25 Facts About Meletius Smotrytsky

Meletius Smotrytsky received his first formal education at the Ostroh Academy, where his father was a rector.

In 1608, Meletius Smotrytsky returned to Vilnius where he became a member of a local fraternity.

In 1618, Meletius Smotrytsky returned to Vilnius where at the Holy Spirit Monastery he took vows as a monk and assumed the name Miletius.

In 1620, Meletius Smotrytsky became the Archbishop of Polotsk, bishop of Vitebsk and Mstyslaw.

Meletius Smotrytsky suggested that before his conversion he was not sure what he believed, while his adoption of Catholicism restored his confidence in this regard.

Meletius Smotrytsky gave different dates for his decision to accept the Union, from 1623 up to 1628.

Meletius Smotrytsky said that since 1615 he had waged an internal battle, growing stronger in the course of writing his texts; in them he defended the Orthodox dogma with diminishing conviction, suggesting that, even before his chirotony, the bishop did not agree with the spirit of brotherhood following his anti-Uniate publication from Vilnius.

Several scholars claim that Archbishop Meletius Smotrytsky decided to convert to the Union under the influence of disenchantment which earned him a trip to Constantinople.

Meletius Smotrytsky hid the fact that he had already converted to the Union.

Meletius Smotrytsky's attitude began to raise suspicions among the clergy.

Meletius Smotrytsky claimed that for the first time after conversion, he had met with the Orthodox bishops of the Republic during the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lady in 1627 in Kyiv.

Meletius Smotrytsky delivered a speech at the meeting, discussing the six basic differences between the two confessions.

Hierarchs agreed thereby that contrary to earlier findings, Meletius Smotrytsky Smotrycki published no new treaty discussing the differences between the rival churches.

Meletius Smotrytsky later argued that both Metropolitan Job and Peter Mogila allowed for the conclusion of a new union.

Meletius Smotrytsky was accused of preaching heresy, including Sabellianism and Manichaeism.

Also, the Catholic Church immediately after the council of Kyiv decided Meletius Smotrytsky was not fully devoted to the union, especially since it was still not publicly acknowledged that he had left Orthodoxy.

Still in 1631 Meletius Smotrytsky wrote to Rome that he would like to be bishop of a Diocese of actually running in Ruthenia.

Uniate clergy in letters to Rome consistently asserted that Meletius Smotrytsky eagerly engaged in the life of the Church.

Meletius Smotrytsky still received letters from the brotherhood of Vilnius and from some Orthodox monks.

Meletius Smotrytsky's ever-increasing intolerance resulted from his conviction that only by adopt the union Ruthenians would become a political nation, respected on par with Poles and Lithuanians and preserving their autonomy.

Meletius Smotrytsky was convinced that attachment to the Ruthenian Catholic Church could bring a moral renewal of the Orthodox Church, as the former enjoyed the greatest freedom and had the best educated clergy.

Meletius Smotrytsky was buried in the monastery in Derman, which remained his residence from 1627.

Descriptions of supernatural events that took place after the death of Meletius Smotrytsky were given by his last confessor.

In 1635 a Basilian monk named Isaiah, who was a participant in the Meletius Smotrytsky's funeral, said the Onoratio Visconti, papal nuncio in Warsaw, that the deceased bishop kept in a coffin two lists - the papal and patriarchal.

Meletius Smotrytsky's work contributed greatly to the study of Church Slavonic texts throughout Eastern Europe.