Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky became famous as an ardent patriot of Lithuania, a major commander, statesman and at the same time as a defender of the Orthodox faith in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Konstantin Ivanovich received his initial education under the guidance of his father’s boyars, as well as his elder brother, Mikhail. In 1486, the Ostrog brothers lived in Vilna at the court of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Casimir, where they moved in the highest circle of Volyn lords. At the same time, the Ostrog princes began to become accustomed to state affairs, joining the Grand Duke's retinue and accompanying him on his travels. In 1491, Prince Konstantin Ivanovich already received quite important assignments and enjoyed the full confidence of the Lithuanian Grand Duke. It is very likely that by then he had already managed to emerge from among numerous Volyn princes and lords, which could have been greatly facilitated by wealth and wide family connections. However, the rise of Prince Konstantin Ivanovich was greatly influenced, of course, by his personal merits, his military talent and experience. Hetman of Lithuania Pyotr Yanovich Beloy, on his deathbed, pointed out to Alexander Jagiellon Konstantin Ostrogsky as his successor. And Prince Konstantin Ivanovich was made hetman in 1497 at the age of 37. In addition, the new hetman received a number of land grants, which immediately made him, already rich, the largest ruler in Volyn.

The activities of K. Ostrozhsky occurred during a difficult period of aggravated relations between Lithuania and Moscow, when the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III, and then his son Vasily III, sought to subjugate the Russian lands that were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Some of the princes and major magnates of Lithuania, among whom were the princes Vorotynsky, Odoevsky, Trubetskoy, Belsky, Mezetsky, Mozhaisk, with their subject lands and cities, went over to the service of Moscow. The Lithuanian rulers tried to prevent this by force and retain the eastern territories of the Grand Duchy. This led to bloody wars, in which Hetman K. Ostrozhsky played a prominent role. In the war of 1500-1503, the central battle was the battle on the Vedrosh River in July 1500. 40 thousand people took part in it on both sides. The Lithuanian army was commanded by K. Ostrogsky, the Moscow army was commanded by governor Daniil Shchenya. At the beginning of the battle, the Russian advanced regiment, with an imaginary retreat, lured the Lithuanian army to the other side of the river, where it was unexpectedly attacked by the main forces of Moscow and surrounded. The Lithuanian regiments fled and suffered a crushing defeat. About 8 thousand people died. Most of the military leaders, including K. Ostrogsky himself, were captured. The winners captured all the Lithuanian artillery and convoys. The captured K. Ostrozhsky was sent under strict supervision to Vologda. At the same time, he was forced to go into the service of Moscow, and, obeying the circumstances, K. Ostrozhsky swore allegiance to Ivan III, was appointed governor and received considerable estates. However, in his soul he did not betray his fatherland and, when the opportunity presented itself in 1507, he escaped from captivity. In Lithuania, the title of Great Hetman was returned to K. Ostrozhsky, and other positions were granted. During the war of 1512-1522, K. Ostrogsky conducted a number of successful military operations. The largest battle took place near Orsha on September 8, 1514. From Moscow, 80 thousand people took part in the battle. The 35,000-strong Lithuanian army was commanded by K. Ostrogsky. Having a numerical superiority, the Moscow governors allowed K. Ostrozhsky to cross the Dnieper without hindrance, planning to then destroy the bridges, cut off the Lithuanians’ path to retreat, press them to the river and defeat them. But this plan failed. In an effort to take revenge for the defeat at Vedrosha, K. Ostrozhsky, with a feigned retreat, lured the Moscow cavalry under the fire of his cannons, and then dealt crushing blows to the upset ranks of the enemy. The battle ended with the complete defeat of the Muscovites. They lost up to 30 thousand people. Moscow governors were captured. This was Moscow's biggest defeat in the wars with Lithuania. In 1517, K. Ostrozhsky undertook a campaign against Pskov, but met courageous resistance from the garrison of the border fortress Opochka, which upset the commander’s plans. According to some sources, during his life K. Ostrogsky won 63 victories and twice, by the will of the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania, made a solemn triumphal entry into Krakow and Vilnius. prince of ostrog culture faith

Prince K. Ostrogsky was the most powerful patron and benefactor of the Orthodox Church and Russian cultural tradition in Lithuania. He renovated and built churches, generously endowed monasteries and parishes with land and gifts, and in this he surpassed all his compatriots and co-religionists. He more than once received special honors for his victories as a commander, and enjoyed the respect of the people, lords, the Grand Duke of Lithuania and the King of Poland. Therefore, his voice in defense of the interests of the Orthodox Church and Russian culture had special power before the ruler of Lithuania. K. Ostrozhsky sought to mitigate laws that were unequal in relation to Orthodoxy. Despite the ban on building Orthodox churches, under the influence of K. Ostrozhsky, the Grand Duke moved away from these prohibitions, and sometimes he himself provided patronage to Orthodox parishes. In 1506, the Prechistensky Cathedral in Vilnius was seriously damaged. Its main dome collapsed and cracks appeared in the walls. In 1511, K. Ostrozhsky asked the Grand Duke for a letter to restore the temple and rebuilt it on the old foundation, placing a large dome in the middle and four towers in the corners. In 1514, before the battle with Moscow near Orsha, K. Ostrozhsky made a solemn vow in the event victory to build two stone churches in Vilnius. The victory was followed by the fulfillment of the vow. At the request of K. Ostrogsky, Grand Duke Sigismund temporarily lifted the ban on the construction of Orthodox churches in the Lithuanian capital. So, by the will of K. Ostrozhsky, in place of the wooden one, the Trinity Church was rebuilt from stone and the St. Nicholas Church was renewed.

Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky died at an advanced age on September 11, 1530 in Turov. He was buried in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra.

Literature

• 1. Narys of history of Belarus.
• 2. Encyclopedia Wikipedia.
• 3. Lecture material.

In the 14th century, when in eastern Rus' Moscow considered itself the embryos of a unified Russian state, coups took place in the west that inclined the other half of Rus' to political and social alienation from the Russian world. In the first quarter of this century, the Lithuanian prince Gediminas, son of Vytenes, a man of extraordinary talents, conquered the Belarusian and Volyn cities, with their lands, expelled the main prince in the Volyn land Lev from Lutsk, then in 1319-20. on the Irpen River (Kyiv province) he defeated the princes of the house of St. Vladimir, who united against him, and captured Kiev and Pereyaslavl with their lands. The consequence of these conquests was that the princely house of St. Vladimir completely lost its importance in the west. Some princes fled, others were demoted to the status of subordinate rulers, and their place in the sense of appanage princes was replaced by princes of Lithuanian origin. Gediminas divided the Russian possessions he conquered among his children and relatives; in Volyn he became prince Lubart, in Novgorod Koriat, in Pinsk Narimunt; in Kiev, Prince Montvid was appointed assistant to Gediminas, etc. These Lithuanian princes accepted Orthodoxy and the Russian nationality, and their closest descendants became Russified to such an extent that there were no signs of their former origin left in them. This revolution, in essence, was only dynastic; but the difference between the order of affairs under the princes of the house of St. Vladimir and under the princes of the house of Gediminas was that the princes of the Lithuanian house depended on the Grand Duke, who was in Lithuania, and with their appanages were in fief submission to him. The Polotsk and Vitebsk lands had previously been under the rule of the princes of the Lithuanian tribe, who probably achieved reign by choice, and subsequently these lands submitted to Gediminas, and then were already under the rule of the princes of his family.

Following the conquest of the Russian lands by Gediminas, another revolution took place in Chervona Rus. After the death of the main prince of this land, a direct descendant of King Danil, Yuri II, the Galician and Vladimir boyars called to themselves Prince Boleslav of Mazowiecki, a descendant of Danil of Galicia on the female line; but this prince converted to Catholicism, as a result of this he showed disdain for the Orthodox faith, surrounded himself with foreigners and mistreated the Russians; he was poisoned, and in 1340 the Polish king Casimir, as an avenger for Boleslav, took possession of Lvov and all of the Galician land, as well as Volyn, but after that he had to endure a long struggle with the Russians, who defended their independence. The main figure in this struggle from the Russian side was Prince Ostrozhsky, named Danilo, otherwise Danko: he was a descendant of Roman, one of the sons of Danil of Galitsky; his hatred of Polish rule was so great that Danilo Ostrozhsky led the Tatars to Poland. With him was the son of Gediminas Lubart, baptized under the name Theodora. After a long bloodshed, Casimir retained only part of Volhynia. Since then, the lands that came under the rule of Poland remained with it forever and began to little by little accept Polish influence in their internal structure of life and language.

The son of Gediminas, Grand Duke Olgerd, expanded the Russian possessions inherited from his father: he annexed the Podolian land to his state, driving out the Tatars from there. Rus', subject to him, was divided between the princes, whom, however, Olgerd, a man of strong character, held in his hands. In Kiev, he planted his son Vladimir, who gave rise to a new family of Kyiv princes, who dominated there for more than a century and are usually called Olelkovichs, from Olelko, or Alexander Vladimirovich, Olgerd's grandson. Olgerd himself, who was twice married to Russian princesses, allowed his sons to be baptized into the Russian faith and, as Russian chronicles say, he himself was baptized and died as a schema-monk. Thus, the princes who replaced the family of St. Vladimir in Rus' became the same Russians in faith and in the nationality they adopted, as the princes of the family that preceded them were. The Lithuanian state bore the name of Lithuania, but, of course, it was purely Russian and would not have ceased to remain completely Russian in the future if Olgerd’s son and successor in the grand ducal dignity, Jagiello (otherwise Jagiello), had not united in marriage with the Polish queen Jadwiga in 1386. As a result of this marriage, he converted to Catholicism, became a zealous champion of the newly adopted faith and, indulging the Poles, patronized both the spread of the Catholic faith in the Russian lands and the introduction of the Polish people into Rus'. At this time, the germ of a phenomenon was laid, which subsequently for many centuries constituted a distinctive feature of mutual relations between Rus' and Poland. The concept of faith closely merged with the concept of nationality. Whoever was a Catholic was already a Pole; whoever considered himself and called himself Russian was Orthodox, and belonging to the Orthodox faith was the most obvious sign of belonging to the Russian people. Jagiello was a man of a soft heart, weak will and limited mind. He left Lithuania and Russia under the control of his cousin Alexander Vitovt, who was distinguished by his ambitious plans, but at the same time his inability to carry them through to completion. Vytautas constantly hesitated and fell into contradictions, thought about the independence of his Russian-Lithuanian state, but he himself accepted Catholicism in opposition to the Russian people, who firmly stood for Orthodoxy, yielded to the Poles in everything and accommodated their claims. Jagiello granted Lithuanian and Russian landowners those free independent rights that relieved them of feudal responsibilities - the rights that the Poles enjoyed in their own country. But Jagiello extended these benefits in Lithuania and Rus' only to those who accepted the Roman faith. In 1413, the first union of Lithuania with Poland took place. The Poles and Lithuanians pledged to consult each other when choosing rulers, not to undertake wars without the other, and to gather at congresses for general advice on their mutual affairs. Having concluded such an agreement, Vytautas constantly made attempts to destroy it, dreamed of a Russian-Lithuanian state, but did not achieve it and still remained in history as one of the most important preparers for the enslavement of Rus' by Poland. The Russians did not tolerate him, realizing that the state he wanted to create would not be Russian. Vitovt’s brother Svidrigello (otherwise Svidrigailo), who retained the Orthodox faith and was married to the Tver princess Juliania Borisovna, did not treat the Russian people this way. This man, like Vitovt, was guided by ambition itself, but surpassed the first in intelligence and fidelity of vision. His goal was to become an independent Russian-Lithuanian sovereign, independent of the Polish king, but he realized that for this he needed to go along with the Russian people. For half a century, Svidrigello fought against Poland, being at the head of the Russian people, who were very attached to him for a long time. This struggle took place during Vytautas’s lifetime; after the death of the latter, Svidrigello became the Grand Duke of Lithuania, also as an assistant to Jagiell, as Vytautas was, but did not double down and hesitate, like Vytautas, but immediately began to openly act as an independent Russian sovereign, and attempted to take away those Russian possessions from Poland , which were attached to it directly. The Poles, in connivance with the Lithuanian lords who converted to Catholicism, overthrew Svidrigella, and in his place Vitovt's brother, the Catholic Sigismund, was appointed Grand Duke of Lithuania, who recognized himself as a fief of Poland. But Rus' was behind Svidrigella. A stubborn, bloody struggle lasted for several years not only against the Poles, but also against the Lithuanians, supporters of Sigismund; finally, Svidrigello himself, who had already entered old age, was tired of leading it, and, moreover, both his actions and circumstances deprived him of support among the Russian people.

