Киевският митрополит Йосиф Болгаринович и руско-литовските отношения от края на XV век
The Metropolitan of Kiev Joseph Bolgarinovic and Russo-Luthuanian Relation in the Late 15th Century

Summary/Abstract: The present article aims at arousing the scholars’ interest in Joseph Bolgarinovic, a man of probable Bulgarian descent who played an important role in the Russo-Lithuanian struggle for supremacy over the lands stretching from the Baltics to the Lower Danube in the late 15th century. Joseph was an archimandrite of the Holy Trinity monastery near Minsk; later he became bishop of Smolensk; finally, with the help of the Roman Catholic Grand Duke of Lithuania, Joseph became metropolitan of Kiev and Lithuania. The Grand Duke of Moscow, Ivan III, who strove to establish his sovereignty over the Eastern Orthodox population of Lithuania and to bring in under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the metropolitans of Moscow, refused to recognize Joseph’s ecclesiastical rank and had him accused of heresy. In reality, Joseph was a staunch supporter of Eastern Orthodoxy and succeeded in getting the ancient privileges of the Eastern Orthodox diocese of Kiev restored. Yet he opposed Ivan III’s policy of bringing the Orthodox Christian in Lithuania under Muscovite control. Furthermore, unlike his two Bulgarian predecessors at the head of the diocese of Kiev, Cyprian and Gregory Tzamblak, Joseph did not subscribe to the idea of an ecclesiastical union between the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches.

• Details
• Contents