Union of Brest

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Union of Brest (Belarusian: Берасьце́йская ву́нія, Polish: Unia brzeska) refers to 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. At the time, this church included most Ukrainians and Belarusians, under the rule of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The hierarchs of the Kievan church gathered in synod in the city of Brest composed 33 articles of Union, which were accepted by the Pope of Rome. At first widely successful, within several decades it had lost much of its initial support[1], mainly due to Imperial Russian persecution, though in Austrian Galicia, the church fared well and remains strong to this day, most notably in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

The union was strongly supported by the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Sigismund III Vasa, but opposed by some bishops and prominent nobles of Rus', and perhaps most importantly, by the nascent Cossack (Kozak) movement for Ukrainian self-rule. The result was "Rus' fighting against Rus'," and the splitting of the Church of Rus' into Greek Catholic (also known as Uniate [although this term is generally viewed as a derogative one by Catholics] or sui juris church) and Greek Orthodox jurisdictions.