Petro Mohyla
Petro Symeonowytsch Mohyla ( Ukrainian Петро Симеонович Могила , Romanian Petru Movilă ; born December 21, 1596 in Suceava , † January 11, 1647 in Kiev ). Saint, functionary in politics, church and education, was metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all of Russia from 1633 .
Life
childhood
Petro Mohyla comes from an old and respected Moldovan family. He was born the son of Simeon Mohylas, the Hospodar over the Principality of Wallachia (and for a time also over the Principality of Moldova ) and the Transylvanian Princess Margaret.
In 1607 the father died after power struggles. Due to the takeover of its territories by Kantemir Murza in 1612, Princess Margaret and her son had to leave Moldova and emigrated to the Ukrainian territories. Here they were taken in by relatives - Prince Stefan Polotskyj, Samuil Korezkyj and Mychajlo Vysnevetskyj.
education
Petro Mohyla received his basic pedagogical training in the Lviv Brotherhood School, which was founded in 1586 to protect and preserve the Orthodox faith . The Mohyla family was themselves Orthodox and maintained close relationships with the Lviv Brotherhood, helping them to rebuild with money and services.
Petro Mohyla received his further education at European universities. Some historians are of the opinion that he initially studied at the Polish academy in Zamość , then in Dutch institutions and in Paris.
Petro Mohyla was fluent in Greek and Latin and quickly became familiar with theology. Back in Poland, he went into military service and took part in the battles of Zezor (1620) and of Chotyn (1621).
Church career
Only a few testimonies tell of the period in Mohyla's life, from his participation in the Battle of Chotyn to his consecration as archimandrite of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra . It is only evident that Mohyla visited Kiev frequently during this period and was actively involved in matters of the Orthodox faith. At this time, Mohyla was particularly influenced by the many meetings with Iow Borezkyj, who was his teacher at the Lviv Brotherhood School. The conversations with the Metropolitan Iow completed the formation of Mohyla's views and were decisive for his further life.
In 1625 Mohyla entered the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra as a monk. After the death of Zacharias Kopystenski , the archimandrite of the Kiev Lavra , Petro Mohyla received this office. At the time he was 30 years old. To be elected to such a high ecclesiastical position at this age was not an impossibility. Apparently the support of Borezkyj and other influential Szlachta families of the Orthodox faith helped here .
In 1628 the Polish King Sigismund III confirmed. Mohyla in his office. “The new Archimandrite,” notes Mykola Kostomarow about him, “immediately began his work for the benefit of the monastery by ordering the supervision of the church servants, teaching the uneducated and punishing the stubborn and unauthorized. He renovated the church, was not stingy on spending on the beautification of the caves, subordinated the Pustynno-Mykolaivskyj monastery to the Lavra, founded the Holosiivska monastery, had a home built for the poor in front of the Lavra at his own expense, and resolved to build one in the cave monastery To set up a university ".
Activity as editor
During his time as Archimandrite, Petro Mohyla did everything in his power to give the printing works of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra an important position - both in comparison to other printing works in Ukraine and Belarus , as well as in communal monastic life.
Within five and a half years, 15 titles were published in the cave monastery printing house. These included books written by Petro Mohyla himself. In 1628 the works, translated from Greek, "Агапита діакона главизны поучительны" and "Триодь цветная" were printed in the Lavra of Mohyla, in which the meaning and importance of church hymns are explained.
In 1629 the Kiev assembly approved the printing of the book "Liturgiarion" by Petro Mohyla. The "Liturgiarion" is a service manual which Mohyla has adapted to the liturgy based on the Greek model and his own dogmatic and ceremonial views. This is one of the most important works by Mohyla, which has lost none of its importance over a period of over two hundred years. Furthermore, a number of canons and hymns were preserved in Mohyla's personal notes, some of which made it into later Lawrian editions: these are the canon of the Eucharist of the clergy , the canon of the exit of the soul , the canon on the creation of light and that Weeping of the first parents chased from Paradise , the canon of repentance, grateful singing in honor of the Holy Mother of God in connection with the miraculous liberation of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra from the siege by an army from Lyazk (1630), etc. These small works are written in Ruthenian - Church Slavonic and testify to Petro Mohyla's literary talent.
