Moscow Patriarchate

The seizure of a neighboring state's territories was presented to the population of the Tsardom of Muscovy not as an act of political or military expansion, but as a sacred mission of protecting brothers in faith. This myth outlived the centuries: as late as 1990 Solzhenitsyn reproduced it verbatim – "The return of these lands to Russia was then perceived by everyone as REUNIFICATION"^[1].

For the ideological justification of the seizure, the Muscovite authorities received a ready-made historical canon: "the 'SYNOPSIS,' 'Synopsis, or a Brief Collection from Various Chroniclers on the Origin of the Slaveno-Rossian People' – a historical work first published by the printing house of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra (1674)"^[2] – the book constructed a shared "Slaveno-Rossian" past, legitimizing Moscow's rule over Kyiv retroactively.

The implantation of a narrative about the unbreakable bond between Kyiv and Moscow, serving the political aims of the metropole: the author sought "to give the Muscovite tsar the motivation to continue the struggle with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" and "to ease the incorporation of the Hetmanate's elite into the Russian ruling estate"^[3].

The deliberate dissolution of a distinct Ukrainian identity in the construct of a "single Orthodox people": the "Synopsis" subordinated Kyiv's history to the idea of a common "Slaveno-Rossian people"^[2], and its political program presupposed a struggle for the "liberation… of the remaining part of the 'single Orthodox people'"^[3]. Hrushevsky points out what exactly was erased: the "Synopsis" is "a brief history of Rus composed at the Pechersk Lavra, done very lifelessly and incompletely (the history of the Cossacks, the struggle against Poland, and all of Ukraine's recent history are almost entirely omitted from it)"^[4].

The imperial historical myth was directly based on religious manipulation: expansion was justified by the concept of religious unity. The author constructed an ideologeme in order "to give the Muscovite tsar the motivation to continue the struggle with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for the liberation from Catholic rule of the remaining part of the 'single Orthodox people'"^[3].

The liquidation of independent jurisdiction to turn the church into an instrument of assimilation – the annexation of the Ukrainian church to the Muscovite one in 1686^[5]. The Ecumenical Patriarchate later officially stated that these actions "were carried out entirely out of accord with the lawful canonical prescriptions"^[6].

The introduction of censorship control over Ukrainian book printing. Patriarch Joachim banned publications without his sanction and sent a reprimand for publishing books without prior permission^[7][8], and in 1690 "the Council of the Russian Orthodox Church condemned the 'new Kyivan books' of Petro Mohyla, Kyrylo Stavrovetsky, Ioanykii Galiatovsky, Sylvestr Kosov, Lazar Baranovych, and others, laying on them a curse and anathema"^[9].

The destruction of the Kyiv theological school and the declaration of its works as heresy: "All Ukrainian writings, beginning with the catechism of Petro Mohyla, were declared heretical... the council condemned virtually all the principal works of Kyivan theological scholarship"^[8][7].

The annexation of the metropolitanate was disguised as the protection of co-religionists: the reform was carried out "relying on the Orthodox movement against the Turkish conquerors"^[7], and "Golitsyn's main project concerning Ukraine… became the reform of the Ukrainian Orthodox church, or rather – the subordination of the Kyiv metropolitanate to the Moscow patriarch"^[7][8].

Immediately after the subordination began the imposition of Muscovite church standards and rites, marginalizing the local tradition. The Ecumenical Patriarchate recorded the canonical illegality of the act itself directly: "the alienation from our Throne of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv and of the Orthodox Churches of Lithuania and Poland dependent on it, as well as their attachment to the Holy Church of Moscow, were from the very beginning carried out entirely out of accord with the lawful canonical prescriptions"^[6].

Following the establishment of control over the metropolitanate came the gradual unification of liturgical printing and pronunciation along Muscovite models, culminating in Peter I's direct decree of 1720: church books could be printed only after being checked against Muscovite ones, "so that there be no discord or distinct dialect in them"^[10].

The anathema against Mazepa was proclaimed by the tsar's direct order - "be pleased to have him, for such a deed of his, publicly cursed in the cathedral church..."^[8]. Part of the Ukrainian clergy refused to accept the rite: a former Lokhvytsia archpriest said during the proclamation of the anathema, "Our Mazepa is holy and will be in heaven, and your sovereign will not"^[8]. The Ecumenical Patriarchate never recognized it: "the anathema was laid on Ivan Mazepa for political reasons and had no theological or canonical justification"^[11].

The use of the church as an instrument of punishment: the anathema was proclaimed by the tsar's direct order - "be pleased to have him, for such a deed of his, publicly cursed in the cathedral church..."^[8]. No theological grounding was supplied for it, and part of the Ukrainian clergy refused to accept the rite: a former Lokhvytsia archpriest said during the proclamation of the anathema, "Our Mazepa is holy and will be in heaven, and your sovereign will not"^[8].

The mass confiscation of national educational and religious literature: "in 1769 the Holy Synod not only refused permission to print South Russian primers, but ordered the confiscation of those already in people's hands, since the primers of that time were regarded as church books"^[12].

The displacement of the local population's language from the sacred sphere: metropolitan Samuil Myslavsky's order of 26 October 1784 demanded that students and future priests practice "the reading of church books of every kind, and above all the Bible, acquiring a good and pure pronunciation" - after the Moscow model instead of the Ukrainian church tradition, under the threat of expulsion from the clerical estate^[13], and in 1786 metropolitan Myslavsky prescribed to the clergy the unification of pronunciation and orthography along the Russian model^[14].

The forced transfer of the Uniate faithful of the Right Bank into the empire's state church (the Holy Synod; the patriarchate in Russia was abolished until 1917) for the spiritual assimilation of the population: the Basilian monasteries – the mainstay of the Union – were liquidated throughout the empire by the mid-19th century^[15].