Svidrigello armed the Lithuanians and Russians against himself with cruel executions of his ill-wishers, sometimes carried out on mere suspicion; so, by the way, he, suspecting the Smolensk bishop Gerasim, his former favorite, of having relations with Sigismund, ordered him to be burned alive. In all this struggle between the Russians and the Poles, one of the Russian princes Fyodor, or Fedko Ostrozhsky, tirelessly acted together with Svidrigello, but Svidrigello began to suspect him of treason; Svidrigello ordered this comrade of many years of struggle and wandering to be imprisoned. Fedko, freed by the Poles, made peace with the Polish king. Svidrigell was left with only Lutsk. The new Polish king, the son of Jagiell, Vladislav (called Varna in history, on the occasion of his death in battle with the Turks near Varna, in 1444) dealt a decisive blow to Svidrigella’s assassination attempts with his relationship to the Russian people and to the Russian faith. Until now, the Poles have seized power in Rus' year after year through violence. King Vladislav Jagiello built churches, endowed them with estates, distributed land and positions to Catholics, established cities and villages in Rus', populated them with Poles and gave them privileges that the inhabitants of old Russian cities and villages did not have. Then the so-called Magdeburg law appeared, which consisted of various benefits, introducing a certain system of self-government and with it the German division of urban artisans and traders into guilds, according to their occupations. This right was given only to new cities inhabited by Catholics - Poles and Germans. Many of the latter settled in Rus' at that time. Settlers of new villages were exempted from various payments and duties, from which there was no exemption for old Russian villages. Zemyans (former landowner boyars) had equal rights with the Polish gentry and were exempted from various payments, but only when they converted to Catholicism; in this case, they served in the army with a salary, but while remaining in Orthodoxy, they did not receive it. By accepting the Catholic faith, Russians, like Lithuanians, lost their nationality and were almost remade into Poles. The entire population of Western Rus' was thus divided into privileged and unprivileged, and the latter were the Orthodox inhabitants of Russian lands. Władysław Jagiell's successor, Władysław II (1434), began to act in a different spirit than his father, although for the same purpose. He extended the privileges and benefits enjoyed by Russian Zemyans of the Latin faith to all Russian Zemyans without exception. This was the beginning of the reconciliation of Rus' with Poland and the main reason that Svidrigell’s plans could no longer find the same sympathy, since the Russian peasants, who constituted the strength of the region, felt for themselves the benefits of rapprochement with Poland, instead of seeing in it hostile beginning, as it was before that time. In 1443, King Vladislav II gave a charter, according to which he equalized the Russian Church and the Russian clergy in all rights with the Roman Catholic. Thus, hostile movements on the part of the Orthodox clergy ceased. Sigismund, the former Grand Duke of Lithuania, was killed in 1443 by the princes of Chertorizhsky; but Svidrigello could no longer regain his great reign, remained inactive in Lutsk and died in old age (in 1452). The new Lithuanian prince after Sigismund was Jagiell's son Casimir. The following year, 1444, he was elected king of Poland, and during the entire continuation of his long reign there was no longer a separate grand duke in Lithuania. Casimir acted in everything in the spirit of Polish policy; although he did not openly pursue the Orthodox faith by force, he contributed to the spread of Catholicism and introduced all the signs of the Polish system into the Russian lands. The peasants received the broadest rights: they became, so to speak, full sovereigns in their estates. Instead of appanage princes, assistants to the Grand Duke, voivodes and castellans, appointed for life, were introduced, following the Polish model. Thus, by the way, in Kyiv, in 1476, after the death of Prince Mikhail from the family of Vladimir Olgerdovich, governors began. This position was given to noble persons. The princes, descendants of Gediminas and St. Vladimir, became independent owners of their estates on a par with the Polish lords: they possessed enormous wealth, and the entire Russian land, especially the south, was in the possession of a few families, such as the Ostrozhsky, Zaslavsky (who constituted another branch of one house with the Strozhskys), the Vishnevetskys and the Zbarazhskys - descendants of Olgerd, the Chertorizhskys, the Sangushkis, the Voronetskys, the Rozhinskys, the Chetvertinskys and others. The aristocracy began to dominate in Rus'. The rest of the people became more and more dependent on her. The owners had the right to judge their subjects and did not allow the king to interfere in their governance. Cities, largely filled with Jews, one after another received Magdeburg law, but, with the strength of the aristocracy, they could not be protected from the arbitrariness of powerful nobles. The Polish order more and more rightfully belonged to the upper class, and this led the Russian Zemyans to greater rapprochement with Poland. After Casimir, Lithuania and Poland for some time had separate rulers in the person of the Polish king John Albrecht and his brother, Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander. But this lasted for a short time; Soon after the death of Albrecht, Poland and Lithuania united again under the rule of Alexander, elected King of Poland, and since then there have been no separate grand dukes in Lithuania. At this time, the condition of the lower class of the people, the so-called khmets or khlops, became more difficult. The lords were not embarrassed by the more ancient custom of not transferring khlops from one land to another and often completely deprived them of land; Thus, the lower class, the farmers, found themselves landless, and thereby enslaved by those who owned the lands. Land ownership could only be the property of people of noble rank. In the 16th century, Poland and Lithuania were ruled by one king after another: Sigismund I and his son Sigismund Augustus. The rights of the nobility have reached their extreme limits. The master's subjects were completely excluded from the king's protection. The position of a non-gentry person was humiliated to such an extent that, according to Lithuanian laws, included in a collection called the Lithuanian Statute, a nobleman who killed someone else's clap or even a free person, but not a nobleman, was punished only by paying a penalty (anniversary). Although the same right was granted to all people of gentry origin, both rich and poor, in reality this equality could not be maintained, given the disproportionality of the property of landowners: the mass of free gentry became, in essence, subordinate to noble lords who owned vast expanses of land and hundreds of even thousands of settlements. At this time, Poland, both in geographical location and in living conditions, which stood closer than Rus' to Western Europe, where the era of spiritual revival began, was much higher than Rus' in mental education, and the Russian nobility naturally submitted to its civilizing influence. While the Poles had the Krakow Academy, many schools, remarkable scientists and poets of their time appeared, acquaintance with Latin literature was widespread, communication with Western enlightenment was not interrupted, darkness reigned in Polish and Lithuanian Rus', almost no measures were taken for education in the area of ​​their nationality. Southern and Western Rus' stood in this respect even lower than the North-Eastern, where, at least, ancient monuments of Slavic literature were preserved and where, as we have seen, more or less remarkable fruits of mental work appeared from time to time. In Polish and Lithuanian Rus' for a long time we see nothing but official papers written in a language that testifies to the ever-increasing influence and origin of the Polish language. Thus, in the 16th century, a special Russian written language emerged, representing a mixture of ancient Slavic-ecclesiastical language with folk local dialects and the Polish language. Polish influence dominated this language more and more and finally brought it to the point that it became almost a Polish language, only with the retention of Russian phonetics. The Polish influence was also reflected in the common speech: Polish words, expressions and phrases began to enter the common language of the Little Russian and Belarusian branches. At the same time, Polish morals and views began to penetrate into Russian high society; Thus, Polish-Lithuanian Rus' adopted a special physiognomy that distinguished it from northeastern Rus' not only by ancient ethnographic differences, but by its strong proximity to Poland, and in the future, obviously, a complete merger of western and southern Rus' with Poland was being prepared.

The descendants of Fyodor Ostrozhsky, who fought for so long for the independence of Rus' 1, remained loyal to Poland, just as the Russian upper class in general, which saw inexhaustible benefits for itself in uniting with Poland, was loyal to it. In addition to the unconditional right to own their family estates, paying almost nothing to the treasury, the Russian gentlemen, in accordance with Polish custom, also received state property, called starostvo, for life, with the obligation to give a quarter of the income from them for the maintenance of the army and the support of fortifications. All this naturally tied them to the country from which such benefits flowed for them.

The great-grandson of Fyodor Ostrozhsky, famous for his fight for Rus' against Poland, was the famous Konstantin Ivanovich, Hetman of Lithuania, a faithful servant of the Polish king, who was captured by Ivan III and then avenged his captivity with the defeat inflicted on the Moscow army near Orsha. Enmity towards Orthodox Moscow and faithful service to the Catholic king did not prevent him from being famous for his Orthodox piety. 2 He generously built and decorated Orthodox churches, at the same time he opened schools for children in the churches and, thus, laid the beginning of Russian enlightenment.

His son Konstantin Konstantinovich was the Kyiv governor and one of the most noble and influential lords of Poland and Lithuania for more than half a century, and moreover, during the most glorious and eventful era of Polish history. He was not distinguished by either military exploits or statesmanship; on the contrary, from modern letters of the Polish kings we learn about him that he incurred reproaches for negligence in protecting the province entrusted to him, left the Kiev castle in a sad situation, so that Kiev could constantly be devastated by the Tatars; in addition, he did not pay the taxes that followed from his elders. In his youth, as they say, he showed himself in domestic life in a not entirely plausible way: so, by the way, he helped Prince Dimitry Sangushka to forcibly take away his niece Ostrozhskaya. Some features of his life show him as a vain and vain gentleman. He possessed enormous wealth: in addition to family estates, which included up to eighty cities with several thousand villages, he owned four huge elderships granted to him in southern Rus'; his income reached up to a million red zlotys a year. In such a situation, Konstantin Konstantinovich paid a large sum to one castellan only for the fact that he had to stand behind his chair during lunch twice a year; for the sake of originality, he kept a glutton at his court, who surprised the guests by eating an incredible amount of food at breakfast and lunch. It was not so much the personal abilities of Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich, but his brilliant position that gave him great importance and placed him at the center of the intellectual activity emerging at that time in Rus'. Like the nobles of his time, he showed himself to be a supporter of Poland, at the famous Sejm of 1569 he signed the annexation of Volhynia and the Kiev voivodeship to the Polish kingdom for eternity, and by his example contributed greatly to the success of this matter. Being Russian, and considering himself Russian, he, however, submitted to the influence of Polish education and used the Polish language, as his family letters show. Remaining in the faith of his fathers, Ostrogsky, however, was inclined towards the Jesuits, allowed them into his possessions and especially caressed one of them, named Motovil: this is clearly evident from Kurbsky’s letters to him. The Moscow exile reproached Ostrozhsky for the fact that Ostrozhsky had sent him Motovil’s work and was friends with the Jesuits. “O my beloved sovereign,” Kurbsky wrote to him, “why did you send me a book written by the enemy of Christ, the assistant of the Antichrist and his faithful servant? Who are you friends with, who do you communicate with, who do you call for help!.. Accept from me, your faithful servant, advice with meekness: stop making friends with these adversaries, deceitful and evil. No one can be a friend of the king if he makes friends with his enemies and holds a snake in his bosom; I beg you three times, stop doing this, be like your forefathers in zeal for piety." Thus, this Russian gentleman succumbed to the Jesuit machinations. Subsequently, it is noticeable that Ostrozhsky succumbed to the influence of Protestantism. In one of his letters to his grandson, his daughter’s son, Radziwill , he wrote an instruction so that he should not go to church, but advised him to go to the meeting of Calvinists and called them followers of the true law of Christ. His passion for Protestantism, however, came from the fact that the illustrious prince saw the Christian actions of Protestants. Ostrozhsky pointed out with respect the fact that they had schools and printing houses, that their pastors were distinguished by good morals and contrasted them with the decline of church deanery in the Russian church, the ignorance of priests, the material self-will of archpastors, the indifference of the laity to matters of faith. “The rules and regulations of our church,” he said, “ in contempt among foreigners; our fellow believers not only cannot stand up for God’s Church, but even laugh at it; there are no teachers, no preachers of God's word; everywhere there is a famine of hearing the word of God, frequent apostasy; I have to say with the Prophet: who will give water to my head and a source of tears to my eyes!”

