Post by justiniano on Mar 22, 2023 0:47:52 GMT
please tell me if I got anything wrong and please answer the 1 question I have in it...
The Grand duchy of Lithuania expanded rapidly in the 14th century over territories that are now Belarus, Ukraine and the western most parts of Russia. 3/4 of the population was Orthodox. Lithuania, although militarily strong and politically astute, was culturally weak and so East slavic culture, which was heavily tied to orthodox christianity made inroads into Lithuanian culture to such an extent that the Lithuanian chancelry language was "Old Byelorussian" and the Lithuanian aristocracy worried that their identity as lithuanians would be overwhelmed by their east slavic subjects. When it was no longer viable for Lithuania to remain polytheistic, the Lithuanians preferred catholicism through Poland rather than Orthodoxy. And all of a sudden losing their culture hardly mattered. The culture of Poland was in a stronger stage of development than that of both Lithuania & Ruthenia, Ruthenia was comprised of the majority Orthodox parts of the grand duchy, so the Lithuanians quickly found themselves in the same position in relation to the Ruthenian - the more they interacted with Poles and the polish system, the more Polish culture spread through the Lithuanian and Ruthenian lands.Many Catholic Lithuanian nobles ended up polonized, the common language for the nobility became Polish and they integrated into Polish culture. They did this despite the fact that 75% of their population was ruthenian, since their chief national concern was dealing with the catholic Teutonic Knights who justified their desire to absorb Lithuanian lands by them not being adherents of Latin Christianity. When the GDL accepted catholicism through formal political union in 1569 with the kingdom of Poland to produce the Polish-lithuanian Commonwealth, enshrined Catholicism as one of the fundamental conditions of being accepted into the political nation of the noble estate of the realm & removed the Knights' justification of war
All this, alongside the Polish lithuanian commonwealth being under the influence of the counter reformation meant that by the latter part of the 16th century the influence of the Orthodox church on politics, society and consequently on financial benefits for it's members in Ruthenia was in sharp decline due to the spread of Polish cultural influences eastward. The orthodox were being turned into second-class non-citizens in their own lands, the Orthodox had restrictions on having certain political offices, living in certain cities and doing Orthodox practices like ringing church bells, and being Catholic meant being Polish. This drift sapped the intellectual strength of the Orthodox, leading to a weaker church which in turn maintained the reasons to drift to Catholicism.
Ruthenian Orthodoxy was isolated. Constantinople, which was the most important city in the orthodox world had been in the hands of the Islamic Ottoman empire for over a century and the Duchy of Moscow was yet to be in a position to influence beyond its own borders, and they didn't want to work for the patriarch in Moscow (I don't know why, please let me know) so they instead began to consider a reunion with the Catholic Church.
To be accepted by the Polish king, the very catholic Zygmund III Wasa, by doing a deal with the Pope to accept his leadership and a couple of high level doctrinal matters, in return for maintaining the Orthodox rites, the union of brest was enforced and Four out of nine bishops of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Ruthenia gathered in synod & signed a declaration of their readiness to reunite with Rome, becoming Uniates. Or catholics that aren't Roman catholics, Eventually all Orthodox bishops of Ruthenia accepted the Union.
The Union of Brest allowed those who accepted the Uniates, to avoid discrimination and also receive support from the Catholic churches for their own parishes and whatnot, albeit temporararily. In Polish Society the Uniates were not accepted as full catholics. The Union of Brest was hoped to stem the drift to full blown Roman catholicism. If a Ruthenian aristocrat wanted to tap into the full benefits of the political nation, there was no alternative to a conversion to roman catholicism.
You see, Polish Society never accepted the Uniates as proper catholics, even if on paper they had equal rights, (pleas let me know if on paper uniates had equal rights to Roman catholics, but not orthodox) Uniates continued to be discriminated against - their right to be accepted into the political ranks were not recognised and they missed out on land allocations in the Ukraine.
And up until this point, many who lived not just in ruthenia, but also Lithuania were Eastern Orthodox.
At first, the Union appeared to be successful, but soon it lost much of its initial support. not merely because of what I already mentioned, but its forceful implementation on the Eastern Orthodox parishes, like In 1656, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch Macarios III Zaim lamented over the atrocities committed by the Polish Catholics against followers of Eastern Orthodoxy in various parts of Ukraine. Macarios was quoted as stating that seventeen or eighteen thousand followers of Eastern Orthodoxy were killed under hands of the Catholics and subsequent persecution of all who did not want to accept the union of brest
All this stirred several massive uprisings, particularly the Khmelnytskyi Uprising.
