The Metropolis of Kiev is a metropolis of the Eastern Orthodox Church that was transferred to the Patriarchate of Moscow in 1685. From 988 AD until 1596 AD, the mother church of the Metropolis of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' had been the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Moscow Patriarchate was a Caesaropapist entity that was under the control of the Russian state. While nominally ruled by a metropolitan bishop, since its inception, the secular authorities of the Tsardom of Russia altered the territorial remit of the Kyiv metropolis, stripped it of its suffragan sees and transformed the office from an ecclesiastical province to an archbishopric to an honorific or empty title.

Following the Russian Revolution, it became an exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was transformed into the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) with a degree of independence in the territory of the modern state of Ukraine. The primate of the UOC-MP — OnufriyMetropolitan Onufriy of Chernivtsi and Bukovina elected head of Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) , Interfax-Ukraine (13 August 2014) — is styled the "Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine". It is a matter of debate as to whether the UOC-MP has full ecclesial independence (autocephaly) or merely enjoys extended autonomy while ultimate control continues to reside in Moscow.

It is also a matter of dispute as to whether Moscow abided by the terms of the transfer from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople: it is the contention of Constantinople and of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) that the terms were breached and that the de facto transfer is no longer de jure or canonical; Moscow denies this claim and considers the OCU to be schismatic. According to the ROC, the 1686 Synodal Letter of the Ecumenical Patriarch gave Moscow the right to ordain the Metropolitan of Kiev. According to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, this act was firstly conditional upon Moscow preserving the traditional rights of the metropolitan and secondly did not affect the authority of Constantinople as the mother church of the metropolis. In this respect, both Constantinople and the OCU regard Moscow's subsequent actions as uncanonical. On 11 October 2018, the "Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate" revoked the Synodal Letter (Act) of 1686. On 5 January 2019, Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople signed the tomos that granted the OCU autocephaly.

Background Break with Constantinople

An ecumenical council of the Church — the Council of Florence — took place from 1431 to 1449. Although he resisted at first, the Grand Prince of MoscowThe Grand Duchy of Moscow was a predecessor state of current state called the Russian Federation. (Sources: Russia: People and Empire, 1552–1917 by Geoffrey Hosking, Harvard University Press, 1998, (page 46) & Russia and The Commonwealth of Independent States 2012 by M. Wesley Shoemaker, Stryker Post, 2012, (page 10).) — Vasily II of Moscow — eventually permitted the Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus' — Isidore of Kiev — to attend the council on condition that Isidore should return with "the rights of Divine law and the constitution of the holy Church" uninjured.Joseph Gill, Personalities of the Council of Florence, pg68 The council healed the Great Schism by uniting the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The union was proclaimed on 6 July 1439 in the document Laetentur Caeli which was composed by Pope Eugene IV and signed by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund and all but one of the bishops present. In Moscow, the union was rejected by the Grand Prince who imprisoned Metropolitan Isidore. Having adjudged Isidore to have apostatized to Catholicism, he was deposed by a local synodИОНА // Orthodox Encyclopedia and later expelled. In 1448, a council of north-eastern Russian clergy was convened in Moscow at the behest of Vasily II. They elected Jonah as the "Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Rus' without the consent of the patriarch of Constantinople. Like his immediate predecessors, he permanently resided in Moscow, and was the last Moscow-based primate of the metropolis to keep the traditional title with reference to the metropolitan city of Kiev.E. E. Golubinskii, Istoriia russkoi tserkvi (Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia, 1900), vol. 2, pt. 1, p. 469. After 1461, the Muscovite clergy abandoned the "Kiev" title and took on the new title of "Metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus'".THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE MYTH OF THE RUS’ LAND, CHARLES J. HALPERIN, 2022, p98. ISBN 9781802700114

Meanwhile, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, the rulers continued to recognise Isidore as metropolitan; Jonah was rejected and was unable to exercise any pastoral control beyond the borders of Muscovy. In 1458, while Isidore was still alive, his nephew Gregory the Bulgarian was appointed to succeed him as the Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' by Patriarch Gregory III of Constantinople with the agreement of Pope Pius II.Ukrainian Catholic Church: part 1. Farlex. The Free Library. In 1469, Patriarch Dionysius I of Constantinople also gave his blessing to Gregory's appointment.Yarotskyi, P. Division of the Church Metropolis of Kiev (Поділ Київської митрополії) . RISU Library ("Lyudyna i svit" magazine). 1998 Furthermore, he stated that Constantinople would not recognize any metropolitan ordained without its blessing.

