also many plain errors, and the errors for which the Cave Monastery Press is highly praised cannot be tolerated, and they cannot be justified - the text offends the eye. The only thing to do is to beg for forgive­ness and promise to do better in the future. These mistakes in spacing and inaccuracies have resulted in the fact that permission to print books as before has not been given. Our benefactors advise us to monitor the press better, warning us that a review will not be easily arranged in the future.22

The last phrase of this letter confirms once again that up to then the Cave Monastery managed to avoid quite easily complying with the requirements of St Petersburg regarding the publication of books. This time also everything turned out well. In accordance with the Synod’s decree of 10 May 1767, books published by the Cave Monastery Press that were at variance with Moscow products, which had been printed before December 1766 but which did not contradict the teach­ings of the Church, could continue to be sold, so that the Cave Monastery did not suffer losses. In the future, however, only copies that corresponded to their Russian equivalents could be printed and distributed.23

It is significant that the person reproaching the Cave Monastery’s representative during the big review of 1766 that the monastery was completely disregarding the Synod’s directives was Synod member Platon Malynovs'kyi, formerly a monk at the Cave Monastery.24 He was a long-time champion of the monastery and suc­cessfully helped it lobby its interests during the battle in 1752-53 against attempts by the Kyiv metropolitan to establish a separate printing house of the metropoli­tan see.25

In the ensuing years, from the end of the 1760s through the 1780s, Ukrainian and Russian publications also failed to achieve complete homogeneity. Further­more, the Moscow printers continued to find discrepancies between the monastery’s books that had been checked by several specially assigned learned monks and that were being sold and their Russian models.26

In February 1770, the Cave Monastery’s agent informed the monastery from St Petersburg about a conversation between the hierarchs, which indicates how the press was managing to publish books that had been corrected to correspond to Moscow publications:

This 14th day of February, during Cheesefare Week, Father Platon27 said publicly at the table, in the presence of the bishops of Pskov and Tver, the following: “I will tell you a curious and amazing thing. This morning, when I came to His Eminence, I casually asked what day of which week this was and what Gospel should be read at the Divine Service. He answered: “Cheesefare Week” and then finding the Gospel, he opened the Bible pub­lished by the Cave Monastery Press, saying that he had read this Bible twice already and found four hundred and sixty-eight errors in it, which he had marked with his own hand, wherein there were not only errors but also great discrepancies in meaning with the Moscow Bible.” “I could,” said Father Platon, “ask for this Bible from His Eminence, and it would be a good idea to send it to the Cave Monastery attached to the synodal decree with a solid reprimand. One ought give the monastery a good finfa28 and teach them a lesson” [...]. And when another man said regarding this matter: “It would be a good idea to reinforce this with a decree to ensure that they print ac­curately henceforth,” he received the answer: “This has been reiterated not once and not twice, but they don’t obey us and I don’t know what they are hoping for when they seemingly deliberately print [books] that differ from Moscow exemplars. We have to take other measures.29

The government measures, however, did not result in the desired homogeneity of Ukrainian and Russian books even in the 1780s. Thus, for example, Synod member Metropolitan Gavriil of Novgorod and St Petersburg informed his Kyiv colleague, by then the archimandrite of the Cave Monastery, that the Cave Monastery’s canon for Holy Communion “contains absurd verses” and recom­mended, as had his colleagues in earlier decades, to adhere to the Moscow model.30 In addition to the discrepancies between Kyiv and Moscow books that were the result of deliberate or accidental violations of the relevant decrees, there were also sanctioned differences. From time to time, the Synod made dosed concessions to the Cave Monastery Press. Here are just a few examples. In 1762, the press re­ceived permission to publish services to the monastery’s saints, composed from their lives.31 In 1775, the monastery succeeded in obtaining the Synod’s confirma­tion for permission to print in its books not only the names of the Cave Monastery saints and the “first” Metropolitan of Kyiv Mykhail, which did not appear in the

Moscow examples, but also to name them in the Dismissal (vidpust), in prayers, and in the Liturgy of Preparation (Proskomedia). As soon as the necessary decree was received, the spiritual council and the archimandrite issued instructions to mention Antonii, Feodosii, and the rest of the Cave Monastery miracle workers in the Dismissal and other parts of services in the Cave Monastery, the Near and Far Caves, attached monasteries, and hermitages.32

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A separate issue is how new publications became part of parish practice. A num­ber of specific examples and the efforts made by Kyiv hierarchs to introduce texts that had been approved by the Synod attest to the fact that the corrected liturgical books were not immediately brought into use in churches. Directives regarding this were issued by Rafail (Zaborovs'kyi) in the i73os-4os.33 Among the reasons for establishing a separate printing house under the auspices of the metropolitan see listed in the proposal to the Synod in 1753, Tymofii (Shcherbats'kyi) wrote that many parish churches did not have corrected liturgical books.34 Attempting yet again at the end of the 1760s to set up a press in the metropolitanate separate from the Cave Monastery press, its representatives included the following argu­ment in their draft of the order for the Legislative Commission: “many churches in the Kyiv eparchy do not have the newly corrected books.”35

An interesting example of the attitude of parish priests to such directives oc­curred in 1737, on the bishop's doorstep - at Saint Nicholas's Prytyska Church (Prytys'ko-Mykolaivs'ka, Prytys’ko-Mykil’ska), in the Podil district of Kyiv. Vicar Ioan Prokopovych accused the church's parish priest lakiv Zhurakhovs'kyi, of, among other things, forbidding the celebration of the Divine Liturgy according to the new Liturgicon. Ioan testified that when he was using the new book, lakiv “spat many times during the liturgy in malice and sometimes, owing to his furious spitting, couldn't stand still.” After one Divine Liturgy he even said: “don't perform services like that here; they celebrate the liturgy this way only in Saint Sophia, and don't put on airs here, you scoundrel.”36 These documented remarks suggest that Zhurakhovs'kyi continued to use the service of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, which contained the recitations found in the old Liturgicon of Petro (Mohyla) of 1629, which were later changed somewhat.

There is documented evidence of the use by parish priests of old Liturgicons (even those published in 1629) in subsequent decades as well. In the 1770s and 1780s, in 46 per cent of the churches in the Kyiv metropolitanate, about whose liturgical books we have information, nearly 6 per cent of the books were of Lviv origin (mostly seventeenth century, although occasional eighteenth-century Uni­ate products were also found), and in certain churches, they comprised up to one-third of all existing copies. The output of the Cave Monastery press, which it was possible to date, consisted mainly of books issued after 1720 (357 units), even though the number of earlier publications was not all that modest either - 82 exemplars.37 In the i77os-8os, several identical old and new unified books were found side by side on the altars of monasteries and parish churches,38 and so it is likely that in practice priests used the old publications. As we can see, old pub­lications were not removed from the churches and sent back to the metropolitan see, as required by the special instructions.