Some Russian people took advantage of this mood of the noble lord and prompted Ostrozhsky to become, to some extent, the engine of mental and religious revival in Polish Rus'. Probably, Kurbsky’s convictions and reproaches contributed greatly to this mood. Ostrozhsky respected Kurbsky; Ostrozhsky sent him various works for review and, among other things, a wonderful book by the Jesuit Skarga “On the United Church,” written specifically for the purpose of preparing a union. Kurbsky returned this book to Ostrozhsky with the same reproaches as Motovil’s work; for his part, Kurbsky sent the “Discourse of John Chrysostom on Faith, Hope and Love”, translated by him from Latin, and was angry with Prince Ostrozhsky when the latter reported Kurbsky’s translation to some Pole, whom Kurbsky called “an unlearned barbarian who imagined himself a sage” . The Moscow exile, seeing the growing influence of the Jesuits in his new fatherland, tried with all his might to counteract them, as well as the dominance of the Polish language. When Ostrozhsky, who liked Kurbsky’s writing, advised to translate it into Polish for greater dissemination, Kurbsky rejected this proposal: “Even if quite a few scientists came together,” he wrote, “they would not be able to literally translate the grammatical subtleties of the Slavic language into their “Polish barbaria.” They cannot cope not only with Slavic or Greek speech, but also with their beloved Latin.” Then it became a custom among Russian lords, for the sake of enlightenment, to entrust the upbringing of children to the Jesuits. Kurbsky spoke with praise in general about the desire to teach children science, but did not see any benefit from the Jesuits. “Already many of the parents (he wrote to Princess Chertorizhskaya) of the families of princes, gentry and honest citizens sent their children to study science, but the Jesuits did not teach them anything, but only, taking advantage of their youth, turned them away from orthodoxy.” Judging by Kurbsky’s letters to various people, one can probably believe that this Moscow fugitive had a strong influence on the activities of Prince Ostrozhsky in the field of preserving the faith and reviving literary education, since he was constantly in close relations with Ostrozhsky.

The embryos of the intellectual and religious movement in Polish-Lithuanian Rus' appeared at the beginning of the 16th century. Polotsk resident Skorinna translated the Bible into Russian and printed it in Czech Prague, due to the lack of a printing house in Rus'. In the half of the 16th century, Protestantism, which spread in Lithuania, contributed to the literary awakening of Russian speech. In 1562, there was a printing house in Nesvizh, and the once famous Simon Budny, a man of great learning, printed the Protestant catechism in Russian 3. A little later, the Lithuanian hetman Grigory Aleksandrovich Khodkevich founded a printing house on his estate Zabludov; Typographers Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets, who had left Moscow, came to him there: they printed there, in 1569, an explanatory Gospel, a large tome. This was the work of the famous Maxim the Greek, later reprinted in the same form in Moscow. But Khodkevich’s printing house was, apparently, only a temporary lord’s whim. After the death of Grigory Khodkevich, the heirs did not support the establishment. Typographer Ivan Fedorov moved to Lvov, and then to Ostrog, and it was here that a printing house was founded, which laid a more solid foundation for the literary and printing business in southern Rus'. In 1580, the Slavic Bible was printed for the first time by order of Ostrozhsky. In the preface to the Bible, on behalf of Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky, it was said that he was prompted to this matter by the sad situation of the church, trampled on by enemies everywhere and tormented without mercy by merciless wolves, and no one is able to resist them due to the lack of spiritual weapons - the word of God. In all the countries of the Slavic family and language, Ostrozhsky could not find a single correct copy of the Old Testament and finally received it only from Moscow through the mediation of Mikhail Garaburda. At the same time, Prince Ostrog communicated with Rome, with the islands of the Greek archipelago (with the Candian ones), with the Patriarch of Constantinople Jeremiah, Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian monasteries in order to obtain from there copies of the Holy Scriptures, both Hellenic and Slavic, and wanted to be guided by the advice of people, knowledgeable in scripture. The first printed Bible published by Ostrozhsky constitutes an era in Russian literature and in general in the history of Russian education. The Bible was followed by a number of publications, both liturgical books and various works of religious content. Among them, an important place is occupied by the book: “On the One True and Orthodox Faith and the Holy Apostolic Church,” written by priest Vasily and published in 1588: this book served as a refutation of Skarga’s work, published in Polish with almost the same title, and was intended to defend the Eastern Church against the reproaches made by supporters of the Latin Church. Here we consider questions that constituted the essence of the differences between churches: about the procession of the Holy Spirit, about the power of the pope, about unleavened bread, about spiritual celibacy, about Saturday fasting. This book was important in its time because it introduced the essence of those issues that were to become the subject of live competitions; Orthodox readers could learn from this book: what and how they should object to the beliefs of the Western clergy, who then launched their propaganda among the Russian people. The Ostroh printing house also published several books of religious content: “Leaves of Patriarch Jeremiah” and “Dialogue of Patriarch Gennady” (in 1583), “Confession of the Procession of the Holy Spirit” (1588). In 1594, Basil the Great's book "On Fasting" was published in a large volume, and in 1596, "Margarita" by John Chrysostom. At the same time as the printing house, in 1580, Ostrozhsky founded his main school in Ostrog and, in addition, several schools in his possessions. The rector of the main Ostrog school, the founder of higher educational institutions on Russian soil, was the Greek scientist Cyril Loukaris, who later received the rank of Patriarch of Constantinople. In addition to Ostrog, Prince Ostrozhsky opened a printing house in the Dermansky monastery.

At the same time, another important driver of the awakening of mental life in Rus' was the establishment of brotherhoods and partnerships with moral and religious goals, which included people of all classes without distinction, but who certainly belonged to a single church. Such brotherhoods began to arise out of imitation of Western ones. The first of these brotherhoods in Polish Rus' to acquire historical significance was the Lviv one, founded with the blessing of the Antiochian Patriarch Joachim, who visited the Russian region in 1586. His main goals were the upbringing of orphans, charity for the poor, assistance to victims of various misfortunes, ransoming prisoners, burial and commemoration of the dead, assistance during public disasters - in general, works of charity. The members had their own specific meetings and each contributed six groschen to the common circle. Then, under the brotherhood, the townspeople opened a school, a printing house and a hospital. In addition to the Holy Scriptures, the school taught Slavic grammar along with Greek, and for this purpose a Hellenic-Slavic grammar was compiled and published, in which the rules of both languages ​​were comparatively stated. Private education was constrained: everyone could teach only their own children and households. Following the model of the Lvov brotherhood, a Trinity brotherhood was established in Vilna, and then brotherhoods began to be founded in other cities. Of these, Lvov was given eldership. The mere fact that people of all classes came together in the name of the fatherly faith, improvement of morality and expansion of the range of concepts had an effect on raising the national spirit. Patriarch Joachim, establishing the Lviv brotherhood, entrusted him with supervision over the fulfillment of their spiritual duties, as well as over the piety and good morals of both the clergy and the laity; Thus, the clergy became dependent on the public court of secular people: this was completely opposite to the views of the Western clergy, who always jealously worked to ensure that people who do not belong to the clergy blindly obey the instructions of the clergy, and did not at all dare to talk about matters of faith, otherwise as under the guidance of spiritual ones, and did not dare to condemn their actions. But even the Russian highest spiritual dignitaries did not like the founding of brotherhoods. The Lvov ruler Gideon immediately entered into hostile relations with the Lvov brotherhood.

The structure of the Orthodox Church in Rus', subject to Poland, was in a sad situation. The highest spiritual dignitaries, coming from noble families, instead of going through the ladder of monastic ranks in accordance with Orthodox customs, received their places directly from the secular rank, and, moreover, not by test, but by connections, thanks to the patronage of the powerful or through bribery, winning over the royal courtiers. Bishops and archimandrites ruled church estates with all the privileges of the court and the arbitrariness of the secular lords of their time, kept armed detachments, according to the custom of secular owners, in the event of quarrels with neighbors they allowed themselves violent attacks and in their home life they led a lifestyle completely unbecoming of their rank . There were examples of noble lords asking the king for episcopal and rectoral positions and, remaining uninitiated, using church bread, as they put it then. One contemporary notes: “The rules of the Holy Father do not allow anyone under thirty years of age to be ordained to the priesthood, but with us they sometimes allow a fifteen-year-old. He can’t read, but he is sent to preach the word of God; he didn’t run his own house, but he had a church order is entrusted." Bishops, archimandrites, and abbots had brothers, nephews, and children, to whom they distributed church property for management. The luxurious life of high dignitaries led to the oppression of subjects in church estates. “You,” the Athonite monk denounced the Russian bishops, “are taking away oxen and horses from the poor villagers, extracting monetary tribute from them, torturing them, tormenting them with work, sucking the blood from them.” The lower clergy was in extreme humiliation. Poor monasteries were converted into farms, the rulers set up kennels in them for their hunting, and the monks were ordered to keep dogs. Parish priests suffered from both the bishops and secular people. The rulers treated them rudely, arrogantly, burdened them with taxes in their favor, and punished them with imprisonment and beatings. The secular owner of the village appointed such a priest as he wished, and this priest did not differ in any way from the clap in relation to the owner; the master sent him with a cart, drove him to his work, took his children into his service. The Russian priest, notes a contemporary, was a perfect man by his upbringing; did not know how to behave decently; there was nothing to talk to him about. The title of presbyter reached such contempt that an honest person was ashamed to join it and it was difficult to say where the priest was more often, in the church or in the tavern. Often the service was performed in a drunken state with seductive antics, and usually the priest, while performing the service, did not understand at all what he was reading, and did not even try to understand. Given this state of the clergy, it is clear that the common people lived their ancient pagan life, preserved pagan views and beliefs, celebrated pagan festivals according to their forefathers’ customs and did not have the slightest idea about the essence of Christianity, and the upper class began to be ashamed of their belonging to the Orthodox religion; Catholics supported this false shame with all their might. Jesuit Skarga, the favorite of King Sigismund III, even mocked the liturgical language of the Russian Church in the following expressions: “What kind of language is this? Nowhere is philosophy, theology, or logic taught in it; there can’t even be grammar or rhetoric in it! Sami "Russian priests are unable to explain what they read in church, and are forced to ask others for explanations in Polish. This language results in nothing but ignorance and delusion."

Under the conditions of that time, it was only possible to raise the falling church and popular piety by forming the focus of revival not in the clergy, but outside it, in secular life. The brotherhoods were to become the main instrument of this revival. Patriarch Jeremiah, traveling through southern Rus' in 1589, established the rights of the Lvov brotherhood and even expanded them: he freed the brotherhood from the dependence of the local ruler and from any other secular and spiritual authority, did not allow there to be any other Orthodox school in Lvov, except the fraternal one, and left it behind it supervision over the episcopal court and, on the complaint of the brotherhood, imposed a ban on the Lviv bishop Gideon Balaban. Balaban turned to the Roman Catholic bishop of Lvov, and the first of the then Russian bishops expressed a desire to submit to the pope.

During his stay in southern Rus', Patriarch Jeremiah deposed the Kyiv Metropolitan Onesiphorus the Girl under the pretext that he had previously been a bigamist, and instead dedicated Michael Ragoza, who, apparently, had already been set up by the Jesuits. The Patriarch was mistaken about this man. But he was even more mistaken in that, without giving full power to the metropolitan, he appointed Lutsk Bishop Kirill Terletsky, an immoral man and even accused of the most heinous atrocities, such as robberies, rapes and murders, as his exarch (vicar).

The Russian clergy was very dissatisfied with the patriarch for giving such power to the brotherhoods and putting the clergy under the supervision of the laity: in addition, they complained about him for various exactions from the Russian clergy: being subordinate to the Turkish authorities, the patriarchs and Greek saints in general were in such a position, that they needed alms collected in Orthodox lands. “We are such sheep,” said the Russian clergy, “which they only milk and shear, and do not feed.”

The next year after Jeremiah’s departure, the Metropolitan assembled a synod of Orthodox bishops in Brest. Everyone began to complain about the burden of dependence on the patriarch and grumbled about the brotherhoods, especially the Lviv one, which, according to the charter of Patriarch Jeremiah in 1593, was under the direct supervision of the patriarch. “How,” said the bishops, “give some gathering of bakers, traders, saddlers, tanners, ignoramuses who think nothing of theological matters the right to judge the court of the authorities established by the church and draw up verdicts on matters concerning the Church of God!” Everyone came to the conclusion that it was best to submit to the Pope, instead of the Patriarch of Constantinople.

In 1593, in place of the deceased Bishop of Vladimir, Adam Potiy, who until that time had been a secular lord and bore the title of Brest castellan, was installed. He had already been seduced from Orthodoxy to Catholicism, then he falsely converted to Orthodoxy with the intention of devoting himself to the cause of union. He was a man of impeccable morality, seemed pious, and he himself started a brotherhood in Brest. Ostrozhsky respected him, and Potiy was related to Ostrozhsky. The king, by giving him the position of bishop, meant precisely that Potius could persuade the powerful Russian nobleman.