The Grand duchy of Lithuania expanded rapidly in the 14th century over territories that are now Belarus, Ukraine and the western most parts of Russia. 3/4 of the population was Orthodox. Lithuania, although militarily strong and politically astute, was culturally weak and so East slavic culture, which was heavily tied to orthodox christianity made inroads into Lithuanian culture to such an extent that the Lithuanian chancelry language was "Old Byelorussian" and the Lithuanian aristocracy worried that their identity as lithuanians would be overwhelmed by their east slavic subjects. When it was no longer viable for Lithuania to remain polytheistic, the Lithuanians preferred catholicism through Poland rather than Orthodoxy. And all of a sudden losing their culture hardly mattered. The culture of Poland was in a stronger stage of development than that of both Lithuania & Ruthenia, Ruthenia was comprised of the majority Orthodox parts of the grand duchy, so the Lithuanians quickly found themselves in the same position in relation to the Ruthenian - the more they interacted with Poles and the polish system, the more Polish culture spread through the Lithuanian and Ruthenian lands.Many Catholic Lithuanian nobles ended up polonized, the common language for the nobility became Polish and they integrated into Polish culture. They did this despite the fact that 75% of their population was ruthenian, since their chief national concern was dealing with the catholic Teutonic Knights who justified their desire to absorb Lithuanian lands by them not being adherents of Latin Christianity. When the GDL accepted catholicism through formal political union in 1569 with the kingdom of Poland to produce the Polish-lithuanian Commonwealth, enshrined Catholicism as one of the fundamental conditions of being accepted into the political nation of the noble estate of the realm & removed the Knights' justification of war
All this, alongside the Polish lithuanian commonwealth being under the influence of the counter reformation meant that by the latter part of the 16th century the influence of the Orthodox church on politics, society and consequently on financial benefits for it's members in Ruthenia was in sharp decline due to the spread of Polish cultural influences eastward. The orthodox were being turned into second-class non-citizens in their own lands, the Orthodox had restrictions on having certain political offices, living in certain cities and doing Orthodox practices like ringing church bells, and being Catholic meant being Polish. This drift sapped the intellectual strength of the Orthodox, leading to a weaker church which in turn maintained the reasons to drift to Catholicism.
Ruthenian Orthodoxy was isolated. Constantinople, which was the most important city in the orthodox world had been in the hands of the Islamic Ottoman empire for over a century and the Duchy of Moscow was yet to be in a position to influence beyond its own borders, and they didn't want to work for the patriarch in Moscow (I don't know why, please let me know) so they instead began to consider a reunion with the Catholic Church.
To be accepted by the Polish king, the very catholic Zygmund III Wasa, by doing a deal with the Pope to accept his leadership and a couple of high level doctrinal matters, in return for maintaining the Orthodox rites, the union of brest was enforced and Four out of nine bishops of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Ruthenia gathered in synod & signed a declaration of their readiness to reunite with Rome, becoming Uniates. Or catholics that aren't Roman catholics, Eventually all Orthodox bishops of Ruthenia accepted the Union.
The Union of Brest allowed those who accepted the Uniates, to avoid discrimination and also receive support from the Catholic churches for their own parishes and whatnot, albeit temporararily. In Polish Society the Uniates were not accepted as full catholics. The Union of Brest was hoped to stem the drift to full blown Roman catholicism. If a Ruthenian aristocrat wanted to tap into the full benefits of the political nation, there was no alternative to a conversion to roman catholicism.
You see, Polish Society never accepted the Uniates as proper catholics, even if on paper they had equal rights, (pleas let me know if on paper uniates had equal rights to Roman catholics, but not orthodox) Uniates continued to be discriminated against - their right to be accepted into the political ranks were not recognised and they missed out on land allocations in the Ukraine.
And up until this point, many who lived not just in ruthenia, but also Lithuania were Eastern Orthodox.
At first, the Union appeared to be successful, but soon it lost much of its initial support. not merely because of what I already mentioned, but its forceful implementation on the Eastern Orthodox parishes, like In 1656, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch Macarios III Zaim lamented over the atrocities committed by the Polish Catholics against followers of Eastern Orthodoxy in various parts of Ukraine. Macarios was quoted as stating that seventeen or eighteen thousand followers of Eastern Orthodoxy were killed under hands of the Catholics and subsequent persecution of all who did not want to accept the union of brest
All this stirred several massive uprisings, particularly the Khmelnytskyi Uprising.