Despite considerable efforts by the Kyivan Cave Monastery to maintain its monopoly on the production of books in the metropolitanate and applicable im­perial legislation aimed at controlling the publishing of books pertaining to the Church and religious teaching, not to be forgotten is the spread, even in the 1770s, of liturgical books from the neighboring Commonwealth, especially in Kyiv.39 Besides, in the eighteenth century, in the era of the printed book, manuscript col­lections had not disappeared from liturgical practice, even though it is unlikely that they were widespread. Manuscripts might have also been found in priests' private collections. For example, at the beginning of 1771, a priest from the Church of the Nativity of Christ in the village of Bobruiky of the Kyiv regiment's Oster company acquired at the expense of a local resident a manuscript collection com­posed of excerpts of widely used offices and prayers from the 1708 Euchologion (trebnyk) (rituals for the blessing of water, a new house, a well, a cross, adminis­tering Holy Communion to the sick, the blessing of icons, artos, baptizing infants, and so forth). The manuscript also contained explanations for the sacraments, recording, obviously, the Kyivan interpretations that prevailed at the beginning of the eighteenth century and had not been affected yet by later uniformizations. As the traces of wax on the sheets and their worn lower corners indicate, the book was used in priestly practice.40

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Thus, even in the second half of the eighteenth century, Kyiv books, as demon­strated above, did not become fully identical with Moscow's, as was the aim of the Synod, and did not enter fully into use in the parishes. The discrepancy be­tween the Cave Monastery's books and their Moscow models can be explained by several reasons. I will begin with the economic factor. The Kyivan Cave Monastery repeatedly informed the Synod that the local population, especially the elite, did not want to buy the corrected copies, and gave this as justification for the need to print the old versions.41 For example, in their report to the Synod in 1775, the Kyiv monks wrote that the monastery “does not dare [to fail mention the local saints in its books] so as to avoid any kind of strong complaints from the public that would follow.”42

Another impediment hampering the successful unification of Ukrainian and Russian publications was the deliberate violation of decrees by individual monks responsible for the printing of new editions, which was also based on economic interests, albeit private ones. Individual “high-ranking” monks at the Cave Monastery, abusing their positions for the sake of gain, were not above compos­ing books for the sake of profit. Thus, at the beginning of January 1771, one of the stewards (shafar) sent three hundred newly printed Synod-approved “Col­lections” to be bound at the monastery’s expense, “and in fifty-four of them, in addition to the approved text, he included prayers at the Divine Liturgy, and cal­endars in one hundred and fifty of them.” The steward did not inform anyone about these books, but a check revealed that these collections “contained prayers in the liturgy taken by him from heaven knows where.”43 It was also discovered that the monk had repeatedly ordered the printing of more books than the num­ber set by leadership. The administrator of the press, who informed the Cave Monastery’s leadership about the violator’s actions, feared lest these additions should cause the monastery to be punished by the Synod, since as a result these books differed from their Moscow equivalents.44

Another group of factors that caused the Cave Monastery’s books to differ from their Russian equivalents even as late as in the second half of the eighteenth century may be described as “intellectual”: it was objectively impossible at that time to release identical products in Kyiv, even if the printers had wanted to adhere to synodal directives. Perhaps the main reason for this should be sought in the ability of the Kyivans to reproduce Russian printed books.

In the above-mentioned report from 1770 about the several hundred “errors” and “discrepancies” found in the Cave Monastery’s Bible that were referred to in a private conversation at table, the reporter gave the following explanation: “They themselves don’t know orthography but don’t want to hire a knowledgeable out- sider.”45 The fact that the Kyivans did not know the Russian language (and, consequently, presumably the “Russian variant” of Church Slavonic) is also pointed out by one of the monastery’s St Petersburg lobbyists - Ostolopov.46 He advised that the documents sent by the monastery to the Synod, “be written using correct orthography, because the [Synod] members often ask how the printing of books in the Cave Monastery can be faultless and accurate, if even the reports to the Synod, even those written by the archimandrite himself, are always written with errors.”47

Problems with the Russian language were obviously also the reason that the Synod did not allow Ukrainian printing houses to independently correct errors that had been found in the Moscow models. In accordance with a 1769 decree, these errors had to be reported by the Kyiv and Chernihiv printers to St Petersburg to preclude these printing houses from changing through their independent cor­recting what had been accurately printed, thereby introducing “differences” into the Ukrainian products.48 The Synod's doubts about the Ukrainian monks' pro­ficiency in the language of the Russian books were hardly unfounded. The Kyivans themselves said that they were not completely comfortable with the language of the books that were given them as models.49 The lack of knowledge of the Russian language is also demonstrated by evidence offered by internal checks. Despite the work of specially assigned monks to find discrepancies at the Cave Monastery, the proofreaders at the Moscow printing house were left with plenty of work, finding as many as hundreds of additional differences.50

The Ukrainians' unfamiliarity of the Russian language - both written and spo­ken - is recorded in various sources from the end of the eighteenth century.51 Even highly educated “Little Russians” who ended up in Russia could be distin­guished there by their language. In the second half of the eighteenth century, a contemporary wrote of instructors at the Kostroma seminary: “teachers like the Little Russians spoke the Little Russian language in class, which the poor students of the seminary did not understand, because they spoke Russian, which the teach­ers did not understand and whose forms they were unashamed to mock publicly in classes; they even made their students speak as they spoke themselves, and if they failed to do so, punished them severely.”52

A Ukrainian accent also distinguished Ukrainian hierarchs who served for a long time in Russia, such as Arsenii (Matsiievych). Upon his arrival in Russia in 1730, he spoke no Russian at all. Fifteen years later, he still retained his Ukrainian pronunciation, and even as late as the 1750s-60s he inserted Ukrainian words into his now fluent Russian. Contributing to this was the fact that the hierarch was surrounded by his fellow Ukrainians.53 Eyewitnesses recalled that Archbishop Amvrosii (Kelembet) of Tobolsk and Siberia (1806-22), who had been educated at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (completed his studies in 1777),

when officiating at services, or on any other occasion, Amvrosii Kelembet never delivered sermons, never made speeches; he did not do so because his pronunciation was a bit too Little Russian, such that sometimes in private conversations, among people close to the speaker, he made them laugh, and the archbishop also laughed at himself, saying that his love for Little Russia was on his lips.54

