The Union of Brest (1596)

Ever since they split in 1054, the Catholic and Orthodox churches had considered the idea of reunion. In Ukraine, attempts to unite the churches dated as far back as the 13th century and, after the Council of Florence in 1439, the idea almost came to fruition.

Surprisingly, it was from the Orthodox side that the immediate impetus for arranging a union emerged. In 1590, Gedeon Balaban, the Orthodox bishop of Lviv, infuriated by his endless disputes with the brotherhood and even more by the tactless interference of the patriarch of Constantinople, broached the idea of a union with Rome at a secret meeting of Orthodox bishops in Belz. In addition to Balaban, three bishops – Kyrylo Terletsky of Lutsk, Dionisii Zbyriusky of Kholm, and Leontii Pelchytsky of Turiv – agreed to investigate the matter further.

A mixture of self-interest and sincere concern for their church motivated the bishops. They believed that the prestigious, well-organized Catholic church would impose much-needed order and discipline among the Orthodox. That this result would raise the bishops’ authority over the clergy and laity was also a consideration. By becoming a part of the Catholic church, the bishops hoped to achieve full equality for the Orthodox in the Commonwealth. No longer, they claimed, would Ukrainian burghers be mistreated in the towns or Orthodox noblemen passed over in appointments to office because of their religion. Moreover, the bishops would also benefit because if they received equal status with the Catholic hierarchy, they would gain membership in the prestigious and influential Senate. Egged on by these alluring prospects and following a series of surreptitious meetings with royal officials, Catholic bishops, and the papal nuncio, in June 1595, the four Orthodox bishops agreed to bring their church into a union with Rome. In return for the guarantee that the traditional Orthodox liturgy and rites, as well as such practices as the right of priests to marry, would be respected, they accepted the supreme authority of the pope in all matters of faith and dogma. At the end of 1595, Terletsky and Potii traveled to Rome, where Pope Clement VIII formally recognized the union.

When news about what had occurred spread, the Orthodox community broke into an uproar. Its leader, Prince Ostrozky, was infuriated not by the idea of the union itself but by the manner in which it had been handled. In a widely distributed open letter, he denounced the bishops as “wolves in sheeps’ clothing” who betrayed their flock. And he called on the faithful to protest. In addition to lodging a formal complaint with the king – which was ignored – Ostrozky entered into an anti-Catholic compact with the Protestants and threatened to lead an armed uprising.

To resolve the matter, a church council (sobor) was called in Brest in 1596. Never had Ukraine and Belorussia seen such a multitudinous church gathering. The antiunion forces included the two above-mentioned bishops, Orthodox dignitaries from abroad, dozens of elected noble representatives, over 200 clergy, and numerous lay supporters. To ensure their safety, Ostrozky brought along part of his private army. In contrast, the pro-union camp mustered but a handful of Catholic hierarchs, royal officials, and four Orthodox bishops. It was immediately apparent that the two sides could not find common ground. Realizing that negotiations were pointless, the pro-union or Uniate side publicly reiterated its intention to enter into the union.

Despite protests and threats, the Orthodox could not force them to retreat from their position or to have the king remove them from office. Thus, Ukrainian society split in two: on the one hand were the Orthodox magnates, the majority of the clergy, and the masses, while on the other, backed by the king, was the former hierarchy and a handful of followers. Consequently, a situation existed in which there was a hierarchy without faithful, and faithful without a hierarchy. What had begun as an attempt to unite the Christian churches ended in their further fragmentation, for now instead of two there were three churches: the Catholic, Orthodox, and Uniate (or Greek Catholic as it was later called). Religious polemics

The controversy surrounding the Union of Brest evoked an unprecedented outburst of polemical writing. Not unexpectedly, the indefatigable Jesuit Skarga fired the first shot in this bitter war of words with his “Union of Brest and Its Defense” (1597).

Another member of the Ostrih circle, the unidentified Ostrih Cleric, applied biting satire in the pamphlets he wrote against the Greek Catholics. Somewhat later, in 1605, Lviv’s contribution to the Orthodox polemical barrage appeared. Entitled “Warning,” this unsigned work focused on the selfish motives that allegedly guided the Greek Catholic bishops. On the Greek Catholic side there was only one noteworthy writer – Ipatii Potii. Using well-developed Jesuit models, he published in 1599, in Ukrainian, his Anti-Apokrisis, a temperamental reponse to Bronevsky’s polemic.

Perhaps the most powerful Orthodox writer of the period was Ivan Vyshensky. A Galician who spent most of his life – he lived sometime between 1550 and 1620 – as a reclusive monk on Mount Athos in Greece, Vyshensky was a fanatical defender of Orthodox traditions. Writing in simple but powerful prose, he mercilessly castigated the Greek Catholics in such works as “A Letter to the Bishops Who Abandoned Orthodoxy” and “A Short Response to Piotr Skarga.” But he also criticized the Orthodox, emphasizing the egoism, self-indulgence, and corruption of their nobility, wealthy burghers, and clergy as being responsible for the sorry state of their church. Very much a man of the people, Vyshensky was unique in bemoaning the enserfment of the peasants and fearless in denouncing their exploiters. For all the defects of Ukrainian society, he saw only one solution: a complete rejection of all innovations, including such “pagan tricks as grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, and other infamous temptations,” and a return to the simple Orthodox beliefs of old.

The literary output of the polemical writers was not voluminous. All the feuding parties together probably did not produce more than twenty to thirty works during several decades of debate. But as these works circulated around the country, they were carefully read and heatedly discussed at the courts of the few remaining Orthodox magnates, on the isolated estates of noblemen, and in the cramped quarters of the brotherhoods. By involving Ukrainian society in its first full-fledged ideological controversy, they helped it reach a higher state of consciousness about itself and the world around it.

The religious controversies of the late 16th and early 17th century highlighted several pregnant issues in Ukrainian society. They placed the growing tensions with the Catholic Poles on an ideological and highly emotional level. Indeed, Catholic Poland now emerged as the antithesis of Ukrainian society. But the cultural confrontation between the Ukrainians and the Poles cost the former dearly: it forced Ukrainian nobles to choose between their own stagnant, impoverished cultural heritage and the vibrant, attractive Catholic/Polish culture. Not suprisingly, the vast majority opted for Catholicism and the Polonization that invariably followed. Consequently, the Ukrainians lost their noble elite. And this development was of epochal importance for their subsequent history.

Another far-reaching by-product of the Orthodox/Catholic confrontation, specifically of the Union of Brest, was that it divided Ukrainians into Orthodox and Greek Catholics, thereby laying the foundation for the many sharp distinctions that eventually developed between East and West Ukrainians. But the period was not merely one of setbacks for Ukrainian society: the religious controversies sparked a cultural upsurge within it and the confrontation with the Poles led to a sharper definition of a Ukrainian identity.