Potiy entered into correspondence with Ostrozhsky and, without even starting to talk about union, conducted the matter in such a way that Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky was the first to talk about it. Going through all sorts of means to correct the church order, Ostrozhsky settled on uniting the Eastern Church with the Western. But Ostrogsky did not want the kind of union that Roman propaganda was thinking about. Ostrozhsky recognized the Orthodox Church as universal, and not national; Ostrozhsky considered it correct to unite churches only in such a case when other Orthodox countries would start it, and therefore suggested that the Vladimir bishop go to Moscow, and send the Lvov bishop to Volokhi for a meeting on the issue of uniting churches. In Ostrozhsky's views, the purpose of the proposed union was the founding of schools, the education of preachers and, in general, the spread of religious education. Ostrozhsky could not hide his long-standing inclination towards Protestantism before Potius; Ostrozhsky noted, among other things, that much should be changed in church rituals, sacraments, and church administration, and, as he put it, human inventions should be separated. Potius answered this to Ostrozhsky: “The Eastern Church performs its sacraments and rituals correctly; there is nothing to condemn or condemn; I will not go to Moscow: with such an order you will end up under the whip there. It is better that you, as the first person of our faith, turn to your to the king."

Not having time to persuade Ostrozhsky, the rulers came together several times to interpret, and in 1595 they drew up a proposal to the pope about union and elected Potius and Lutsk Bishop Kirill Terletsky as ambassadors to Rome on this matter. Potiy informed Ostrozhsky about this and reminded him that Ostrogsky himself was the first to raise a speech about union.

Ostrogsky became angry, wrote to Potius that the Vladimir bishop was a traitor and unworthy of his rank, and on June 24 he wrote and sent out a (probably printed) message to all Orthodox inhabitants of Poland and Lithuania, praising the Greek faith as the only true one in the world, informing that the main leaders of the true of our faith, the imaginary shepherds: the metropolitan and the bishops, turned into wolves, retreated from the Eastern Church, “attached themselves to the Western” and intended to tear away from the faith all the pious “of this region” and lead them to destruction. “Many,” Ostrozhsky expressed himself, “from the inhabitants of the local region of the state of His Majesty my king, obedient to the holy Eastern Church, consider me the beginning person in Orthodoxy, although I myself consider myself not great, but equal to others in orthodoxy; for this reason, fearing not to be guilty before God and you, I am informing you about what I have probably learned, wishing to stand together with you against the adversaries, so that with God’s help and with your efforts those who have prepared nets for us will themselves fall into these nets "What could be more shameful and lawless if six or seven villains rejected their shepherds from whom they were appointed, consider us to be dumb beasts, dare to arbitrarily tear us away from the truth and lead us into destruction with themselves?"

Ostrozhsky asked the king to open a cathedral, which would be attended not only by the clergy, but also by the secular. The king, concerned about the success of the union, wrote a convincing letter to Ostrogsky, persuaded him to adhere to the union and, most of all, pointed out that the Greek Church was under the authority of a patriarch who received his rank at the will of the infidel Mohammedans. In accordance with the prevailing Roman Catholic view that spiritual affairs should be the property of the spiritual alone, Sigismund did not want to allow a congress of secular persons on matters of faith, which not only Ostrogsky wanted, but the bishops themselves, forging Ostrogsky, made a request to the king for the same thing. The king wrote: “Such a congress will only complicate matters; taking care of our salvation is the duty of our shepherds, and we must, without being questioned, do as they command, because the Spirit of the Lord has given us their leaders in life.” But this kind of conviction only irritated Ostrozhsky, since all this offended, among other things, his lordly pride, which instilled in him the desire to be the first among his fellow believers.

Seeking permission from the king for a congress or council of secular people on matters of faith, Ostrozhsky and one of his courtiers sent an invitation to the Protestant cathedral in Torun to jointly oppose papism. The Orthodox prince wrote in the following terms: “All who recognize the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are people of the same faith. If only people had more tolerance towards each other, if people watched with respect how their brothers glorify God, each according to his own conscience , then there would be fewer sects and rumors in the world. We must agree with everyone who is only moving away from the Latin faith and sympathizes with our fate: all Christian confessions must defend themselves against the “pageants.” His royal majesty will not want to allow an attack on us, because We ourselves may have twenty, at least fifteen thousand armed people, and the priests may surpass us only in the number of those cooks whom the priests keep in place of their wives.”

This message became known to the king, and he ordered Ostrozhsky to be reprimanded for disrespectful comments about the faith that the king professes, and especially for his allusion to the cooks.

Threats about the possibility of thousands of armed people appearing had an important meaning. The spirit of self-will prevailed in Poland. The laws were weak, and instead of resorting to their protection, people who felt strong behind them dealt with their rivals themselves. Noble lords kept armed detachments from the gentry: raids on estates and courtyards were commonplace. The lords arbitrarily interfered even in the affairs of neighboring states. Daredevils of all kinds formed gangs, the so-called “willful bands,” and committed various outrages. In southern Rus', the Cossacks grew stronger year by year, especially developing after successful campaigns in the Crimea and Moldova. It was replenished with Russian people from the estates: hereditary lords and crowns (given to the lords in the form of elders), and through such an influx of fugitives who went to the Cossacks against the will of the lords, they acquired a hostile mood towards the lords and the nobility in general. In addition to the Cossacks, recognized in this rank and who were under the command of a senior or hetman, gangs of common people were formed, calling themselves Cossacks, under the command of special leaders; Such gangs, given the opportunity, easily joined real Cossacks and were ready to act together with them to the detriment of their owners. In 1593, the Cossack hetman Kryshtof (Christopher) Kosinsky rebelled. The Cossacks attacked the owners' yards, ruined them, and destroyed the documents of the gentry. Kosinsky took possession of the Ukrainian cities and Kiev itself, thanks to the negligence of Ostrozhsky, the former Kiev governor: as we said, the kings had long since reproached him, but unsuccessfully, for the fact that the Kiev castle remained neglected. Kosinsky invaded Ostrozhsky’s estates and demanded an oath from the gentry and the people: Kosinsky clearly expressed his intention to tear Rus' away from Poland, destroy the aristocratic order in it and introduce a Cossack system in which there would be no difference in classes, everyone would be equal and own the same right to the land. Poland was in danger of political and social upheaval. The king appealed to the gentry of the southern Russian governors of Bratslav, Kiev and Volyn, so that all people of the gentry rank would take up arms against the enemy, who demands an oath to himself and tramples the rights of the king and the state. Ostrozhsky gathered all the gentry located on his vast estates, entrusted them to the authorities of his son Janusz and marched them against the rebel. Kosinsky failed, pledged to renounce his command over the Cossacks, and, freed from trouble, again started an uprising, but was killed near Cherkasy. Grigory Loboda was elected to succeed him in the dignity of hetman. Then, in addition to the Cossacks, who were under the command of Hetman Loboda, another Cossack militia appeared, self-willed, under the command of Severin Nalivaik, whose brother Damian was a priest in Ostrog. Nalivaiko had an inveterate hatred of the lordship, due to the fact that Pan Kalinovsky in the town of Gusyatin took away the farm from Nalivaiko’s father and beat the owner himself so much that he died from beatings. Nalivaiko decided to continue the work of Kosinsky at a time when the bishops were going to subordinate the Russian church to the pope and when Ostrozhsky in his message convinced all Orthodox inhabitants of the Polish kingdom to resist the machinations of the bishops. Nalivaiko started from Volhynia, and his uprising this time took on a somewhat religious connotation. He attacked the estates of bishops and laity who favored the union, took Lutsk, where the anger of the Cossacks turned to the supporters and servants of Bishop Terletsky, turned to White Russia, captured Slutsk, where he stocked up on weapons, took Mogilev, which was then burned by the inhabitants themselves, captured Pinsk the sacristy of Terletsky and took out important parchment documents with the signatures of clergy and secular persons who agreed to the union; Nalivaiko plundered the estates of Bishop Terletsky's brother, in retaliation for the bishop's trip to Rome. Some Orthodox gentlemen made peace with Nalivaika out of hatred for the emerging union. Suspicion fell on Prince Ostrozhsky himself, since Nalivaiki’s brother lived on his estate and this brother, priest Damian, had horses that belonged to Pan Semashko, who had been robbed by Nalivaika. Ostrozhsky himself, in his letters to his son-in-law Radziwill, wrote: “They say that I sent Nalivaika away... If anyone, then these robbers bothered me most of all. I entrust myself to the Lord God! I hope that he, who saves the innocent, will not forget me ". There is no reason to believe that Ostrozhsky actually patronized this uprising, especially since just before the appearance of Nalivaik on Volyn land, Ostrozhsky warned the lords about the self-willed, complained that they were ruining his estates, gave advice to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to take more active measures and put out the fire before it could spread.

In the winter of 1595-1596, Nalivaiko united with the Cossack hetman Loboda, and the uprising began to take on threatening proportions. The king sent Hetman Zholkiewski against the Cossacks. The war with them stubbornly continued until the end of May 1596: the Cossacks, pressed by Polish troops, crossed to the left bank of the Dnieper and were besieged near Luben: discord arose between them; Nalivaiko overthrew Loboda from the hetmanship, killed him, became hetman himself, and was in turn overthrown, handed over to the Poles and executed by death in Warsaw.

When, therefore, the Poles were engaged in taming the Russian uprising, which partly took on the character of a struggle against the union, in Rome the envoys from the Russian clergy, the Vladimir and Lutsk bishops, were received with due honor, were honored to kiss the papal foot and on December 2, 1595 on behalf of the Russian clergy read the confession of faith according to Roman Catholic teaching. At the beginning of 1596 they returned to their homeland. Here opposition from the brotherhoods and from Ostrozhsky awaited them. The Vilnius brotherhood published “The Book of Cyril on the Antichrist,” composed by Stefan Zizaniy. The book was directed against papism; it proved nothing more or less than that the pope is the Antichrist about whom the prophecy was preserved, and the time of union is the time of the kingdom of the Antichrist. This book was read avidly by the clergy and literate laity. The king, hearing about its success, was very angry, ordered the book to be banned, and its author and his two accomplices to be captured and imprisoned. The Lvov brotherhood, for its part, opposing the ideas of the union, frightened its bishop so much that Gideon decided to deviate from the union and filed a protest in court, in which he assured that even if he signed, along with other bishops, consent to the union, he himself did not know what business, because he signed a white paper, and on this paper, after his signature, something was written that he did not want.

Ostrozhsky notified the Eastern Patriarchs; At his request, protosyncelli (vicars) were appointed: from the Patriarch of Constantinople Nikephoros, from the Alexandrian Patriarch Cyril. The king notified that the Russian bishops should gather at a council in Brest on October 6, 1596 for the final approval of the union.

At the time appointed by the king, Ostrozhsky also prepared his cathedral in Brest 4. This cathedral consisted of two patriarchal proto-syncells, two eastern archimandrites, two Russian bishops, Gideon of Lvov and Michael Kopytensky, Serbian Metropolitan Luke, several Russian archimandrites, archpriests and two hundred persons of the gentry rank , whom Ostrozhsky invited with him.

Protosyncellus Nikephoros presided over this Orthodox council. In accordance with the ancient customs of the church court, he sent the Kyiv Metropolitan a triple summons to the council for justification, but the Metropolitan did not appear and announced that he and the bishops had submitted to the Western Church; then the Orthodox cathedral defrocked both the metropolitan and the bishops: Vladimir, Lutsk, Polotsk (Herman), Kholm (Dionysius) and Pinsk Jonah.

For their part, those who accepted the spiritual union repaid those who did not accept it in the same way: they defrocked the bishops of Lvov and Przemysl, the Archimandrite of Pechersk Nikifor Tours and all the Russian clergy who were at the Orthodox council. The sentence to each of them was sent in the following form: “Whoever considers you, cursed by us, in your former rank, will himself be cursed by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit!”

Both sides turned to the king. The Orthodox referred to existing decrees and asked that the deposed clergy not be considered in their former rank, that church estates be taken away from them and given to those who would be elected in their stead. The king took the side of the Uniates and ordered the arrest of Nicephorus, with whom those who accepted the union were especially angry. Ostrozhsky took him on bail. His case was postponed until 1597.

This year, at the request of the king, Ostrozhsky himself brought Nicephorus and brought him to trial by the Senate. They tried to accuse Nikephoros of espionage on the part of the Turks, and of warlocks, and of bad behavior. Hetman Zamoyski himself accused him. It was impossible to accuse Nicephorus, and the Poles had no right to judge him as a foreigner. Then Konstantin Ostrozhsky spoke a harsh speech to the king: “Your Majesty,” he said, “you are violating our rights, trampling on our freedom, raping our conscience. Being a senator, I not only endure insults myself, but I see that all this leads to the destruction of the kingdom of Poland: after this, no one's rights, no one's freedom are protected; soon there will be unrest; perhaps then they will come up with something else! Our ancestors, taking the oath of allegiance to their sovereign, also took an oath from him to uphold justice, mercy and protection. There was a mutual oath between them. Come to your senses, Your Majesty! I am already in old age and hope to leave this world soon, and you insult me, take away what is most dear to me - the Orthodox faith! Come to your senses, Your Majesty! I entrust this spiritual dignitary to you “God will demand his blood on you, and God forbid that I never see such a violation of rights again; on the contrary, may God grant me in my old age to hear about his good health and about the better preservation of your state and our rights!”