A poor knowledge of Russian also characterized the parish clergy, even in areas neighboring Russia. At the end of the eighteenth century, Archbishop Feoktyst Mochuls'kyi of Belgorod (1787-99) required churchmen and priests to master the Russian language, because

many candidates for holy orders from surrounding villages of the Kursk vicariate pronounce e as ia, and ia as e; those from the Kharkiv vicariate and its surrounding villages pronounce y as i, and i as y, and i in a way that is inconsistent with Great Russian pronunciation, as well as fail to observe the correct stresses, which causes the read text to be less pleasing, and thus these priests, themselves unable to read properly, teach their children to do the same.55

The incomprehension by even educated Ukrainians of the Russian language in the eighteenth century was quite understandable, because it had not been especially taught for a long time. If someone somewhere (usually after a stay in Great Russia) could speak “Great Russian” or “almost Great Russian,” he had an important attribute, which was always listed when, for example, posting such a person as wanted by the authorities.56 Not until 1783 did the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy begin purposefully including the Russian language into its curriculum as a separate subject (this was a purely local initiative, originating with Metropoli­tan Samuil of Kyiv). This fact, and how this initiative was actually implemented, are the best proof that Ukrainians in the mid-i78os did not speak Russian. What is more, half a year after the relevant directive, at the end of October 1784, the metropolitan noted:

not only do students and pupils at the Kyiv Academy fail to observe the rules of orthography of the Russian language, but the teachers themselves, whose duty to do so in all languages and sciences, throughout out the whole edu­cated world, is regarded as fundamental, do not adhere to it; that many stu­dents who had studied theology and philosophy are completely incompetent when it comes to reading liturgical books, thereby bringing shame on them­selves and condemnation of the Academy and its teachers.57

The metropolitan’s words confirm the accuracy of the assumption that the presence in the parishes of unified books and priests who did not know the Rus­sian language meant that the faithful in Ukraine did not hear church services per­formed with the same pronunciation as the Great Russian parishioners. The metropolitan instructed the rector and prefect

to take unremitting charge over the mandatory and absolute observance by both teachers and participants of the rules of Russian orthography, equal to that involved in other languages taught at the Academy, so that if they see any of the teachers fail in this duty, they immediately inform His Eminence of this departure from their duty as teachers, but to exempt teachers who are foreigners from this requirement. And that all students and pupils, es­pecially those wanting to become priests, in their time free from study, should most assiduously practice reading various kinds of liturgical books, especially the Bible, using correct and pure pronunciation, especially ob­serving the stresses and strength in published books, that is, oxias, which is most necessary.58

The metropolitan demanded that henceforth the students' character references, that were sent when necessary by the Academy to the theological consistory, in­dicate, among other things, “whether the graduate correctly reads liturgical and civil books, observes the rules of orthography of written Russian.” Those who continued to violate the directive were to be let go from the spiritual department into the secular “team.”59

Samuil's efforts and the character references given by him are good illustrations of the fact that the linguistic Russification of Ukrainians in the eighteenth century (at least until the middle of the 1780s), even of those who were educated at the Kyiv Academy, was still far off. It was natural that ignorance of the Russian lan­guage by the Kyivan Cave Monastery printers resulted in differences between the Cave Monastery's and Moscow's books even when the Kyivans tried their utmost to avoid them.

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Several factors can explain how the Kyivan Cave Monastery Press was able for decades to publish books containing discrepancies with texts checked against the Russian exemplars. The monastery always tried “to keep its finger on the pulse” of events in St Petersburg and Moscow in order to learn in advance about ap­proaching problems and to resolve them informally. In the eighteenth century, the monastery received its information from Great Russia, especially “insider” information, from its official alternating permanent “solicitors” and its friends there. The Cave Monastery won the support of the highest officials in various ways, resorting to both the Kyiv churchmen's customary intellectually styled re­minders of their importance60 and the more prosaic means of building a circle of well-wishers.

The Cave Monastery successfully established a network of benefactors, and its friends at various times consisted of the empire's influential secular persons and churchmen. Various problems were resolved with their help. Thus, in 1727, the monastery was assisted by Dmitrii Golitsyn. Presumably the monastery estab­lished friendly relations with the prince back when he was governor-general of Kyiv. This member of the Supreme Privy Council informed the archimandrite of the Cave Monastery in a letter dated 22 August that at the latter's request he had succeeded in preventing the monastery's indispensable chancellor from being transferred to the cathedral chapter of the Saint Alexander Nevskii Monastery. Golitsyn also suggested what the monastery should do next:

I advise you to send a monk with greetings to the tsar, and with him an icon each of the Dormition of the Mother of Good for the tsar, his sister, the grand princess, and his wife, the tsarina, and have them depict, as those painted when I was there, the Dormition of the Mother of God in the center and Antonii and Feodosii and other Cave Monastery saints on the sides, and for each a wooden cross containing relics, a few books, and also some of your fruits and tidbits.61

The problems that the Cave Monastery's well-wishers helped it to resolve in­cluded issues involving the publication of books. An example of the effectiveness of this means of solving publishing matters in their favor was the monastery's successful resistance to Metropolitan Tymofii (Shcherbats'kyi) of Kyiv, who in 1752 attempted to create a separate printing house of the metropolitan see. The Cave Monastery's spies successfully tracked all the steps that the metropolitan took, and the support of influential patrons helped to prevent potential compe- tition.62 Similar methods were used when it came to printing certain editions.

The monks representing the Cave Monastery initially made flying visits to the capital, but with time they stayed there permanently. When the monastery's archi­mandrite had some matter to deal with and was applying to the Synod, he simul­taneously instructed his “diplomat” in Russia, telling him what informal steps he should take. For example, in 1775, on the same day that he sent a formal request to the Synod for permission to mention the Cave Monastery's saints in the Dis­missal and in prayers, the archimandrite asked the monastery's representative, Hegumen Faddei of its attached Zmiiv Monastery, to step up his efforts to obtain a decision in favor of the monastery.63

The Cave Monastery sometimes turned to its patrons even before it submitted an official appeal to the Synod. When the question of printing the Akathist to Saint Barbara, which was popular among churchmen, came up, the monastery's representative was instructed to first give the information, together with the ap­propriate appeal, to the bishops of Novgorod and Moscow, and only then submit it to the Synod “and try to get a favorable decision.” In addition, the archimandrite sent similar personal requests to the Synod's chief prosecutor and chief secretary, as well as to the archpriest Andrii (judging from the appeal, he was “a reliable pa­tron,” most likely the archpriest of the Preobrazhenskii Lifeguard Regiment).64 The efforts were not in vain: permission to print the Akathist was received that same year.65