Diplomatic activity
The life and church service of Petro Mohylas coincide with sectarian conflicts and upheavals. The practice of the Orthodox Faith was extremely difficult in Ukraine in the first half of the 17th century. In 1596 the Church Union of Brest was signed, as a result of which the majority of Orthodox bishops recognized the suzerainty of the Pope and the Orthodox Church remained illegal.
The majority of the people and the monasteries did not recognize the Union. As a result, the disenfranchisement and persecution of the Orthodox could sometimes be observed. Orthodox clergy were released from their offices and worship and church ceremonies were banned, so that many Orthodox churches were closed and decayed.
Petro Mohyla considered it extremely important to reconcile the Uniates and the Orthodox. But public views were divided on all of his efforts in this direction. Some judged his attempts to be kind-hearted and courageous, while others considered them insidious and aimed at uniting Orthodox with the Uniate and thus breaking off contact between the Orthodox Church in what is now Ukraine and the Eastern Patriarchs and Moscow. At the time, Ukrainian relations with Russia, and especially with the Russian Church, were minimal. In Moscow, Kiev's affairs were secondary because at the time it was necessary to limit the power of the Tsar of Mikhail Romanov's new dynasty . In addition, the appointment of the Kiev Metropolitan and the bishops took place without the assistance of the Russian Church.
On June 29, 1629 a meeting was called in Kiev, the subject of discussion should be the reconciliation between the Uniate and the Orthodox. It remained inconclusive. Petro Mohyla's hopes were not fulfilled in the Lviv congregation either. The failures in the settlement of disputes between the churches created disappointment and hopelessness among the Orthodox and Greek Catholics.
Mohyla was hit hardest by the death of Iow Borezkyj. He received news of the death of his former teacher on his return to Kiev, just coming from the inauguration of the Stavropihijska Church in Lviv (January 16, 1631). The church was built by the Lviv Brotherhood with great financial support from Mohyla.
Following the will of Iow Borezkyj, Petro Mohyla joined the Kiev brotherhood and became the oldest brother and supervisor of the brotherhood, monastery and school. This position enabled him to head the metropolitan cathedral, but the office of metropolitan was Isaja Kopynskyj.
Activity in education
The name Petro Mohyla is associated with the development of the system of high and middle education in Ukraine, which not only copied the Western European schools but was also able to seriously compete with them.
In the spring of 1631 the first school was opened on the territory of the Kiev Cave Lavra. It was attended by a total of 100 students. The lessons in the monastery school were conducted in Latin and Polish and based on the model of the Polish elite schools of the time, the colleges. Petro Mohyla constantly pointed out the importance of education for the development of society and tried to found schools in Kiev that would meet the demands of the time and be in no way inferior to comparable European schools. Even before the school was founded, he took care of capable teachers, selected capable young people and sent them abroad to study at his expense.
But building up the school was not made easy for Mohyla. At the beginning, the clergy of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra opposed the establishment of classrooms. Mohyla was able to settle this problem, but as soon as the training began, Mohyla's opponents saw in the convent school competition for the Kiev brotherhood school. Thereupon the Kiev brotherhood and the Cossack society raised the demand for the unification of the two schools. They were also supported by the new Metropolitan Isaja Kopynskyj.
Petro Mohyla agreed to the merger on the condition that he should become the guardian and custodian of the combined institution. So the two schools were merged in 1632 under the name Kiev Brotherhood College . This was the first university in Eastern Europe to lay the foundation for university education in this part of the continent.
The college was organized along the lines of the best schools in the western world. The students were instructed in three languages: Greek, Latin and Church Slavonic. They were introduced not only to theology but also to the humanitarian sciences. The graduates of this academy represented almost the entire cultural elite of what was then Ukraine and Belarus. School became a matter of life for Mohylas.