Having made this speech, Ostrozhsky left the Senate. The king sent Ostrogsky's son-in-law, Kryshtof Radziwill, to turn back the agitated old man. “The King,” said Radziwill, “regrets your disappointment; Nikephoros will be free.” The angry Ostrozhsky did not want to return and said: “Don’t let Nikifor go to hell.” The prince left, leaving the poor protosyncellus Nikephoros to the mercy of the king. Nikephoros was sent to Marienburg, where he died in captivity.

In 1599, Ostrogsky, with other lords and nobility of the Russian faith, organized a confederation with Protestants for mutual defense against Catholic violence. But this confederation did not have important consequences.

Much more important in its consequences was the literary movement, which intensified after the union. The Ostroh printing house published (in 1598) “An inscription on the sheet of Father Hypatius” (Potia) and Lists, i.e. messages: eight of them by Meletius, Patriarch of Alexandria, in which the essence of Orthodoxy was set out and the Orthodox people were encouraged to defend their religion. One of these messages (the third) concerns the question of changing the calendar, a question that was very much on the minds of those days. Orthodox pastors did not like this change precisely because it was an innovation: “news from vain men of fickle souls, like dampness from the blow of unsteady winds.” According to honest shepherds, a change in Paschal brings with it storms and rebellion in the church, sedition, discord, and an approach to Judaism; but even if this did not happen, then there is still no need to introduce “neotericism”, but it is better to stick to the old days and listen to the old people. (What is not the most pious and most reverent thing in various things to be with the elders?) At the same time, it was noted that the calculations on which the new calendar is based are not reliable and, after three hundred years, they will have to “astronomically” again and invent new changes. The ninth of the sheets printed in this book contains a message written by Ostrozhsky to Orthodox Christians at the very beginning of the union (we talked about it above), and the tenth is an admonishing message from the Athonite monks. Among the books printed at that time in Ostrog, the book “Apocrisis” (published in late 1597) 5 under the pseudonym Philaleta, written, as they say, by Christopher Vronsky, a man, like Ostrogsky, who was inclined towards Protestantism, is especially important. Instead of strict submission to spiritual authorities in matters of faith, she preached the equal free participation of secular people in church affairs, called the doctrine of unconditional obedience to the church Judaism and argued that secular people could, at their own discretion, disobey the spiritual and overthrow them. In 1598, the priest Vasily published a Psalter with a resurrection, another Psalter with a book of hours, in 1605 and 1606 the writings of Patriarch Meletius on the matter of the union, translated by Job Boretsky, and in 1607 the priest Damian, Nalivaika’s brother, published “A Medicine for the Severed Intentions of Man,” where placed the letter of Chrysostom to Theodore

To the fallen and some words and poems, partly adapted to their time. Wonderful works appeared in Vilna, not only polemical, but also scientific, showing the emerging need for educating youth; in 1596, a grammar of the Slavic language was published by Laurentius Zizaniy, an ABC with a short dictionary, an Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer and a Catechism outlining the foundations of the Orthodox faith. Then Russian liturgical and religious-political works were published in other places.

This was the beginning of that Southern Russian and Western Russian literature, which subsequently, in the half of the 17th century, developed to a significant extent.

Ostrogsky himself, despite the defense that he provided to Orthodoxy in the matter of the emerging union, as an aristocrat for whom the Polish system was too precious, was far from any decisive opposition to the violence of the authorities: he restrained others, teaching them patience. Thus, in 1600, he wrote to the Lviv brotherhood: “I am sending you a decree drawn up at the last Sejm, highly contrary to popular law and most of all to the holy truth, and I am giving you no other advice than that you should be patient and awaited God's mercy until God, in His goodness, inclines the heart of His Royal Majesty to offend no one and leave everyone in their rights."

This advice revealed the future powerlessness of the Russian aristocracy in defending the fatherly faith.

Following a complaint from the Kyiv and Bratslav voivodeships, the king appointed a trial at the Sejm between the Uniates and the Orthodox.

Then Ragoza died: his place in the rank of Metropolitan of Kyiv was taken by Hypatius Potius. Appearing with Terletsky at the trial appointed by the king, he represented that spiritual matters were not subject to the verdict of a secular court, that, in accordance with divine law, the laws of the kingdom and Christian rights, they were subject only to a spiritual court. The Uniates pointed to all the privileges that existed before that time, given to the Greek church, as documents that now exclusively belonged by right only to those who recognized the Roman high priest as the head of their church. The king, with the advice of his noble lords, recognized their arguments as completely fair and published a charter according to which the new metropolitan and the bishops under the primacy of the metropolitan were granted the right to use their dignity, in accordance with the previous privileges given to dignitaries of the Greek faith, to manage church estates and create spiritual court. The king did not recognize another eastern church in the Polish Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, except for the one already united with the Roman one. All those who did not recognize the union were in his eyes no longer confessors of the Greek faith, but renegades from it. All Catholic Poland and Lithuania shared the same view with the king.

Ostrozhsky ended his life in February 1608 at a ripe old age. His son Janusz converted to Catholicism during his parent’s lifetime; another son, Alexander, remained Orthodox, but his daughters all converted to Catholicism, and one of them, who owned Ostrog, Anna Aloysia, was distinguished by fanatical intolerance towards the faith of her forefathers.

The upper class in Poland was all-powerful, and of course, if the Russian nobility had remained firmly in the faith and firmly decided to stand for the fatherly faith, no machinations of the king and the Jesuits would have been able to overthrow it. But this was the misfortune that this Russian gentry - this upper Russian class, which was too profitable to be under the rule of Poland - could not resist the moral oppression that then weighed on the Orthodox faith and the Russian people. Having become related to the Polish nobility, having mastered the Polish language and Polish customs, having become Poles in their ways of life, the Russian people were unable to retain the faith of their fathers. On the side of Catholicism was the conspicuous brilliance of Western enlightenment. In Poland, the Russian faith and Russian nationality were looked upon with contempt: everything that was and spoke of Russian, in the eyes of the then Polish society, seemed peasant, rude, wild, ignorant, something that an educated and high-ranking person should be ashamed of. Catholics had incomparably more means for education than Orthodox Christians, and therefore the children of Orthodox lords studied with Catholics. Inspired by their teachers, who instilled in them a preference for Catholicism, going out into the world in which, under the prevailing spirit of propaganda, they heard everywhere about the same preference, Russian youths inevitably adopted the same view of the faith and nationality of their forefathers that they usually have of their native those who borrow something foreign with the full conviction that this foreign thing serves as a sign of education and gives honor and respect in the everyday environment in which they are destined to deal. The descendants of Orthodox noble families who converted to Catholicism, looking back at the moral deeds of their forefathers, found themselves in the same mood as their ancestors had been in for many centuries when, leaving paganism, they adopted Christianity. One after another accepted the new faith and were ashamed of the old one. True, as always happens in transitional eras, even during the era of Catholicization of the Russian nobility, for half a century and even a little longer, adherents of the Russian upper class remained from the Russian upper class and declared their voice, but their ranks became increasingly thinner, and finally they were gone ; in Polish Rus', a person who by origin and status belonged to the upper class became unthinkable except with the Roman Catholic religion, with the Polish language and with Polish concepts and feelings. Since the time of the union in Rus', there has been a desire to raise the Russian church and the Russian people - to create a Russian education, at least for the first time, religious, but this desire was late for the upper class of the Russian lands united with Poland. This upper class no longer needed anything Russian and looked at it with disgust and hostility. It turned out that the union, invented at first to lure the Russian upper class, was also not useful to him; Without her, the lords became pure Catholics; the union remained only a means to destroy the signs of the Orthodox faith and Russian nationality in the community of the rest of the people. The union became an instrument of more national than religious goals. Accepting the union meant turning a Russian into a Pole, or at least a half-Pole. This direction appeared from the very first time and was steadily pursued in future times until the very end of the existence of the union. Despite the fact that at first the pope, in accordance with the decrees of the Union of Florence in the 15th century, approved the inviolability of the rites of the Eastern Church, already at the beginning of the 17th century the Uniate clergy began to change the divine service, introducing various customs characteristic of the Western Church and which did not exist in the Eastern or were positively rejected by the latter ( such as, for example, a quiet mass, serving several lunches on the same day at one altar, shortening the services, etc.). Moving closer and closer to Catholicism, the union ceased to be the Eastern Church, but became something in between and at the same time remained the property of the common people: in a country in which the common people were reduced to extreme enslavement, the faith that existed for this people could not enjoy equal honor with the faith that the gentlemen professed; therefore, the union in Poland became a lower faith, common to the people, unworthy of the upper class: as for Orthodoxy, in public opinion it became a rejected faith, the lowest, worthy of extreme contempt: it was a faith not only of the claps in general, like the union, but the faith of the worthless claps, unlike or incapable, due to their savagery and rigidity, to rise to a somewhat higher level of religious and social understanding, it was nothing more than a pitiful confession of despicable disbelievers, for whom there is no salvation even beyond the grave.
1. Russians highly valued the memory of this fighter for their nation; His body still rests in the Kyiv caves among the Kyiv Pechersk saints.
2. He died at the age of 70 in 1533. His body was buried in the main church of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, where his marble monument with a beautifully crafted statue depicting a sleeping hero is still preserved in a niche in the northern wall.
3. Subsequently, this Budny converted to Arianism, wrote the Arian Catechism and published a translation of the Bible in Polish.
4. The Brest Cathedral is described in detail in the book “Ecthesis”, published by the Orthodox in Polish in 1597.
5. Against the "Apocrisis" was published in 1600. "Antirrisis", op. Greek Uniate Peter Arkudiy.

The page was generated in 0.07 seconds!

Ostrogsky, Prince Konstantin Ivanovich

Hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, famous Western Russian figure and zealot of Orthodoxy in Lithuanian Rus'; born about 1460, died 1532. The family of the Ostrog princes belonged to the number of Russian appanage families that survived under Lithuanian rule in Western Rus' and whose members were either assistants or officials of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. The origin of the family has not been established with precision, and of the many opinions on this issue, the most widespread and most plausible is the opinion of M. A. Maksimovich, who, on the basis of the memorial of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, considers it to be a branch of the Princes of Pinsk and Turov, descended from Svyatopolk II Izyaslavich , great-grandson of Vladimir the Saint. The first historically famous prince was Daniil Dmitrievich Ostrozhsky, who lived in the middle of the 14th century. His son, Fyodor Danilovich (died after 1441), canonized by the Orthodox Church under the name Theodosius and the first to lay a solid foundation for the land wealth of the family, is already a defender of the homeland and its covenants against the Poles and Latinism: over the course of several years he inflicted a whole a series of defeats and defended the independence of Podolia and Volyn to the end. The son of Prince Fyodor Danilovich, Prince Vasily Fedorovich the Red (died around 1461) continued his father’s Russian policy more successfully, but the main aspect of his activity was farming and securing his possessions from Tatar raids. Little news has been preserved about his son and the father of Prince Konstantin Ivanovich, Prince Ivan Vasilyevich. It is only known that he repeatedly fought with the Tatars and increased his holdings by purchasing new estates.