In looking for patrons, the Cave Monastery weighed in advance the potential assistance it could expect from each and discussed its affairs with them ahead of time. Thus, the monastery's representative in Moscow - who found out about everything, kept in contact with the appropriate people, and informed Kyiv - re­ported in February 1767 that he had learned of the presence of the Krutitsy bishop in the Synod (this body was then in the process of following the court to Moscow). The preliminary conversation with the bishop, through whose intermediacy the Cave Monastery hoped to obtain permission to print books “as before,” also helped to uncover the possible conditions for resolving the matter and make sure of future support, and to receive consultation regarding what needed to be done: “The Krutitsy bishop doubts that the Cave Monastery will get permission to pub­lish books as before but said that he would notify [us] if the Synod expresses an inclination to give assent [to our request], and at the same time advises [us] to distinguish that the larger year-round books would be printed as checked against the Moscow equivalents, and ask permission to print as before only the small cell and pocket books.”66

Bishop Dimitrii (Sechenov) of Novgorod also lent the Cave Monastery his sup­port in this matter. The same representative reported in April 1767: “Don't insist on printing books as before, they don't want to hear about it; in addition to valid superfluities, they contain very many errors, which cannot be justified in any way; one hierarch, a patron of the Cave Monastery and the bishop of Novgorod, is de­fending [us] from even worse consequences and allowing us to hope cautiously.”67 So the monastery did not forget to thank the bishop, making much of his help, saying that “you, in contrast to others, deign to regard with favor this holy Cave Monastery.”68

By informing the Cave Monastery of decisions pertaining to its affairs before they were officially published, the monastery's benefactors allowed its leaders to get an idea of the lay of the land in advance and even take preventive steps. Just how accurate the “insider” information was is evidenced by the above-mentioned great review of Kyiv publications in 1767. As early as 13 March, its representative assured the monastery from Moscow that there was no reason to fear the review of the books that contained numerous errors, “and nothing will happen after the review except that they will correct the mistakes, throw out the additions, and then direct you to print in accordance with the Moscow examples.”69 On 12 April, before the review of the books ended, he already knew the content of the future Synod decree to the archimandrite of the Kyivan Cave Monastery, which only ap­peared on 10 May.70

As in other similar cases, the Cave Monastery printers tried to resolve printing issues quickly and efficiently, and to act preventatively if necessary. For example, when in 1725 discrepancies between the Cave Monastery’s and Moscow's editions of the Lenten Triodion were found for a second time (the first time, the Kyiv archi­mandrite was fined one thousand rubles for the differences between them, but this sum was later reduced), the archimandrite of the Trinity Monastery of Saint Sergius, Havryil Buzhyns'kyi (a graduate of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and a na­tive of Right-Bank Ukraine71), after reporting “many [...] discrepancies and errors in orthography,” recommended that his Kyiv colleague be the first to write to the Synod asking it to assign them a corrector from the Moscow printing house to ensure uniformity of the two books.72 This would mean approximately the fol­lowing: we want to act in accordance with the decrees but are ourselves unable to remove the “faults,” so we ask for a Russian expert to help us.

In 1769, the Cave Monastery sent the Synod for review a printed quarter-sheet Euchologion, checked against, according to the monastery’s assurances, its Moscow counterpart. However, as became known in Kyiv even before the official an­nouncement, a review of the book revealed discrepancies, and copies of the book had been sent to Moscow for approval. Not waiting for a decision from St Peters­burg, the archimandrite of the Cave Monastery wrote on 2 January 1770 to the archimandrite of Moscow’s Chrysostom Monastery [Zlatoustovskii monastyr], Iosyf, asking him to find out whether there really were mistakes in the Cave Monastery’s book, whether they were important, and also to obtain and send him a copy of the decree that dealt with this matter. losyf had come to Russia from Kyiv together with Metropolitan Tymofii (Shcherbats'kyi), who had been trans­ferred to the Moscow metropolitan see in 1757, and the latter had appointed him a member of the local consistory, vicar of the metropolitan’s home monastery of Chudov, and later, archimandrite of Chrysostom Monastery.73 His response to his Kyiv colleagues was relatively quick. losyf’s letter of 31 January 1770 makes it clear how the Cave Monastery operated, and what kind of radical steps it was sometimes prepared to take. The Moscow archimandrite wrote:

I have exhausted all available means, but because of the importance of this matter, it is impossible to help in any way or put an end to this matter and make away with the wealth of errors that have already been recorded on paper, which are very important in and of themselves, and are being kept in the office under strong guard; neither the director, nor the officials can do so, having no power in this regard.74

losyf was unable to so much as obtain copies of the errors from the “officials,” among whom were some of his friends. This time the archimandrite was only able to familiarize himself with the synodal decree under which the almost completed investigation was being conducted and to establish “that in its importance, this in­volves not only the Cave Monastery as a whole but also certain persons for failing to monitor [the project].” Instead, losyf “obtained with great effort and secrecy” a record of the discrepancies between the Kyiv half-sheet edition of the 1769 Shestod- nev [Hexameron] and its Moscow equivalent. At that time, the Cave Monastery was also active in St Petersburg. Its representative there sought the support of Ostolopov and received his assurance that he would defend the Cave Monastery.75

The monastery’s friends also included authoritative secular patrons. In June 1782, the Cave Monastery representative reported from St Petersburg, where he was successfully arranging for the printing of akathists with explanations of the canons, that the members of the Synod were proposing that the akathists not be printed under one cover but individually. Inasmuch as this method was un­profitable for the Cave Monastery, the monk turned for assistance to Stepan Ivanovich Sheshkovskii. The latter convinced the Synod that its decisions had been unreasonable, and this ended the attempt to impose separate publications on the monastery.76 Sheshkovskii was virtually the top official in the secret ser­vice of Catherine II (Secret Expedition of the First Department of the Senate), the imperial investigator in high-profile political cases (in particular, Arsenii Matsiievich), Vasilii Mirovich, Emelian Pugachev), and enjoyed the empress’s personal favor. Incidentally, he was a native of Hrodna [Grodno] and apparently of noble birth.77

In creating and maintaining its circle of support, the Cave Monastery was as­sisted by “diplomatic gifts”: above all, Ukrainian alcoholic drinks (“vodkas”), fa­mous and popular in Russian noble circles “sweets,” Hungarian wine, and books. Thus, in 1766, a diverse repertory of printed works worth one hundred rubles (a total of more than seven hundred copies), ten poods of dried plums, six poods each of dried pears and cherries, seventeen barrels (bochonkiv) and more than forty buckets (vedra) of Hungarian and Wallachian red liturgical wines and Wal­lachian white wine, two buckets and eight quarts each of sweet orange “vodka” and “blue pimpernel vodka,” and three buckets and eight quarts of plum brandy were shipped to the Synod in Moscow “as a gift”. This inventory was to help the council elder Antonii, who was traveling to Russia, show “appropriate regard for the members of the Synod and other benefactors of the Cave Monastery.” For in­stance, the bishops of Moscow and Krutitsy were each to receive a barrel of Hun­garian wine, and the bishop of Novgorod, a whole antal. Once he arrived at his destination, Antonii was to assess which of the most distinguished benefactors should also receive barrels of wine. In order to successfully handle the Cave Monastery's affairs, the hieromonk was also given six hundred rubles, two hun­dred foreign gold coins (chervintsi), and seven imperials.78