For the maintenance of the college and the monastery, he signed two Wolosts to the Lavra and gave away his own village, Poznjakivka, and also provided financial help to the college as well as its teachers and students. Under his tireless patronage, the college developed intensively and after ten years reached a level with which it surpassed the most beautiful model models of the Uniate and Catholic schools.
In view of the steadily increasing number of pupils, a branch of the college was opened in Vinnytsya in 1634 , which was later moved to Goschtschi in Volhynia, where it continued until the end of the 17th century. In 1636 Mohyla also founded a college in Kremenez .
In April 1632 Sigismund III died. According to Polish custom, the "convocative" Sejm took place , at which a review of the deeds of the late king took place and various ideas and suggestions for the future kingdom were discussed. Then the “electrical” Sejm met, at which the new king was elected. On this occasion the great Cossack Rada (assembly) was called in Pryluky to appoint a delegation for the Sejm. Petro Mohyla became one of the delegates on behalf of Metropolitan Isaja Kopynskyj and the entire Orthodox clergy. At the Sejm he called for the repeal of various laws that forbade the Orthodox to build their churches and to open colleges and printing houses. He also campaigned for the return of the eparchies , which were first closed by the Polish government, but then given to the Uniate.
Since the Polish prince Władysław wanted to secure a majority in the vote, he drafted a contract in which he offered, among other things, to meet the demands of the Cossacks, to return the Kiev metropolis with all land and monasteries to the Orthodox and to allow the diocese of Lviv . On November 8, 1632, Wladyslaw was finally elected king and fulfilled the demands of the Orthodox clergy by handing them a "diploma", the content of which guaranteed the Orthodox greater rights than was the case with the previous treaty.
This “diploma” gave Ukrainians full freedom to change from the Orthodox to the United Church and vice versa. As before, the Kiev Metropolitan was to be consecrated by the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Lutsk eparchy was returned, a new one founded in Mstislavl , and any discrimination against the Orthodox by the Uniate was forbidden.
While Petro Mohyla thanked Wladyslaw for the “well thought-out and just solution”, the Cossacks and the Orthodox clergy agreed in the last days of the Sejm to remove Isaja Kopynskyj from the office of metropolitan, as he was already old and sickly. In immediate consequence of this, Petro Mohyla was elected Metropolitan in Warsaw.
In the royal charter he was granted the Kiev Cathedral of St. Sophia and the supervision of the Pustynno-Mykolaivskyi Monastery, while he was allowed to keep his position as Archimandrite in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. Mohyla soon received the blessing of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who gave the new Metropolitan the title of " Exarch of the Holy Throne of Constantinople". In April 1633, Petro Mohyla invited Orthodox church leaders to Lviv for his ordination to the office of metropolitan. The location was not chosen by chance, as it was well known and valued here. After spending two months in Lviv, he returned to Kiev.
Isaja Kopynskyj, meanwhile, declared Mohyla's election to be illegal and filed a lawsuit with the king. The trial lasted long and so Petro Mohyla finally ordered the former metropolitan to Luts'k in February 1637, where he reconciled with him in the presence of numerous clergymen. But some time later, Kopynskyj again turned against Mohyla with the statement that he had forced him to reconciliation by force. Isaja Kopynskyj did not give his successor any rest until his death.
Working as a missionary
After his appointment as Metropolitan, Petro Mohyla expanded the development of churches, education and construction with new strength. All his activity was directed towards the renewal of the life of the Orthodox Church. He made strict but fair demands on the clergy. Above all, they touched on compulsory social and theological training and strict adherence to and adherence to canonical rules. Mohyla focused on serving the civilian population, which consisted of proclaiming the commandments of God and tireless care for the community.
