4th Union of Brest workgroup held

Making no assumptions about what you know of Ukrainian history, the Union of Brest was:

"the 1595-1596 decision of the (Ruthenian) Church of Rus', the "Metropolia of Kiev-Halych and all Rus'", to break relations with the Patriarch of Constantinople and place themselves under the (patriarch) Pope of Rome, in order to avoid the domination of the newly established Patriarch of Moscow."

(UOC News) - On the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and all Ukraine on September 14-18 the session of the workgroup on writing the history of the Brest Union is held at the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine.

The group working on the project of writing history of the Brest Union of 1596 is composed of the Orthodox, Catholic and Greek Catholic researchers.

The project of writing the Brest Union history was launched by the international fund «Pro Oriente» in 2002 when the creation of the extra-confessional workgroup consisting of theologians and historians was initiated. The purpose of the project was carrying out the critical historical analysis of the sources, containing information on the events of 1595-96, caused by the attempts of the Orthodox Metropolitans to make Union with the Roman Catholic Church. The necessity of such research was stipulated for by the existence of the contradictory and mutually exclusive interpretations of the events by the end of the 16th century in various historical surveys. That is why the participants of the workgroup from the very beginning set a task to clear out on the basis of the sources how the events that took place 4 ages ago were understood by their participants.

By the present three sessions of the workgroup were held: In Vienna (2002), Teplytsia (2004)and Lviv (2006), during which the publication project of the research material was discussed and approved.

On September 14, on the premises of the Kyiv Metropolis in the Kyiv Caves Monastery the 4th session of the workgroup started. Its co-administrators were the fund «Pro Oriente» and the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC. Taking part in the meeting were President of the fund «Pro Oriente» Johann Marti (Austria), Archbishop Jeremiah of Vroclav and Schetin (the Orthodox Church of Poland), chariman of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC archimandrite Cyril (Hovorun), professor of the Institute of Theology and History of the Christian East and of the Catholic theological department of the University of Vienna priest Ernst Christoph Suttner (Austria), professor of the Institute of History of the University of Belostok Anton Mironovych (Poland), professor FranciszekMarek (Poland), Dean of the Institute of Church History of the Ukrainian Catholic University Oleg Turiy (Lviv), teacher of the Saint Tikhon Humanitarian University Vladyslav Petrushko (Moscow), teacher of the Kyiv Theological Academy Volodymyr Burega (Kyiv, the UOC representative), teacher of the Ukrainian Catholic University Igor Skogylias, Director of the European Research center of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy Kostyantyn Sigov (Kyiv), chief secretary of the fund «Pro Oriente» Marion Vittine (Austria).