Despite such supplies of gifts, only a few months later Antonii reported to Kyiv that “the loyal persons” were asking for “sweets,” and some of them were asking for designated amounts of walnuts, peaches, apricots, cherries, figs, and such. In response, the spiritual council79 decided to pack the necessary items from its own supplies into jars, and if these were not enough, to buy more to make up at least two poods, and sent these goods to Russia to be given as gifts to the appropriate people. In March 1767, these “sweet desserts” were quickly and efficiently packed and shipped to Moscow, after supplementing the order with cherries, plums, red gooseberries, barberries, raspberries, grapes, blueberries, and red roses.80

In addition to Ukrainian delicacies (“candy, prunes, walnuts, and other things”), books printed by the Cave Monastery Press were also customarily given as gifts to Russian officials. As the Cave Monastery informed the metropolitan of Kyiv in November 1786, its press had been sending the monarch and his courtiers the Paschal canons for the Feast of the Resurrection “since long ago.” Whenever anyone from the monastery traveled to St Petersburg or Moscow, similar gifts were presented to the members and officials of the Synod and its office. “And since the time that the Cave Monastery's representatives began living in St Pe­tersburg permanently,” this practice had become annual. Sometimes presents were delivered by Reiters.81

It was not always easy to present the gifts that the benefactors in Moscow and St Petersburg hinted at or openly asked for. Therefore the monastery looked for various opportunities, demonstrating time and time again its ability to find suc­cessful methods of securing its interests. For instance, in February 1770, the archi­mandrite of the Kyivan Cave Monastery was informed from St Petersburg that nothing had been presented to their loyal lobbyists,

because the members received no written notice about this from your holy site (and without that nobody will accept anything), and also because shortly before this, I had presented them with delicacies sent from the Cave Monastery, which some also did not want to accept, even though they had been written about them, and I assured them that all these fruits were from the monastery's own gardens. Believe me, they are very careful about bribes here, not only in clerical but also in secular circles.82

In order not to expose their benefactors to accusations of bribe-taking, the representative of the Cave Monastery asked the archimandrite to write again to them to inform them of the gifts, and proposed giving them at Easter, ob­viously in the form of a greeting with the holiday rather than as payment for their assistance.83

The Cave Monastery’s diplomatic skill in Great Russia is depicted in the satirical poem Lament of the Kyiv Monks (Plach kyivs’kykh monakhiv), which, most likely, was written by a monk seeking to criticize the monastery,84 or at any rate, an un­questionably well-informed individual. The subject of the work purports to be a conference of the spiritual council of the Cave Monastery in 1786 occasioned by the alarming situation held in store by the implementation of the provisions of the secularization reform. One of the monks, the representative Orest, gives the following justification for his proposal to seek protection in the capital:

I had the opportunity to be in St Petersburg, and know the way,

Where I had some success in managing affairs,

And if this definitely happens,

I could travel there again,

Where I am bound to have success,

Not for myself alone, but to everyone’s joy.

Only a lot of money is needed for this,

But sacred relics are not very expensive here.

By giving relics as gifts, we succeeded in our affairs,

But we supplemented these gifts with gold,

Without which we cannot do now either,

And, brothers, I tell you this truly.85

However, criticism of the Cave Monastery’s methods and means of attaining its goals, especially avoiding punishment for violating directives about the unification of book publishing, hardly alarmed the monastery much. After all, its representatives acted and helped the monastery stay “afloat” in the office of the Synod all the way through the ongoing procedure of reviewing the printed products, regardless of unfavorable decrees and directives. The stauropegian monastery had to steer between incompatible forces: the Synod with its stern decrees and the pressure of the local buyers of its printed books. In the eighteenth century the second factor was no less potent for the monastery than the threats from St Petersburg, especially as those could be avoided, while resources were insufficient to carry them out. We should note that the patronage of influential benefactors in the capital was a means to which other church structures and individual clerics also successfully resorted in the eighteenth century.

Another important reason for the resistibility of the Kyiv metropolitanate to the unification policy, which can be observed not only in book publishing but also in other spheres (for example, the celebration of the Holy Sacraments dif­ferently than the Synod prescribed), was the pressure of the laity on the clergy. The influence of lay people on the clerics was strong even at the parish level, since they regarded parish priests as dependent on them (the owner-patrons), or as employees (ordinary worshipers), because they were directly involved in electing the future pastor of the church. In dealing with the issue of nominating a priest to a parish, modern historiography repeats and, at best, supplements the work done by nineteenth-century scholars with some additional facts. Historians con­tinue to speak of the coexistence/battle of two principles (electoral and heredi­tary), arguing about their spread. As an analysis of the data for one-quarter of the clerics of the Kyiv metropolitanate in the first half of the 1770s shows (it proved possible to find complete statistical data about them), the ratio of inheritance to election was almost equal - 50 per cent to 50 per cent, varying in different arch­priest jurisdictions.86

The division of the methods of appointing parish priests into heritable and elective is actually wrong. Regardless of whether the person who became parish priest had no family ties to his predecessor, or, to the contrary, was a relative of his, the approval of the parishioners was mandatory. In other words, inheritance also required the consent of the parishioners, expressed in the usual manner (as in the case of the election of an “outsider”). That the procedure was perceived as obligatory in all cases is attested by both the practice of nominating clergy in the eighteenth century and the legal norms of the time.87 Even if a candidate for a parish had an influential lobbyist of his interests and had secured the support of the church authorities, an application from the community (“presenter”) (even if fake) had to be presented, be it only as a formality, when the metropolitan see was conducting the procedure of nominating him to serve as a parish priest.88

How the parishioners understood their right to select the candidate for their parish priest is evidenced by the words ostensibly spoken by one of the laroslav Cossack parishioners, Fedir Dubyna. According to Kyiv bishop Tymofii, when he brought papers from the colonel of Kyiv (correspondence conducted in 1755, in­cluding specifically about the transfer of a priest whom the Cossacks found ob­jectionable and the approval of another) and threatened violence against the bishop, he said: “If the bishop does not remove this priest and give us another, we will petition the empress in the capital.”89

Often in emphasizing the right of parishioners to elect their pastors, scholars forget about the owners of the villages. The landholder (where one existed) was a mandatory participant in the election in all the eparchies of the Hetmanate. For example, in approving the candidacy for parish priest for the church in the village of Sulymivka, the Pereiaslav colonel wrote to the local bishop that the church on his estate had been built by his deceased parents and was secured as his “heritage” and that he was dissatisfied with the vicar there.90 We see here the typical patron, with the Commonwealth’s well-known right to present candidates for clerical office. Other cases show that the will of the landholder was supreme, and the right of the parishioners to vote was a mere formality91 (yet, albeit for­mally, the procedure of “election” by the parishioners had to be adhered to).