Renewal of Orthodox Churches
In the office of the Metropolitan, the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and several monasteries were handed over to Mohyla's care. In 1634 the renovation of the St. Sophia Cathedral began, which was to take ten years. The Metropolitan also ordered that the remains of the Desjatynnaya Church be uncovered from the lower strata of the earth, from the ruins of which relics of Grand Duke Volodymyr could be found. At his own expense, Mohyla had the Church of the Redeemer in Brest renovated, and he commissioned artists from Kryt to decorate it. They also worked on the renovation of the Three Saints Church and the Mykhajliwska Church of the Wydubyzkyj Monastery.
Order of Orthodox Practices
The religious contradictions and controversies of the 17th century demanded an accurate and contemporary interpretation of the principles of Orthodox Christianity. To achieve this goal, Petro Mohyla called a meeting in Kiev in 1640, to which clergy and educational figures, but above all members of the brotherhood, were invited. The result was the approval of a new edition of the Trebnik (collection of liturgy regulations). He went down in church history as " Trebnik von Petro Mohyla " and served the clergy throughout Russia for a long time. In the Trebnik not only prayers and customs were laid out, but also explanations and instructions on how to behave in certain cases, as well as dogmatic and ceremonial interpretations of the liturgy, which were written by Taras Zemka, a student of Mohylas.
Other books were also published under Mohyla's guidance. One of the best known is the Sluzhebnik, a code of rules for church service (1629, 1639). At the church assembly in Jassy in 1642, the Sluzhebnik was revised, repaired and recognized by the leaders of the Ukrainian-Belarusian, Greek and Moldavian churches under the name " Orthodox recognition of the faith " given by Ukrainian clergy .
The first Orthodox catechism also goes back to Mohyla. An all-Orthodox council was convened in Jassy in 1643 to confirm it. However, since the revision of this document was delayed, Mohyla printed an abridged version. The full catechism was not published until after the death of Petro Mohylas, initially in Greek, Latin and Polish, and in 1696 also in Russia, after it had already attracted the attention of theologians around the world. For a long time Mohyla's catechism has been the most complete exposition of the Orthodox faith.
Literary legacy
Petro Mohyla left behind more than twenty works of ecclesiastical-theological, polemical , teaching, philosophical and moralizing character. Among other things, he is the author of the books “ Jewanhelije ” (1616), “ Anfologion ” (1636) and “ Efchologion ” (1646).
Petro Mohyla died on January 11, 1647 at the age of fifty. He only served fourteen years in the office of Metropolitan. On March 3 of the year of death, the body of the deceased was carried to the great church of the Kiev Cave Lavra and buried there, according to his will.
A few days before his death, Mohyla wrote a will in which he proclaimed the Kiev Brotherhood College as the primary heir to his property. He bequeathed him 81,000 złoty , all his immovable property, valuables and the library. At the time, Mohyla owned one of the richest libraries in Eastern Europe. It contained works by Seneca , Horace , Caesar , Cicero , and Machiavelli , as well as Avicenna's tracts . In addition to Orthodox literature, there were Polish and Russian chronicles and document collections here. Books that Iow Borezkyj bequeathed to Mohyla in his day also went into the library.
Generational inheritance
In 1991, the Kiev Mohyla Academy was opened on the territory of the Kiev Brotherhood College , which over time has acquired the status of a national university. In 1996 Mohyla became the first saint to be canonized by Ukrainian Orthodox Churches of all denominations.
literature
- Wolfgang Heller: Mogila, Petr. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 6, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-044-1 , Sp. 18-21.
Web links
- Literature by and about Petro Mohyla in the catalog of the German National Library
- Trebnik by Petro Mohyla (facsimile) ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Isaya Kopynskyi |
Metropolitan of Kiev 1632 - 1647 |
Sylvester Kosiv |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mohyla, Petro |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mohyla, Petro Symeonowytsch (full name); Movilă, Petru |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Russian-Ukrainian Orthodox priest, Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all of Russia |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 21, 1596 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Suceava |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 11, 1647 |
| Place of death | Kiev |