59. Прекращение унии

After Little Russia annexed Russia and the Kiev Metropolitan Gideon submitted to Patriarch Joachim, the position of the Orthodox in the Western Russian regions subject to Poland became even more disastrous. All actions towards them on the part of the Jesuits and Poles were aimed at converting them to the union, and through the union to Catholicism. The persecutions that the Orthodox suffered in Poland at the end of the 17th and first half of the 18th centuries are reminiscent of the early times of the Church, persecuted by Jews and pagans. During the service, the Poles burst into the church in a crowd, beat the people and drove them out of the church. The Orthodox were driven like sheep into a church or Uniate church, shackled with iron collars, and starved to death. Priests were tied to poles, poisoned with dogs, their fingers were cut off, and their arms and legs were broken. The resolution of the Sejm of 1733 was to exclude Orthodox Christians and persons of other confessions, except Catholic, from all public positions. Of the four Orthodox dioceses recognized by the treaty between Russia and Poland in 1676, in the middle of the 18th century only Mogilev, or Belarusian, remained. Bishop Sylvester of Mogilev was doomed to death more than once. The famous theologian and speaker, Archbishop George of Konissky, was almost killed in a church in Orsha in 1759; another time, in 1761, an armed crowd of Jesuit students attacked the bishop's house and seminary, broke down the gates, beat and broke everything that came to hand, and mutilated the monks, students and ministers. Orthodox brotherhoods, which so powerfully defended their native faith in former times, closed almost everywhere from the intensified Latin and Uniate fanaticism. But better times have come for Orthodoxy in southwestern Russia. At the celebration of the coronation of Empress Catherine II, among others, Archbishop George of Konissky was present. In a touching speech, he described to her the extremely plight of the Orthodox Christians within Poland and Lithuania, and she then decided to put an end to their suffering. Through her envoys, she demanded that the situation of the Orthodox in Poland be alleviated. The Polish Sejm did not fulfill the demands of the empress; they only caused an explosion of anger on the part of the Catholics, and terrible persecution of the Orthodox began again. In response to these persecutions, popular reprisals took place in the Haidamak uprising. These internal unrest in Poland gave Empress Catherine a reason to decisively intervene in her affairs, the consequence of which was her three sections one after another in 1773, 1793 and 1794. All the ancient Russian regions that were under the power of Poland now became part of the Russian state, and in these regions Orthodoxy received complete freedom. Although the Uniates who lived in the regions annexed to Russia were not constrained in their confession, many of them, freed from Polish power, joyfully abandoned the union and returned to the faith of their ancestors. During the reign of Catherine, about two million Uniates and Catholics joined Orthodoxy. An even more decisive annexation of the Uniates to the Orthodox Church took place under Emperor Nicholas I. In the matter of this conversion, Joseph Semashko, who was later Metropolitan of Lithuania, worked a lot and rendered great services to the Church. Having been born and raised among the Orthodox population under the living impressions of the Orthodox church and worship, from childhood he acquired a love for Orthodoxy and looked at Catholicism as something alien and strange. Then, although he studied at Latin schools (in Nemirov and Vilna), he only took away from them a dislike for Catholicism. A man of high intelligence and education, with an energetic and unyielding character, Joseph occupied influential positions and places and at first tried to protect the union from becoming Catholicism, and then decided to return the Uniates to Orthodoxy. A whole series of measures aimed at this goal, under the close and even direct leadership of Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, caused a movement in the Uniate clergy towards reunification with the Orthodox Church. On February 2, 1839, all Greek-Uniate bishops and other clergy signed an act of this reunification. The Holy Synod made a resolution on the acceptance of the Uniates into communion with the Church. On this definition, the emperor signed: “Thanks to God and I accept.” On the occasion of this joyful event, a medal was minted. On it, above the image of the Lord Savior, there was an inscription: “Such are the imams of the High Priest,” and below were the words “Severed by violence (1596) reunited by love (1839).” After this, the union remained only within the boundaries of the former Kingdom of Poland, to which the Russian Kholm region belonged since ancient times; here was the only Greek-Uniate diocese in Russia. The abolition of serfdom in the Kingdom of Poland and a whole series of transformations for the benefit of this region under Emperor Alexander II revived the traditions of the fathers in the Kholmsky Uniates, and they finally joined the Orthodox Church in the first half of 1875, so that currently the union does not exist in Russia. However, despite all these happy events for Orthodoxy in recent times, not all of the southwest of Russia is still united with the Orthodox Church. Ancient Orthodox Galicia continues to experience a forced union with Rome under the rule of infidels. 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