In summary, let me emphasize once again the important, often decisive, role of the laity in electing the parish priest, and hence their influence on the orga­nization of life on the basic parish level. It is important that these relations hampered the implementation of the unification measures of the highest church authorities. In choosing between complying with the instructions handed down from above and the opinion of his congregation, the priest did not always pick the first.

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The overall result of the process whereby the Orthodox Church in the Hetmanate underwent the transformation of becoming a part of a unified and disciplined imperial synodal Church is generally much more “optimistic” than suggested by those who approach the exploration of religious life only through the prism of analysis of resolutions and decrees. The Kyiv Orthodox metropolitanate, despite the change in subordination at the end of the seventeenth century, remained for at least another century the bearer of a different religious culture than the one that the Synod sought to create.

In the eighteenth century, an entire array of reasons hampered the successful realization of the transformation of the Kyiv metropolitanate into an ordinary component of the synodal Church. In various segments of the struggle of the local against imposition from above, various factors played a role, but it is possible to distinguish among them some universal features as well. These include the fairly strong influence of the lay “sheep” and the clerical “pastors.” Thus, Ukrainian clerics, from parish priests to the bishop, often found themselves caught between two fires: the directives from St Petersburg and the dissatisfaction of local lay members with their implementation. In choosing between the two sides, the clergy often considered the laity, on whom their livelihood depended. What is more, pressure from the secular element, which was directly tied to economic well-being, was felt not only at the level of the “parish civilization.” The Kyivan Cave Monastery Press, whose books were expected to ensure the uniformity of liturgical practices, and in part also religious teaching, also took into consideration the demands of the market, which did not always accept a new product that had been published according to the Moscow template.

It was also easier for the clergy to accommodate the wishes of the laity, rather than comply with the synodal decrees, because in the eighteenth century pun­ishment for violating them was not inevitable. On the contrary, Ukrainians (both laypeople and clergy) increasingly took their affairs or conflicts to St Petersburg to be dealt with there through the intermediacy of their patrons, friends, and such. Natives of Kyiv were sitting in session in the Synod, which produced disci­plinary directives, and Ukrainians already had many influential friends in Russia, and not only their fellow countrymen. Among those in the Kyiv metropolitanate who cultivated the favor of Russian officials were not only individuals but also church structures (the metropolitan see, and monasteries). Thus, we can see sit­uations, paradoxical at first glance, in which the Synod, as the supreme governing body of the Church, issued strict decrees, and then owing to the support of mem­bers of the Synod, the representatives of the Kyiv metropolitanate sought to avoid (and did avoid) punishment for violating them.

When then did the Kyiv eparchy become an ordinary part of the imperial “Rus­sian Orthodox Church”? Without conducting a special study, I can only suggest that the process of the slow unification was interrupted at the end of the eigh­teenth century. At that time, it was hampered by the incorporation by the synodal Church of new believers, the former Uniates. In the nineteenth century, the epis­copate of the Belarusian and Right-Bank Ukrainian eparchies (in particular, the Kyiv eparchy, whose boundaries now coincided with the borders of the gubernia of the same name) had to make an effort to combat what were regarded as Uniate survivals. At the parish level, it was necessary to start all over again conducting the unification and disciplining of religious practices. Historians need to answer the question whether this process was completed before the Ukrainianization movements in the Church began in the modern era.

Translated from the Ukrainian by Marta Skorupsky

NOTES

This text is a substantially shortened version of part of the conclusions pre­sented in the monograph: Maksym Iaremenko, Pered vyklykamy unifikatsi'i ta dystsyplinuvannia: Ky'ivs’kapravoslavna mytropoliia u XVIII stolitti (Lviv, 2017). Translated from the Ukrainian with author's permission.

1 See, for example, indications of specific features that attested to the absence in the Russian Church of important components of a modern institution (a rudimentary, de facto weakly centralized organization lacking a rational bureaucratic structure; a lack of “professional,” well-trained servants; Russian Orthodoxy which was actually “Russian heterodoxy” - an assemblage of di­verse local religious practices, which could differ even from parish to parish): G.I. Freeze, “Institutionalizing Piety: The Church and Popular Religions, 1750-1850,” in Imperial Russia: New Histories for the Empire, ed. Jane Burbank and David L. Ransel (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1998), 211-21. It goes without saying that such a Church had itself to undergo changes rather than become an example for the Kyiv metropolitanate to follow.

2 The unification of the Kyiv metropolitanate “with other Orthodox eparchies on the territory of the Russian Empire” in the eighteenth century is also dis­cussed by Oksana Prokopiuk. However, the scholar asserts that the process of unification of the metropolitanate was officially completed by the 1780s (see Prokopiuk's chapter in the encyclopedic entry on the Kyiv eparchy: O.B. Prokopiuk, “Kievskaia eparkhiia. Kievskaia eparkhiia v 1686-1786 gg. (na territorii Rossiiskogo gosudarstva),” in Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, vol. 33 (Moscow, 2013), 174. To my mind, this dating of the upper limit is not fully justified; on the contrary, in certain spheres at the level of “parish civiliza­tion,” real unification was only beginning then.

3 M. Iaremenko, “Akademiky” ta Akademiia. Sotsial 'na istoriia osvity y os- vichenosti v Ukratni XVIII st. (Kharkiv, 2014), 381.

4 See, for example, Ia. Isaievych, Ukratns ke knyhovydannia: vytoky, rozvytok, problemy (Lviv, 2002), 249-63.

5 Tsentral’nyi derzhavnyi istorychnyi arkhiv Ukratny v m. Kyievi (Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv; hereinafter - tsdiauk), f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 145, ark. 5.

6 The purported first metropolitan of Kyiv, Michael, who together with Prince Volodymyr baptized Rus', was an important memory for the Kyiv metropoli­tanate as evidenced by, among other things, the inclusion of his name (or even a more detailed presentation) in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century commemoration books (synodicons). Sometimes, Michael's name was one of two names of Old Rus' hierarchs, followed by early modern metropolitans. See, for example, the commemoration books of the Saint Michael's Golden- Domed Monastery (ir nbu, f. 307, spr. 538/1744 P, ark. 17), Saint Sophia Cathedral (Pomennyk Sofit Kytvs’kot. Publikatsiia rukopysnot pam'iatky druhot polovyny XVIII - pershot chervti XIX st., comp. and introductions O.

