Melchizedek

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Melkhisedek (Znachko-Yavorsky) (Ukrainian: Мельхіседек (Значко-Яворський)) was a famous religious figure and Archimandrite of the Kyivan Rus-Ukraine. As a religious leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the area, he played a key role during the Cossack-Christian uprising of XVIII century on the banks of river Dnipro called Koliivshchyna. Melkhisedek was born as Matviy around 1716 to the Lubny sotnik Karp Kostysh with a Cossack's nickname Znachko who in 1766 received an official certificate of affiliation with a noble family of Yavorsky. In 1738 Melkhisedek graduated from the Kyiv Academy. Same year he entered the Motronyn Holy Trinity monastery near Chyhyryn (today a nunnery). In 1745 Melkhisedek received monastic vows. In 1753 – 1768 he was a hegumen of the monastery. In 1761 Melkhisedek was placed in charge of all Orthodox monasteries and churches in the right-bank Ukraine by Bishop Hevrasiy Lyntsevsky and was suffragan to the Bishop of Pereyaslav. He was expressing a negative attitude toward the 1596 Union of Brest and defended interests of Orthodox church in right-bank Ukraine. Also Melkhisedek shown remarkable organizational abilities and extraordinary energy in defending Orthodox faith against advances of Uniate clergy in 1750-60s as well as established permanent relations with the Bishop of Mstislav, Orsha, and Mogilev Georgy (Konysky). In 1765 on several occasions Melkhisedek was received by the Empress Catherine the Great who on 8 September 1765 issued a rescript to her envoy in Warsaw Nicholas Repnin whom she obligated to obtain from the Polish authorities to stop religious oppression against Orthodox at the Right bank, particularly in voivodeships of Kyiv and Braclaw. In 1766 during paying a visit to the King of Poland Stanisław August Poniatowski, Melkhisedek asked from him a privilege which would guaranteed the rights of Orthodox. He obtained remarkable popularity among Ukrainian population of the Right bank. In...