Reconciliation with Constantinople

Moscow's de facto independence (autocephaly) from Constantinople remained unrecognized; in 1587, Job of Moscow was appointed as Metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus'. He was the seventeenth to be appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch as had been the norm. Two years later in 1589, Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople regularized Job's canonical status and raised him to the status of patriarch. This decision was finally confirmed by the four older patriarchs in 1593. De jure, the new patriarch's canonical territory was "all Russia and Northern countries"; his effective control, however, was limited to the Tsardom of Russia.

In 1569, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was established. The Warsaw Confederation of 1573 secured the rights of minorities and religions in the new state.Stone, Daniel, The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386–1795, Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2001. Within this freedom, the Orthodox bishops from their primatial seat in the city of Novogrudok, together with the faithful in the Commonwealth, chose to remain loyal to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople .

Union of Brest

In 1588–1589, Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople traveled across Eastern Europe. Arriving in Moscow, he finally acknowledged the Russian Orthodox Church which had been estranged from Constantinople since the 1440s. While there, he consecrated Job of Moscow as the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'. It is possible that Jeremias was imprisoned by the Ottomans and by the Muscovites, and may have been forced to elevate the see of Moscow to a patriarchy.

Travelling on to the Commonwealth, Patriarch Jeremias II deposed the Metropolitan of Kiev, . With the approval of King Sigismund III, he consecrated Michael Rohoza as the new "Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Ruthenia".

In 1595–96, the majority of Eastern Orthodox hierarchs in the Ruthenian lands of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth agreed to transfer their ecclesiastical jurisdiction from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to the jurisdiction of the Holy See.Hudziak, B.O., Tu, O.Yu. The 1596 Brest Church Union (БЕРЕСТЕЙСЬКА ЦЕРКОВНА УНІЯ 1596). Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine. The Union of Brest as it was known, established the Ruthenian Uniate Church,Church Union of Berestia. Encyclopedia of Ukraine which currently exists as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church.

Officially, the Orthodox (but not the Eastern Catholic) Metropolis of Kiev in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was eliminated.

Conflicts between Muscovy, Cossacks and the Commonwealth

By the early years of the 17th century, the Zaporozhian Cossacks had become a significant military and political force in the south-eastern region of the Commonwealth, straddling both banks of the Dnieper. Their leader (Hetman) Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny was used by the Commonwealth leaders in their many wars with the Tsardom of Moscow. Under King Sigismund III Vasa, the hetman raided Russian territory and in 1618 laid siege to Moscow itself. To stem the growing panic, the first tsar of the Romanov dynasty — Michael of Russia — was compelled to sign the Truce of Deulino in December 1618 which resulted in the greatest territorial expansion of the Commonwealth.

By that time, the loyalty of the Zaporozhian hetmanate to the Commonwealth was only nominal. The Cossacks' strong historic allegiance to the Eastern Orthodox Church put them at odds with the Catholic-dominated Commonwealth. Tensions increased when Commonwealth policies turned from relative tolerance to the suppression of the Orthodox church, making the Cossacks strongly anti-Catholic. As a result, the Kiev and Chernihiv dioceses which lay in the hetmanate were lost to the Metropolis of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus'.

Establishment of the Exarchate of Ukraine

The formation of the Ruthenian Uniate Church led to confrontation with those who did not conform to the union. In 1623, the hierarch Josaphat Kuntsevych was murdered. There were numerous revolts culminating in the Khmelnytsky uprising. Opponents of the union called church members "Uniates" although Catholic documents no longer use the term due to its perceived negative overtones. In August 1620, these dissenters prevailed upon Hetman Konashevych-Sahaidachny to agitate for the re-establishment of an Orthodox metropolis in the realm. The hetman persuaded Theophanes III — the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem — to consecrate Job Boretsky as the new "Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus'" and as the "Exarch of Ukraine". There were now two metropolitans with the same title but different ecclesiastical loyalties within the Commonwealth.

The metropolis in the Cossack Hetmanate

The Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648–1657), also known as the Cossack–Polish War,Polish-Cossack WarThe Khmelnytsky insurrection Britannica was a Cossack rebellion in the eastern territories of the Commonwealth, which led to the creation of a Cossack Hetmanate in right-bank Ukraine. The Treaty of Zboriv, negotiated in 1649 by Metropolitan Sylvester Kosiv, brought a temporary respite and the Orthodox Church was granted privileges.Government portal :: Cossack era In 1654, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky secured the military protection of the Tsardom of Russia in exchange for allegiance to the tsar. By the terms of the Pereiaslav Agreement, the leadership of the Cossack Hetmanate took an oath of allegiance to the Russian monarch; they were followed shortly thereafter by other officials, clergy and the inhabitants of the Hetmanate. Pursuant to the agreement, the Tsardom went to war with the Commonwealth. It quickly occupied, for a while, the lands of present Belarus, and gained some power over the Cossack Hetmanate.

Commonwealth of Three Nations