Prokopiuk (Kyiv, 2004), 33), and the Mezhyhiria Monastery (O. Kuz'muk, “Pomennyk Mezhyhirs'koho monastyria: sproba systemnoho analizy,” Proseminarii 4 [2000]: 88).

7 A book containing the Psalms specially divided for services and other parts of the Liturgy of the Hours; t sdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 275, art. 53-7.

8 Opisanie dokumentov i del, khraniashchikhsia v archive Sviateishego Pravitel ’stvuiushchago Sinoda, vol. 7: 1727 (St Petersburg, 1885): stb. 336-37, no. 327; tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 2, ark. 19, 23-4 zv., 27-8, 30-2.

9 tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 2, ark. 60.

10 Ibid., spr. 105, ark. 2-2 zv. Incidentally, the described fact of a lengthy absence of strict control refutes the claim that strict censorship very quickly returned after the publication in 1730 of the Kamenvery (Rock of Faith) by Stefan (lavors'kyi). See, S.R. Kahamlyk, “Kul'turno-prosvitnyts'ka diial'nist' Kyievo- Pechers'koi Lavry v druhii polovyni XVII-XVIII st.” (PhD diss., Institute of History of Ukraine nanu, Kyiv, 2000), 127.

11 Pr. [Archpriest] F. Titov, “K istorii Kievskoi dukhovnoi Akademii v XVII­XVIII v. III. Vospitanniki Akademii na sluzhbe v Kievo-Pecherkoi Lavre, v sviazi s biografiei Sofroniia Ternaviota,” Trudy Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii (hereinafter - tkda) 2 (1911): 205.

12 A book containing services for feasts on each day of the month.

13 The festive portion of the orthros or All-Night Vigil.

14 A liturgical book containing many of the propers (variable parts) for the services of the daily cycle, and some for the Divine Liturgy, divided into eight tones in which they are to be sung.

15 A book containing several liturgical services of the Divine Office for feasts of the Lord, the Mother of God, and certain saints.

16 tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 105, ark. 9 zv.-ii.

17 Ibid., ark. 11 zv., 14-14 zv.

18 A collection of chants for various services.

19 tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 105, ark.14-16 zv.

20 Ibid., ark. 107 zv.

21 Ibid., ark. 115-115 zv.

22 Ibid., ark. 116-116 zv.

23 Ibid., ark. 126-126 zv.

24 Kahamlyk, “Kul'turno-prosvitnyts'ka diial'nist' Kyievo-Pechers'koi Lavry v druhii polovyni XVII-XVIII st.,” 128.

25 Titov, “K istorii Kievskoi dukhovnoi Akademii v XVII-XVIII v. III. Vospitan­niki Akademii na sluzhbe v Kievo-Pecherkoi Lavre, v sviazi s biografiei Sofroniia Ternaviota,” tkda 12 (1911): 642-3.

tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 108, ark. 6 ZV.-7, 14-15; spr. 109, ark. 4-4 zv., 12 zv., 14-15 zv., 17, 19-19 zv.; spr. 137, ark. 63-64 zv., 68-68 zv.; spr. 161, ark. 4-4 zv. Undoubtedly, this refers to Platon Levshin, then a member of the Holy Synod and the archimandrite of the Trinity Monastery of Saint Sergius (Troitse- Sergieva Lavra).

Something along the lines of “scold”; from the Polish finfa - a nasty trick. tsdiauk, f. 128, op.i druk., spr. 161, ark. 9 zv.-io.

Ibid., spr. 219, ark. 152.

Ibid., spr. 110, ark. 3-3 zv.

Ibid., spr. 195, ark. 4, 5; Evgenii Bolkhovitinov, “Opisanie Kievo-Pecherskoi Lavry,” in idem, Vybrani pratsi z istorii Kyieva, comp., introduction, and addenda by T. Anan'ieva (Kyiv, 1995), 343.

InstytutRukopysy Natsional’noi biblioteky Ukrainy (Manuscript Institute of the National Library of Ukraine; hereinafter - ir nbu), f. 301, spr. 605 l., t. II, ark. 539 zv.-540; spr. 606 l., ark. 61, 72 zv.-73, 81 zv.-82, 260 zv.; f. 2, spr. 6828, ark. 1-1 zv.

Titov, “K istorii Kievskoi dukhovnoi Akademii v XVII-XVIII,” 661.

“Punkty ot Kievskoi eparkhii,” Sbornik Imperatorskogo russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva (hereinafter - sirio) 43 (1885, St Petersburg): 517-18.

ir nbu, f. 232, spr. 139, ark. 1-2 zv.

O. Prokop'iuk, “Knyhy v parafiial'nykh khramakh Kyivs'koi mytropolii (70-80-i rr. XVIII st.): funktsii, kil'kist', repertuar, shliakhy nadkhodzhennia,” Kievskaia starina 3 (2010): 99-101.

ir nbu, f. 1, spr. 5534, ark. 61 zv-62; tsdiauk f. 127, op. 1020, spr. 3876, ark. 2 zv.-3, 11-12; dak, f. 313, op. 1, spr. 247, ark. 2-2zv.

ir nbu, f. 301, spr. 605 l, t. 1, ark. 631-31 zv.; P.M. Popov, “Oseredky knyho- drukuvannia na Skhidnii Ukraini (XVII-XVIII st.),” in idem, ed., Knyha i drukarstvo na Ukraini (Kyiv, 1964), 101.

ir nbu, f. 160, spr. 425, ark. 1-147. A similar manuscript: ibid., spr. 2401, ark.

1-122 zv.

For example, ò sdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 105; spr. 204, ark. 105-06 zv., 117; Opisanie dokumentov i del, khraniashchikhsia v arkhive Sviateishego Pravitel’stvuiushchego Sinoda (hereinafter - odd), vol. 15 (St Petersburg, 1907), stb. 492, no. 350.

tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 195, ark. 2-2 zv.

Ibid., spr. 165, ark. 1-1 zv.

Ibid., ark. 1 zv., 4.

Ibid., spr. 161, ark. 10.

Undoubtedly, a reference to Mikhail Konstantinovich Ostolopov, then the chief secretary of the Synod.

tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 161, ark. 11-11 zv.

Ibid., spr. 145, ark. 5.

For example, ibid., ark. 10 zv.

See, for example, data for the I76os-i77os: ibid., spr. 136, ark. 109, 119, 143, 144-46, 158-61 zv., 184-85 zv.; spr. 193, ark. 76-6 zv., 82-3, 126-29 zv., 143-43 zv.; spr. 204, ark. 105-06 zv.

H.M. Hnatiuk, Rosiis’ko-ukrains’ki literaturno-movni zv'iazky v druhii polovyni XVIII-pershii chverti XIX st. (Kyiv, 1957), 9-10.

