Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus'


Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus' was a title of the Eastern Orthodox metropolitan bishops of the Kiev Metropolis under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople that existed in 988-1596 and later between 1620 and 1686.
Initially the metropolis of Kiev was located in Kiev, the capital of Kievan Rus, after the invasion of Mongols, its seat was split between the Grand Duchy of Moscow in Moscow and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in Vilnius.

History

In 1299, Maximus, Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus', "moved his official seat from Kiev to Vladimir, demonstrating the shift of the centre of Rus from the south-west to the north-east. The title though remained Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus and the metropolitan was supposed to be responsible for all Orthodox Christians in Rus, including those in Galicia, which became a kingdom in 1253, and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which had gained control of the former Polotsk Principality after the Mongol Invasion."
In 1325, the seat was moved from Vladimir to Moscow by the Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus' Peter of Moscow at the invitation of Ivan of Moscow.
With the appointment of Gregory II Bulgarian in 1458, the title was changed to Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' uniting both metropolis of Kiev and Halych. The Grand Duchy of Moscow decided to appoint their own metropolitans without approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch. After 1458 all Muscovite metropolitans were titled as Metropolitans of Moscow and all Rus'.
The last Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' Michael Rohoza accepted the Union of Brest in 1596, which created the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and changed Rohova's title to "Major Archbishop of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus'".
In 1620, at least partially to accommodate Christians who had resisted Brest, the Eastern Orthodox title and metroplis were recreated and granted to Job Boretsky, who became the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The last Exarch of the Ecumenical throne in Kiev, approved by the Ecumenical Patriarch in 1676, was Metropolitan :ru: Антоний |Antony Vinnitsky.
His successor, Gedeon Chetvertinsky, was ordained by Patriarch Joachim of Moscow in 1685, and transferred into the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow by the Ecumenical Patriarch, Dionysius IV, in 1686.
This resulted in a large Council that convened in Kiev declaring the election invalid and the ordination illicit and a 'canonical offense' because it occurred without the knowledge of the Ecumenical Patriarch.
Patriarch Dositheos of Jerusalem, who acted as a negotiator between Constantinople and Moscow proved critical, declared to his counterpart and Russian Ambassador “to grant...Kiev in trust to the Moscovite due to the prevailing tyranny, until the day comes for divine reckoning”.