Mohyliansky, Arsenii

Mohyliansky, Arsenii [Могилянський, Арсеній; Mohyljans'kyj, Arsenij; secular name: Олексій; Oleksii], b 17 March 1704 in Reshetylivka, Poltava regiment, d 8 June 1770 in Kyiv. Orthodox metropolitan. He studied at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy (1721–7) and the Kharkiv College (1727), where he later taught. In 1741 he became a teacher of catechism and grammar at the Moscow Greek-Slavonic-Latin Academy. In 1744 he was appointed archimandrite of the Trinity–Saint Sergius’s Monastery, consecrated a bishop, and appointed to the Holy Synod. In 1748 he was made official court preacher. In 1757–70 he was metropolitan of Kyiv. As metropolitan he introduced a number of reforms at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, including the teaching of arithmetic and geometry and the choosing of professors and the rector by the faculty council. He also renewed the school’s buildings and enriched its library. Mohyliansky actively defended the traditional rights of Kyiv metropoly against Russian centralism. He coauthored a petition to the Legislative Commission of 1767–8 that contained a program for the autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox church, including the retention of the title ‘Metropolitan of Kyiv, Halych, and Little Russia,’ renewal of the custom of electing the metropolitan from among local candidates, transfer of control of the Ukrainian church from the Holy Synod to the College of Foreign Affairs, and the stipulation that the metropolitan (not the Synod) confirm the appointment of bishops and hegumens in Ukraine. Several of Mohyliansky’s sermons were published in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. His biography, by N. Shpachinsky, appeared in Kyiv in 1907.

Arkadii Zhukovsky