“150-letie Kostromskoi dukhovnoi seminarii (1747-1897 g.g.). II. Seminariia v proshlom i v nachale nyneshnego stoletii (do 1814 g.) (Ocherk, sostavlennyi k 150-letiiu i chitannyi na akte 25 sentiabria 1897 g.),” Kostromskie eparkhial 'nye vedomosti 20 (1897): 571.

M.S. Popov, Arsenii Matseevich i ego delo (St Petersburg, 1912), 258, 262-3. Quoted from O.A. Fefelova, “Vypuskniki Kievskoi akademii v Sibiri: Amvrosii (Kelembet), arkhiepiskop Tobolskii i Sibirskii (1806-22 gg.),” Vestnik Tom- skogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo universiteta 3 (118) (2012): 21.

A.S. Lebedev, “Feoktist Mochulskii, arkhiepiskop Belgorodskii (1787-1799 g.) i Kurskii (1799-1818),” in Sbornik Kharkovskogo istoriko-filologicheskogo obshchestva 9 (1897): 25.

See examples of the listed attributes of Kyiv fugitive monks: tsdiauk, f. 127, op. 168, spr. 86, ark. 2 zv.; op. 1020, spr. 4430, ark. 3, spr. 4697, ark. 23-23 zv. In­cidentally, mentions of monks who knew Russian were rare (M. Iaremenko, Kytvs'ke chernetstvo XVIIIst. [Kyiv, 2007], 110-11).

Akty i dokumenty, otnosiashchiesia k istorii Kievskoi akademii. Otdelenie II (1721-95 gg.), introduction and annotations by N. I. Petrov, vol. 5 (Kyiv, 1908), 81, no. 17.

Ibid., 81-2, no. 17.

Ibid., 82, no. 17.

See, for example, Gary Marker's analysis of the text and visual accompani­ment to the introduction to the Cave Monastery's 1702 Patericon authored by Ioasaf Krokovs'kyi, see G. Marker, “Love One's Enemies: Ioasaf Krokovs'kyi's Advice to Peter in 1702,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 29, no. 1-4 (2007): 208-15. or rgb, f. 1000, op. 1, d. 598, l. 1-1 ob. (n/a in the original).

Titov, “K istorii Kievskoi dukhovnoi Akademii v XVII-XVIII v.,” 661. tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 195, ark. 3.

Ibid., spr. 204, ark. 87.

Ibid., spr. 193, ark. 62-4a, 65-6, 67.

66 Ibid., spr. 105, ark. 82, 86.

67 Ibid., ark. 124.

68 Ibid., ark. 143.

69 Ibid., ark. 117.

70 Ibid., ark. 119.

71 Z.I. Khyzhniak, “Buzhyns'kyi, po bat'kovi Fedorovych, cherneche imia Havryil,” in Kyievo-Mohylians 'ka akademiia v imenakh, XVII-XVIII st.: Entsyklopedychne vydannia, comp. Z.I. Khyzhnia (Kyiv, 2001), 90.

72 tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 5, ark. 12.

73 K.V. Kharlampovich, Malorossiiskoe vliianie na velikorusskuiu tserkovnuiu zhizn (Kazan, 1914), 1: 527, 569, 578.

74 tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 161, ark. 4.

75 Ibid., ark. 4-4 zv., 11-13.

76 Ibid., spr. 204, ark. 454-54 zv.

77 For more in greater detail, see A.N. Korsakov, “Stepan Ivanovich Sheshkovskii (1721-94). Biograficheskii ocherk,” Istoricheskii vestnik 22, no. 12 (1885): 656-87.

78 tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 105, ark. 52-3, 56, 57, 62, 63-63 zv.

79 A group of monks who performed the most important assignments, dealt with monastery affairs, and advised the hegumen what to do.

80 tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 105, ark. 86-87, 90, 190.

81 ir nbu, f. 301, spr. 690 l, no. 650, ark. 754-54 zv.

82 tsdiauk, f. 128, op. 1 druk., spr. 161, ark. 9.

83 Ibid.

84 I. Kamanin, “Plach Kievskogo lavrskogo Ieremii kontsa XVIII veka,” chiONL 22, no. 1, otd. 2 (1907): 16.

85 “Plach kyivs'kykh monakhiv,” in Ukra'ins’ka literature XVIIIst., intro., comp., and notes by O.V. Myshanych (Kyiv, 1983), 217.

86 tsdiauk, f. 127, op. 1009, spr. 3, ark. 1-50 (Hlukhiv archpriest jurisdiction); ark. 5-12 (Reshetylivka archpriest jurisdiction); ark. 19-32 (Kobeliaky arch­priest jurisdiction); op. 1024, spr. 2042, ark. 1-37 zv. (Romny archpriest juris­diction); spr. 2132, ark. 1-23 (Pyriatyn archpriest jurisdiction); spr. 2133, ark. 1-34 zv. (for the Sorochyntsi archpriest jurisdiction); dak, f. 314, spr. 326, ark. 1-1- zv. (Kyiv-Pechersk archpriest jurisdiction).

87 For example, tsdiauk, f. 127, op. 1020, spr. 361, ark. 9, 11.

88 For example, dak, f. 313, op. 1, spr. 91, ark. 11 zv.

89 tsdiauk, f. 127, op. 1020, spr. 2481, ark. 24-26 zv., quoted from ark. 26.

90 Ibid., f. 990, op. 2, spr. 5, ark. 2-2zv.

91 Ibid., f. 127, op. 1020, spr. 2403, ark. 14-20.

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Source: Kohut Zenon E., Sklokin Volodymyr, Sysyn Frank E., Bilous Larysa (eds.). Eighteenth-Century Ukraine: New Perspectives on Social, Cultural and Intellectual History. McGill-Queen's University Press,2023. — 668 p.. 2023

More on the topic The Challenges of Unification and Disciplining Facing the Kyiv Orthodox Metropolitanate in the Eighteenth Century: The Case of Book Publishing:

  1. Contents
  2. THE SCALE OF ELECTRO-WEAK UNIFICATION
  3. The Fixing of the Orthodox Tradition
  4. THE SCALE OF DARK-MATTER UNIFICATION
  5. The Unification Church
  6. A Court Case That Challenges the Position of Sharita Law in Greece
  7. These historic words of Iziaslav of Kyiv to Yury of Suzdal during the famous [twelfth-century] struggle for the sovereignty of Kyiv, quoted by Maksymovych to [his Russian friend] Pogodin as a summary of his polemic against him can serve as an epigram of the great historical feat [of Maksymovych and] Ukrainian historiography [1820-1920]: “We bow down before you! You are our brother! But go back to your own Suzdal!”
  8. Kyiv and Jerusalem
  9. The Unification of Eurasia
  10. The 1956 Kyiv “Disputation”