Prince Konstantin Ivanovich lost his parents early, and received his initial education under the guidance of his father’s boyars, as well as his elder brother, Mikhail. The surviving evidence of these years of Konstantin Ivanovich’s life speaks primarily of transactions for the sale and purchase of lands. Apparently, the educators of the young princes carried out only the economic plans of their deceased father. In 1486, we find the Ostrozhsky brothers in Vilna at the court of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Casimir, where they moved in the highest circle of Volyn lords - Goisky, Prince Chetvertinsky, Khrebtovich and others. At the same time, the Ostrog princes began to get accustomed to state affairs, for which they entered the then ordinary school - the retinue of the Grand Duke and accompanied him on his travels as “nobles,” i.e., courtiers. In 1491, Prince Konstantin Ivanovich already received quite important assignments and enjoyed the full confidence of the Lithuanian Grand Duke. It is very likely that by then he had already managed to emerge from among numerous Volyn princes and lords, which could have been greatly facilitated by wealth and wide family connections. However, the rise of Prince Konstantin Ivanovich was greatly influenced, of course, by his personal merits, his military talent and experience. He acquired the latter and demonstrated them in the continuous struggle with the Tatars (chronicles mention 60 battles in which he remained victorious). But there was another circumstance that contributed to the rise of Prince Konstantin Ivanovich. Already from the very accession of Grand Duke Alexander to the Lithuanian throne, a number of misfortunes befell Lithuania. The war with the Moscow Grand Duke ended in failure. The Tatars made raid after raid on the southern regions of the Lithuanian state, devastating the southern Russian lands. At this time, the Russian people especially came forward, bearing on their shoulders both the difficult struggle with the Tatars, and all the internal and external difficulties that fell on Lithuania after its unsuccessful struggle with Moscow. The Tatar raids of 1495 and 1496 were repelled exclusively by the Russians, at the head of which, thanks to his abilities, Prince Ostrozhsky soon became. The Russian princes, with the same Ostrozhsky at their head, saved the Polish king, brother of Grand Duke Alexander, from final death during his unsuccessful campaign against Moldavia. All this, of course, highlighted the importance of the Russians and the Russian Prince Ostrog, to whom all of Lithuanian Rus' had long looked with hope. Hetman of Lithuania Pyotr Yanovich Beloy, on his deathbed, directly pointed out to Alexander Konstantin Ostrozhsky as his successor. And Prince Konstantin Ivanovich was made hetman in 1497. In addition, the new hetman received a number of land grants, which immediately made him, already rich, the largest ruler in Volyn.

In 1500, a new war with Moscow began. Lithuania was not prepared for this fight: the Lithuanian Grand Duke did not have a sufficient number of troops at his disposal. Lithuania was also weakened by the raids of the Tatars, who were no longer restrained by the Grand Duke of Moscow. Despite the fact that they resorted to hiring foreigners, it was not possible to gather troops strong enough to successfully resist the Moscow forces. Prince Konstantin Ivanovich was placed at the head of the Lithuanian army. Meanwhile, Moscow troops, “like thieves,” in two detachments, invaded the Lithuanian regions. The main regiment headed for the Seversk region and, successively occupying cities, reached Novgorod-Seversky, while the second detachment, led by boyar Yuri Zakharyin, headed for Smolensk, occupying Dorogobuzh along the way. Having reinforced his army in Smolensk with a local garrison led by the energetic governor Kishka, Prince Konstantin Ivanovich moved towards Zakharyin to Dorogobuzh, deciding to delay the offensive at all costs. On July 14, the enemies met at the Vedrosha River, where the battle took place. A large Lithuanian army was completely defeated by a 40,000-strong Moscow detachment, and among many of those taken prisoner was Prince Konstantin Ivanovich. Moscow governors immediately singled out Ostrozhsky from other noble captives: he was urgently taken to Moscow, from where he was soon exiled to Vologda. Both Herberstein and Kurbsky agree on the cruel treatment of the prince, which is explained by the desire of the Moscow government to force the Lithuanian hetman to transfer to Moscow service. However, Konstantin Ivanovich did not give up, and finally decided to leave captivity, at least at the cost of breaking his oath. In 1506, through the Vologda clergy, he agreed to the proposal of the Moscow government. He was immediately given the rank of boyar, and on October 18, 1506, the usual signature of allegiance to Moscow was taken from him. Giving the latter, Konstantin Ivanovich firmly decided to flee to Lithuania, especially since the events of that time could force him to fight against his homeland. Ostrozhsky's successful fight against the Tatars in Moscow Ukraine lulled the vigilance of the Moscow government, which entrusted the new boyar with the main command over some southern border detachments. Konstantin Ivanovich took advantage of this. Under the plausible pretext of inspecting the troops entrusted to him, he left Moscow, approached the Moscow line and made his way through dense forests to his homeland in September 1507. The return of Prince Konstantin Ivanovich to Lithuania coincided with the famous Glinsky trial, so the king could not immediately begin organizing the affairs of his favorite. But in a very short time his former elderships were returned to him (Bratslav, Vinnitsa, Zvenigorod), he was given the important position in Lithuania of the elder of Lutsk and the marshal of the Volyn land, thanks to which Ostrozhsky became the main military and civil commander of all Volyn, and on November 26 he was again confirmed in the rank of hetman. In addition, Ostrogsky received a number of land grants from Sigismund, who was stingy with gifts in general. In 1508, when the war with Moscow began again, Ostrogsky was summoned from Ostrog, where he was putting property affairs in order, to Novgorod, where King Alexander was at that time, and put in charge of the army. From here he moved through Minsk to Borisov and Orsha, which was unsuccessfully besieged by Moscow governors. When Ostrozhsky approached Orsha, the Moscow army abandoned the siege and tried to delay the crossing of the Lithuanian-Polish army across the Dnieper, but all the skirmishes ended in complete failure for the Moscow governors, and the Moscow regiments, having lost energy, began to retreat. The Lithuanian army followed on the heels of the retreating enemy and finally stopped in Smolensk, from where it was first decided to send Ostrozhsky and Kishka with separate detachments to the Moscow regions, but the implementation of this plan was temporarily delayed and the favorable moment was lost. Only after some time did Prince Konstantin Ivanovich move to the city of Bely, took it, occupied Toropets and Dorogobuzh, and greatly devastated the surrounding area. This turn of events inclined both sides to negotiate peace, which resulted in the “eternal” peace of Moscow with Lithuania on October 8, 1508. Prince Konstantin Ivanovich again received several major awards. Soon after peace was concluded with Moscow, the Tatars again made a large raid, and Ostrogsky had to move against them. The Tatars were defeated near Ostrog. Now Konstantin Ivanovich began organizing his economic affairs, since during the war with Moscow he very often had to equip troops with his own money. His marriage to Princess Tatyana Semyonovna Golshanskaya also dates back to this time. A new Tatar raid forced Ostrozhsky to go to Lutsk to prepare defense, but he managed to gather only 6 thousand people, and with these small forces he managed to win a brilliant victory over a 40,000 Tatar detachment at Vishnevets, where he freed more than 16,000 people from Tatar captivity from the Russians alone . As a reward for the services of Prince Konstantin Ivanovich in the fight against Moscow and the Tatars, the king issued a general notice appointing him Pan of Vilensky, which for the prince. Ostrozhsky was very important: he entered the circle of the highest Lithuanian nobility, and from that time on he was no longer only a Volyn, but also a Lithuanian nobleman.

After the Vishnevetsky pogrom, the Tatars directed their raids into Moscow Ukraine. The Moscow government explained this behavior of its former allies by the machinations of Lithuania, and, declaring war on it again, moved a large army to Smolensk in December 1512, but after an unsuccessful siege, this army was forced to return. The second siege the following year was also unsuccessful. Finally, Smolensk was besieged for the third time and taken, the Moscow army began to move deeper into Lithuania, capturing cities along the way. Prince Ostrozhsky with the Lithuanian army went to meet him, and the first rather stubborn battle took place near the Berezina. Moscow governors were forced to retreat. At dawn on September 8, a new battle began near Orsha. With skillful maneuvers and cunning, Ostrozhsky managed to deceive the vigilance of the Russians, and the entire eighty-thousand-strong army of Moscow turned to complete flight, and the pursuit of those fleeing turned into a massacre. But Ostrozhsky still could not take Smolensk, and returned only the cities captured by Moscow. Upon returning to Lithuania, he was awarded by Sigismund an unprecedented award: on December 3, Konstantin Ivanovich was honored with a solemn triumph.

In the summer of 1516, the Tatars appeared again, causing great devastation, but as soon as rumors spread about the gathering of troops by Konstantin Ostrozhsky, the Tatars immediately left. Since June 1517, peace negotiations had been going on in Moscow, but on November 12 they were interrupted and a new war began. At the same time In time, the Tatars also attacked, in a battle with which Ostrozhsky was defeated for the first time. Lithuania's position worsened further because, in addition to Moscow and the Tatars, it had a third enemy - the Grand Master of the Livonian Order. Only the energy of King Sigismund and the talent of Ostrozhsky could stop the success of Moscow. The successful campaigns of Ostrozhsky and the tension of almost all the available forces of the country forced the Moscow government to desire peace, which was soon concluded on terms quite favorable for Lithuania and Poland. From that time on, Konstantin Ivanovich devoted himself exclusively to economic activities, which generally played a significant role in his life. He used all his free money to expand his holdings through purchases. It is clear that Ostrozhsky’s huge land holdings, together with numerous royal “nadanias,” required a lot of work and hassle to manage them. In Ostrozhsky's relations with his subjects, the prince is in the best light: he freed them from royal taxes, built churches for them, and did not give them offense to neighboring lords. Such gentleness and peacefulness earned Konstantin Ivanovich general favor and highly raised his prestige among the Orthodox Russian population. Even the subjects of other wealthy nobles fled to Ostrogsky's possessions and did not voluntarily agree to return from him to their former owners. In 1518, the grandmother of Ostrozhsky’s wife, Maria Ravenskaya, died, and her entire fortune, due to the absence of direct heirs, passed to Konstantin Ivanovich, who around this time was appointed to the rank of governor of Troksky and the first secular nobleman of Lithuania. At the beginning of July 1522, the first wife of Prince Konstantin Ivanovich, Princess Tatyana Semyonovna, née Golshanskaya, died, leaving him with an infant son, Ilya. In the same year, Ostrozhsky entered into a second marriage, from which he had a second son, the famous Vasily-Konstantin Konstantinovich. This time his choice fell on the representative of the most famous and richest Western Russian family - the Olkevich-Slutskys - Princess Alexandra Semyonovna. From that time on, he directed his public activities mainly to the benefit of the church and very rarely acted as a commander.

The rise of Prince Ostrozhsky, which was partly a consequence of the strengthening of the Russian party, could not but be accompanied by a gradual strengthening of the Orthodox element and the Orthodox Church in Lithuania, especially since Konstantin Ivanovich himself, being a faithful and devoted son of his church and always protecting the interests of Orthodoxy and the Russian people, had such friends and collaborators as the Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania Elena Ivanovna, Metropolitan Joseph Soltan and Alexander Khodkevich. A whole series of “inspirations”, petitions in favor of churches and monasteries, works in favor of the internal order of church life and its external legal position concentrated in Ostrozhsky’s personality all the interests of that time, all the sympathetic aspects of the then Orthodox society and its members. The most important changes in the church were associated with his name; favors to the Orthodox, according to the king himself, were done for the sake of Konstantin Ivanovich, who, counting on the king’s favor and his disposition towards him, was an intercessor before the government for the Orthodox Church. Thanks to his efforts, requests, petitions, The legal position of the Orthodox Church in Lithuania, which had previously been in a very uncertain position, was firmly established. With his assistance, measures were taken and partly implemented to raise the moral and spiritual level of the Orthodox masses, especially since Catholicism, which did not have zealous figures at that time, was indifferent to Orthodoxy, thanks to him the position of bishops and councilors was determined and a lot was done to organize patronage - a controversial issue between bishops and lords due to the interference of secular persons in church affairs. Konstantin Ivanovich's friendship with metropolitans, bishops and pious Orthodox lords greatly contributed to raising the material well-being of the church.

But if Konstantin Ivanovich used the main share of his influence for the benefit of the church, he still did not forget the other interests of the Russian population in Lithuania. As the bearer of the indigenous principles and historical traditions of the Russian people, Ostrozhsky became the center around which all the best Russian people of Belarus and Volyn grouped together: Prince. Vishnevetsky, Sangushki, Dubrovitsky, Mstislavsky, Dashkov, Soltan, etc. Realizing the important role of material well-being, Konstantin Ivanovich procured a lot of land from the king for the Russian people, and sometimes he himself distributed land to them.

There is very little news about Ostrogsky’s personal life. As far as one can judge the private life of Konstantin Ivanovich from the fragmentary information that has reached us, it was distinguished by amazing modesty; “light rooms” with wooden and unpainted floors, tiled stoves, windows, “clay mustaches,” sometimes “paper” and “linen, tarred” benches - that’s all the interior decoration of the house of the most powerful and richest nobleman in Lithuania. There is evidence to suggest that the private life of Prince Ostrozhsky was quite consistent with the furnishings of his home.

And the very last deed of Konstantin Ivanovich was aimed at the benefit of his native Russian people: taking advantage of the king’s favor, he asked him for the release of Lutsk, in view of the Tatar devastation, for 10 years from the payment of the ruler’s taxes and for 5 years from the payment of the Starostin taxes. It is not known exactly what participation Prince Ostrozhsky took in the drafting and publication of the Lithuanian Statute, but he joyfully welcomed this event. Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky died at an advanced age and was buried in the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, where his tomb remains to this day.

