Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/97

82 Job died in 1632. Peter Mogila, who succeeded him, was a man eminently qualified, by his firmness and decision of character, as well as by erudition and piety, to be head of the Church in difficult times.

This distinguished prelate, son of Simon Ivanovitch, hospodar of Moldavia, was educated in Paris, and in his youth had served with distinction in the wars of the Poles against the Turks; renouncing the career of arms, he entered the monastery of the Petcherski, at Kiev, and soon rose to be its superior. Appointed exarch by Cyril Lucar, patriarch of Constantinople, he boldly and courageously upheld the rights of the Greek Church at the Diet of Warsaw. To his able advocacy was mainly due the liberty of conscience proclaimed by King Vladislas and the restoration to the Orthodox of the churches, convents, and estates wrested from them by the Uniates. He established libraries and printing-presses, reopened seminaries and schools for the clergy, and sent chosen pupils to study in foreign universities. The celebrated academy of Kiev, founded by him in 1634, was a lasting memorial of his name.

During the reign of Vladislas the Orthodox Church enjoyed a short respite from persecution, during which Peter engaged in active theological controversy with its enemies. He issued from his presses the writings of the Greek fathers and books of the Church; he restored the purity of the ritual, and, with the assistance of the archimandrite, Isaiah Trophimovitch, he drew up a confession of the Orthodox faith, in order to authoritatively establish the cardinal points of its doctrine, and clear away the subtile errors and conflicting distinctions thrown around it by the writings of Jesuit and Roman theologians. This confession was revised by a council of bishops, and sent to Constantinople for approval and confir-