A. Yarushevich, “The Zealot of Orthodoxy, Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky and Orthodox Lithuanian Rus' in his time” (Smolensk, 1897); Documents from the Ostrozhsky family archive are published under the title: "Archiwum ksiąząt Lubartowiczòw-Sanguszków w Sawucie" (Lviv, I-III, 1887-90); Niesiecki: "Herbarz Polski" (Lipsk, 1841, VII); Acts of Western Russia, vol. II-IV; Acts of southern and western Russia, vol. I-II; Archive of Southwestern Russia, vol. II-IV; Stryjkowski, Kronika, II; Stelebski: "Dwa welkie swiatha na hòryzoncie Polskiem, 1782, t. II; Karamzin (ed. Einerling), VII; Soloviev (ed. Partnership for Public Benefit), t. II; Legends of Kurbsky (2nd ed., St. Petersburg, 1842); Herberstein, "Notes on Muscovy" II; Maksimovich, Works, volume I; Proceedings of the 3rd Archaeological Congress in Kiev (abstract by Mr. Romanovsky), Kiev, 1878; Monuments, published by the temporary commission for the analysis of ancient acts, Kiev 1859, vol. IV, pp. 89-90; Kiev Diocesan Gazette, 1875, Nos. 15 and 18; Ancient and new Russia, 1879, III, 366–68; Proceedings of the Kiev Theological Academy, 1877, No. 10; Sharanevich, “On the first princes of Ostrog” (“Galichanin”, collection 1863, p. 226); Zubritsky, “History of the Galich-Russian principality”, Lvov, 1852, I; Koyalovich, “Readings on the history of Western history. Russia (ed. IV, St. Petersburg, 1884); Stebelski, Zywoty J. S. Eufrozyny Paraskewy z genealogią ks. O. (Vilno, 1781-83).

E. Reckless.

(Polovtsov)

Large biographical encyclopedia. 2009 .

See what “Ostrozhsky, Prince Konstantin Ivanovich” is in other dictionaries:

Wikipedia has articles about other people with this surname, see Ostrozhsky. Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky ... Wikipedia

1460 September 11, 1530 Portrait of K. I. Ostrozhsky Place of death Turov Affiliation of the ON ... Wikipedia

Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky 1460 September 11, 1530 Portrait of K. I. Ostrozhsky Place of death Turov Affiliation of the ON ... Wikipedia

Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky 1460 September 11, 1530 Portrait of K. I. Ostrozhsky Place of death Turov Affiliation of the ON ... Wikipedia

Wikipedia has articles about other people with this surname, see Ostrozhsky. Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky ... Wikipedia

OSTROZHSKY Konstantin (Vasily) Konstantinovich

Ukrainian political and cultural figure

Born 1526 in the city of Dubno (now Rivne region). He came from the Ostrozhsky family, a rich and influential princely family of Ukraine in the 16th - early 17th centuries. He received an excellent education, as evidenced by his correspondence and speeches in the Senate. Remaining the only heir of his wealthy father, he took possession of vast possessions in Volyn, Kiev region, Podolia and Galicia, as well as in Hungary and the Czech Republic. From the mid-40s of the 16th century. in official documents Vasily Ostrozhsky begins to be called by his father's name - Konstantin.

Prince Ostrozhsky began his political career in 1550, receiving from the Grand Duke of Lithuania the position of headman of Vladimir and marshal of Volyn. In 1559, he became the Kyiv governor, which significantly contributed to strengthening his influence on the political life of Ukraine. K. Ostrozhsky pursued an energetic colonialist policy in the border lands of the Kiev and Bratslav regions, founded new cities, castles and settlements. The economic power of the estates and the great political influence of the prince quickly made him the “uncrowned king of Rus'”, pursuing a relatively independent policy in the Russian lands. In the 60s of the 16th century. he advocated the equal entry of Rus' into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. K. Ostrogsky was one of the leaders of the opposition, did not support the union of 1569. In the same year he became a senator. In 1572, after the death of King Sigismund II, Augusta laid claim to the Polish throne. In 1574 he moved the princely residence from Dubno to Ostrog. - The relationship between Prince Ostrozhsky and the Cossacks was peculiar. Understanding the important strategic importance of the Zaporozhye Sich as an outpost against the Turkish-Tatar threat, he tried to maintain partnerships with the Cossacks and accepted them into service. However, in the early 90s he reacted with hostility to the Cossack unrest, which threatened the extensive land holdings of the princely family. During the Cossack uprising under the leadership of K. Kosinsky (1591-1593), the army of K. Ostrozhsky, despite a number of setbacks, inflicted a crushing defeat on the rebels in the decisive battle of Pyata. Subsequently, he decisively opposed the uprising of S. Nalivaiko (1549-1596).

In 1598, after the death of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, K. Ostrozhsky acted as a contender for the Moscow throne.

K. Ostrozhsky cared about Ukrainian Orthodoxy. During his reign, the borough of Ostrog, one of the two titular centers of the diocese in eastern Volyn, became the center of Orthodox spirituality. Regarding the topical issue of the time about the unification of Catholics and Orthodox Christians, the prince initially supported it. He preferred to keep this process under complete control. Therefore, when in 1594-1596. Part of the clergy attempted to conclude a church union, bypassing the prince, and acted as its decisive opponent, sharply condemning the decision of the Brest Council.

During the reign of K. Ostrozhsky, Russian culture and education received widespread growth. Around the princely residence in Ostroh, a circle (academy) of Slavic and Greek scientists, publicists, theologians and theologians was formed, which included Gerasim Smotritsky, Vasily Sourozhsky, Christopher Philaletus (Martin Bronevsky), Emmanuel Achilles, Luke of Serbia, Cyril Lucaris (future of Alexandria and Constantinople patriarch), Nikifor Paraskhes-Kantakuzen and others. With the assistance of the prince, a large library was collected in Ostrog. 1575 he invited to organize a printing house in the princely residence of Ivan Fedorov. Thanks to the Ostroh printing house, more than 20 publications were published, including the first complete text of the Bible in the Slavic language (1,580). Around 1578, the Ostrog School began operating at the academy, where, in addition to a number of traditional science and humanities disciplines at that time, Latin, Greek and Church Slavonic grammars were taught in parallel for the first time. Subsequently, her experience and program were borrowed by Lviv, Lutsk and other fraternal schools.

K. Ostrozhsky founded schools in Turov (+1572) and Vladimir-Volynsky (one thousand five hundred and seventy-seven). A school of church singing was formed in Ostrog, and at the Epiphany Castle Church, which had the status of a cathedral and was one of the most Orthodox churches of that time, its own icon-painting tradition arose. Several Ostroh icons painted at that time are considered masterpieces of Orthodox icon painting.

Gradually, the prince withdrew from the political and cultural life of the country. In recent years he lived in Dubna Castle.

Died in 1608. He was buried in the crypt of the Church of the Epiphany in Ostrog.

Son of Prince Konstantin Ivanovich, governor of Kiev, defender of Orthodoxy in Western Rus'; born 1526, died February 13, 1608. Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich, named Vasily at baptism (he was called Konstantin after his father), remained a minor after the death of his father and was raised by his mother, the second wife of Prince Konstantin Ivanovich, Princess Alexandra Semyonovna, née Princess Slutsk.

He spent his childhood and early youth in his mother's ancestral city of Turov, where, under the guidance of the most learned and experienced teachers of that time, he received a very careful education in the Orthodox Russian spirit. Having reached adulthood, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich married the daughter of the rich and noble Galician magnate Count Tarnovsky, Sofia, and began to lead the usual lifestyle of wealthy Western Russian gentlemen. Social and government activities apparently interested him very little during this period of his life. However, even now he had to face Jesuit influence, which Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich subsequently vigorously fought until the end of his life. The Jesuits managed to invade his family life, and tried to attract to their side representatives of the influential house of the Ostrozhsky princes, so that with their help they would be more successful in promoting Catholicism among the Western Russian Orthodox population.

The Jesuits managed to win over the daughter-in-law of Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich, Princess Beata, and with her help they thought of persuading her daughter Elizabeth to convert to Catholicism.

Ostrozhsky stood up for his beloved niece and managed to marry her to the Orthodox Prince Dimitry Sangushko.

Thanks to the intrigues of Beata and the Jesuits, Sangushko was convicted and fled to the Czech Republic, but was killed on the way, and Elizabeth was returned to Poland and forcibly married to a Pole and zealous Catholic, Count Gurka. Ostrozhsky forcibly stood up for the rights of his niece, entered into a fight with the Jesuits and Gurka, but Elizabeth, having withstood the difficult situation and persecution of the Jesuits, went crazy. Ostrogsky took her to his place in Ostrog, where the unfortunate woman lived until her death.

Of course, this incident strongly armed the prince against the Jesuits and forever made him an implacable enemy of this order.

Meanwhile, very difficult times have come for the Orthodox in Western Rus'.

The Russian population, which was strongly influenced by Polish civilization, already from the time of the unification of Lithuania and Poland was increasingly subject to the influence of Western European forms of Polish culture and civilization.

The influence of Polish culture also affected the beliefs of the Russian population.

Western Russian magnates, earlier than others, began to change the faith of their fathers and accept Catholicism; They were followed by many families from the middle class, and only the peasants firmly adhered to Orthodoxy, despite all the oppression and oppression on the part of their Catholic landowners.

The rapid Catholicization of the Russian population was greatly facilitated by the Union of Lublin of 1569, which united Poland and the Lithuanian-Russian state even more closely and gave the Poles full opportunity to spread Catholicism among the Orthodox Russian population with great success.

In vain did Prince Ostrozhsky with the few other Western Russian nobles who wanted to defend the political and religious independence of the Western Russian people fight against the introduction of this union: there were too few of them, and they had to come to terms with the accomplished fact.

The cause of Catholicization of Russians was also greatly helped by the Jesuits, who were called to Poland to fight Protestantism penetrating from the West, but also turned against Orthodoxy.

They began to penetrate the families of the most influential noble magnates and win them over to their side, gradually took over the education of youth, established their own colleges and schools, etc., and quickly, with the help of the Polish government, acquired increasing influence on the course of public life in Poland and Lithuania. The Western Russian clergy and the Orthodox population could not successfully fight this organized and unconstrained society of monks.

The clergy themselves were uneducated; representatives of the highest hierarchy, who mostly came from noble and wealthy families, often looked at their rank as a profitable and profitable position, and were jealous of the luxury and splendor with which the Catholic bishops surrounded themselves.

Selfishness and laxity of morals dominated among the Orthodox clergy.

The mass of the Orthodox population found support among their spiritual shepherds.

Catholic propaganda on such favorable soil developed widely among the Orthodox Western Russian population, capturing not only the upper Western Russian classes, but also spreading among the middle and lower classes.

Having entered the arena of public activity at such a difficult time for Orthodoxy and the Russian people, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky, raised on Russian Orthodox principles from childhood, could not remain an indifferent witness to these events.

The conditions in which he found himself could not have been more favorable to his activities.

From his ancestors, in addition to his noble name, he received enormous wealth: in his possession were 25 cities, 10 towns and 670 villages, the income from which reached a colossal figure for that time of 1,200,000 zlotys per year. His outstanding position in Western Russian society, influence at court and high senatorial rank gave his personality great strength and influence.

Indifferent to the affairs of the church and his people at the beginning of his activity, Ostrozhsky in the 70s began to take a closer interest in these important issues.

His castle is made open to all zealots of Orthodoxy, to all those who sought intercession from Polish lords and Catholic monks.

Understanding well what were the ills of contemporary Western Russian life, he, with his intelligence, easily found a way out of the difficulties in which the Western Russian Orthodox Church was placed.

Ostrozhsky understood that only by developing education among the masses of the Western Russian population and raising the moral and educational level of the Orthodox clergy could some success be achieved in the fight against the organized propaganda of the Jesuits and Catholic priests. “We have grown cold towards the faith,” he says in one of his messages, “and our shepherds cannot teach us anything, cannot stand up for God’s church.

There are no teachers, no preachers of God's word." The closest means to raising the level of spiritual education among the Western Russian population was the publication of books and the establishment of schools. These means had long been used with great success by the Jesuits for the purposes of their propaganda; Prince Ostrozhsky did not abandon these means.

The most urgent need for the Orthodox Western Russian population was the publication of the Holy Scriptures in the Slavic language. Ostrozhsky first of all set to work on this matter.

It was necessary to start with the installation of a printing house.

Ostrozhsky spared neither money nor effort for this. He wrote out the font and brought to him from Lvov a famous printer who had previously worked in Moscow, Ivan Fedorov and all his employees.

In order to make the publication of the Bible more efficient, Ostrozhsky copied handwritten lists of the books of the Holy Scriptures from everywhere.

He obtained the main list from Moscow, from the library of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible, through the Polish ambassador Garaburda; he obtained the Ostrog lists from other places: from the Patriarch of Constantinople Jeremiah, from Crete, from Serbian, Bulgarian, and Greek monasteries, he even established relations on this matter with Rome and obtained “many other bibles, various scripts and languages.” In addition, he had at his disposal the first edition of the Bible in Russian, printed in Prague, Czech Republic, by Dr. Francis Skaryna.

At Ostrozhsky’s request, Patriarch Jeremiah and some other prominent church leaders sent him people “punished in the scriptures of the saints, Hellenic and Slovenian.” Using the instructions and advice of all these knowledgeable people, Ostrozhsky began to analyze all the material sent.

Soon, however, the researchers were put in a difficult position, since almost all the lists sent to Ostrozhsky had errors, inaccuracies and discrepancies, as a result of which it was impossible to settle on any list, taking it as the main text. Ostrogsky decided to follow the advice of his friend, the famous Prince Andrei Kurbsky, who lived in Volyn at that time, and print the Bible “in Church Slavonic” not from the corrupted books of the Jews, but from 72 blessed and godly translators." After long and difficult work, in 1580 year, finally, the “Psalter and the New Testament” appeared with an alphabetical index to the latter, “for the sake of obtaining the most necessary things as quickly as possible.” This publication, distributed in a very large number of copies, satisfied the needs of the Orthodox churches and private citizens.

This edition of the Bible served as a model for the Moscow edition, which was published much later.

But the activities of the Ostrozhsky printing house did not stop there.

It was necessary to fight the Catholic influence, which was increasingly growing in Western Rus'. For this purpose, Ostrozhsky began to publish a number of books necessary, in his opinion, to raise enlightenment and fight against Latinism.

From liturgical books, he published a book of hours (1598), a missal and a prayer book (1606). To combat Latinism and Catholic propaganda, he published: epistles of Patriarch Jeremiah in Vilna to all Christians, to Prince Ostrog, to Kiev Metropolitan Onisiphorus (1584), Smotrytsky’s work “The Roman New Calendar” (1587), the book of St. Basil "on the one faith", directed against the Jesuit Peter Skarga, who wrote a book about the unification of churches under the rule of the Pope (1588). “Confession of the Descent of the Holy Spirit,” an essay by Maximus the Greek (1588), a message from Patriarch Meletius (1598), and his “Dialogue against schismatics.” In 1597, the Ostrog printing house published "Apocrisis", in response to the book of the Uniates, written in defense of the correctness of the actions of the Brest Cathedral.

In addition, the following books came out of Ostrog: the book of Basil the Great on fasting (1594), “Margarit” by John Chrysostom (1596), “Vershi” on the apostates, Meletius of Smotrytsky (1598). “The ABC” with a short dictionary and the Orthodox Catechism, Lavrenty Zizaniya, etc. At the end of his life, Prince Ostrozhsky allocated part of his printing house and transferred it to the Dermansky monastery that belonged to him, where the learned and intelligent priest Demyan Nalivaiko became the head of the printing business.

The following were printed and published here: the Liturgical Octoechos (1603), the polemical sheet of Patriarch Meletius to Bishop Hypatius Potsey regarding the introduction of the union (1605), etc. The Derman publications were distinguished by the peculiarity that they were printed in two languages: Lithuanian-Russian and Church Slavonic, which, of course, only contributed to their greater spread among the masses of the Western Russian population.

Just before his death, Ostrozhsky founded a third printing house in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, where he sent part of the font and printing supplies.

This printing house, the results of which Prince Ostrogsky did not have to see, served as the basis for the later famous Kiev-Pechersk printing house, which in the 17th century was the main support of Orthodoxy in southwestern Rus'. But when he founded printing houses and printed books in them, Ostrozhsky well understood that the matter of educating the people was far from being exhausted by this.

He was aware of the need to educate the clergy, the need to create a theological school to train priests and spiritual teachers, whose ignorance and unpreparedness was clear to him. “Nothing else has caused such laziness and apostasy from the faith to multiply among people,” Ostrozhsky wrote in one of his letters, “as if from this the teachers were tired, the preachers of the word of God were tired, science was tired, they were tired of teaching, and after that came impoverishment and decline.” praise of God in His church, there has come a famine of hearing the word of God, there has come a departure from the faith and the law.” From the very beginning of his activity, Ostrozhsky began to organize schools in the cities and monasteries subordinate to him: thus, giving the land that belonged to him in Turov to Dimitri Miturich in 1572, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich set the condition “to keep a school there.” With the material and moral support of Ostrozhsky, other schools were founded in different places in southwestern Rus'; Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich also supported fraternal schools, which played a significant role in the fight against Catholicism.

But Ostrogsky’s main work at this time was the founding of the famous Academy in the city of Ostrog, from which many remarkable figures emerged in the field of Orthodoxy at the end of the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries. We do not have detailed information about the establishment and nature of this educational institution. The few data that have reached us, however, make it possible to somewhat determine, albeit in general terms, its organization.

This school, which undoubtedly had the character of a higher school, was set up on the model of Western European Jesuit colleges, and the teaching in it was in the nature of preparation for the fight against Catholicism and the Jesuits.

The teachers there were mainly Greeks, whom Ostrozhsky invited from Constantinople, mostly from people close to the patriarch. “And for the first time, we read in one of the modern manuscripts, I tried with the Holy Patriarch to send here didascals on the multiplication of the sciences of the Orthodox faith, but he is ready to fight for this with his fuss and does not favor their reports on this.” The first rector of the new school was the Greek scholar Cyril Loukaris, a European-educated man who later became the Patriarch of Constantinople.

The school taught reading, writing, singing, Russian, Latin and Greek, dialectics, grammar and rhetoric; the most capable of those who graduated from school were sent for improvement, at the expense of Ostrozhsky, to Constantinople, to the highest patriarchal school. There was also a rich library at the school.

Despite the fact that the founding of the school dates back only to 1580, in the nineties of the 16th century, an extensive scientific circle was formed from its students and teachers, grouped around Ostrog and Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich and animated by one thought - to fight Polonism and Catholicism for the Russian people and the Orthodox faith. All the most prominent figures of Western Rus' belonged to this circle: Gerasim and Melety Smotritsky, Pyotr Konashevich-Sagaidachny, priest Demyan Nalivaiko, Stefan Zizaniy, Job Boretsky and many others.

The significance of this school was great.

In addition to the significant moral influence on Western Russian society, in addition to the fact that the main fighters for the Orthodox Russian idea in southwestern Rus' came from it, it is important because it was the only higher Orthodox school at that time that bore on its shoulders the fight against the union and the Jesuits. propaganda.

The Jesuits also understood its importance. the famous Possevin reported with alarm to Rome that the “Russian schism” was fueled by this school. Prince Ostrozhsky also had to take direct part in the affairs of the Western Russian Orthodox Church.

Seeing monasticism as one of the main means of combating Catholic propaganda, Ostrozhsky tried to raise its importance, eliminate disorder in the life of monasteries, and strengthen their moral strength and influence.

In the subordinate monasteries, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich started schools, attracted educated monks to them, and appointed learned abbots.

For other Orthodox monasteries in Southwestern Rus', he printed books in his printing houses, helping them with money and “endowments.” In order to induce Western Russian monasticism to change its idle and debauched lifestyle, he published in his Ostrog printing house the book of St. Basil the Great on monasticism, introduced a new charter in the monasteries subordinate to him, from where little by little this more strict charter and corresponding to the ideals of monasticism began to pass and to other monasteries of Western Rus'. Realizing the importance of brotherhoods in the life of the Orthodox Church, Konstantin Ostrogsky did his best to promote their prosperity.

Using his influence at the Polish court and with the Patriarch of Constantinople, he easily obtained all kinds of privileges for them, provided mentors to their schools, delivered type to their printing houses, and helped them morally and financially.

Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich had a particularly close relationship with the Lviv Orthodox Brotherhood, to which Ostrozhsky entrusted the upbringing of his son. The efforts of Konstantin Ostrozhsky are also known in the matter of establishing the highest hierarchy of the Western Russian church.

Mainly it was necessary to change the personnel of the hierarchy, which often included vicious people.

Ostrogsky, enjoying enormous influence at court, in 1592 obtained from King Sigismund III the right to patronage in the Western Russian Orthodox Church, which gave him the opportunity to independently elect worthy church shepherds who could successfully serve and help Ostrozhsky in his difficult struggle.

Meanwhile, while all these reforms were being implemented, a new danger began to threaten the Western Russian Church in the form of a union, with which Ostrozhsky also had to endure a serious struggle.

Personally, Konstantin Konstantinovich at first was not even averse to union, but only on the condition that it be proclaimed by an ecumenical council, with the consent and approval of the Eastern patriarchs.

Meanwhile, some bishops, led by Hypatius Potsey, thought to solve the matter at home, without asking the patriarchs, directly by agreement with the Pope. The relations that began on this occasion between Ostrozhsky and the Uniate Party did not lead to any positive results.

Soon relations became so strained that, as it was clear to the Jesuits, there could be no agreement, and the Catholic party decided to pursue a union apart from Ostrogsky.

The main figures of the union - Bishops Hypatius Potsey and Kirill Terletsky - managed to win over the indecisive Kiev Metropolitan Mikhail Ragoza to their side and obtain permission from him to convene a council in Brest in 1594 to discuss the union and related issues.

Ostrogsky and the Orthodox party began to prepare for the council.

Apparently, what Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich was preparing for the cathedral was too dangerous for the Uniate party, and King Sigismund III, a zealous Catholic and a great admirer of the Jesuits, at the instigation of the Catholics, banned the cathedral by decree, clearly not wanting to allow secular interference in matters churches.

Meanwhile, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich little by little had to become in very strained relations with the king and the government, which clearly patronized the Catholic tendencies of the Jesuits.

Ostrozhsky began to look for allies of the Russian Orthodox party even among the Protestants, who were oppressed by the Jesuits and the reactionary Polish government no less than the Orthodox.

Ostrozhsky even assumed that it would be necessary to defend his faith with arms in hand. “His Royal Majesty,” wrote Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich to the leaders of the Protestant movement, “will not want to allow an attack on us, because we ourselves may have twenty thousand armed people, and the priests can surpass us only in the number of those cooks whom the priests keep in their place.” wives." The general sympathy of the Western Russian population for Ostrozhsky and his party and hatred of Catholicism and the Jesuits grew every day, and the Jesuits decided to speed things up. Potsey and Terletsky went to Rome, were received with honor by Pope Clement VIII, and on behalf of the Western Russian hierarchs proposed submission to the Western Russian Church.

Ostrogsky, having heard about this event, naturally reacted to it with indignation and issued his first message to the Russian people, in which he exhorted the Western Russian people not to succumb to the tricks of the Jesuits and papists and to oppose the introduction of the union with all their might. Ostrogsky's messages had a great influence on the population.

The first to rise were the Cossacks under the command of Nalivaika and began to destroy the estates of bishops who sympathized with the union and Western Russian lords who had converted to Catholicism.

The Jesuits saw that their cause, due to the resistance of Ostrozhsky and his party, could perish and decided to end it as soon as possible. A council was appointed for October 6, 1596 in Brest to finalize the issue of union. Ostrogsky immediately let the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Constantinople know about this; They sent their governors, with whom Ostrozhsky appeared on time in Brest. In Brest, however, Ostrogsky had already found supporters of the union, who, without waiting for the Orthodox party, began a council and quickly, under the leadership of the Jesuit Peter Skarga, decided on a union with Catholicism. On October 6, 1596, the Orthodox bishops also began the council, under the chairmanship of the Exarch of Constantinople, Patriarch Nicephorus and with the active participation of Ostrozhsky.

The Orthodox Council sent to invite the Uniates, but they refused.

Then the Orthodox bishops accused them of apostasy and pronounced excommunication over them, sending this sentence to the metropolitan who presided over the Uniate Council.

Due to the intrigues of the Jesuits, the royal ambassadors, who were also present at the Uniate Council, decided to apply repression against the Orthodox and accused the patriarchal governor Nicephorus of being a Turkish spy. Both sides, of course, began to complain to the king, but Sigismund III took the side of the Uniates.

Nikifor was sentenced to imprisonment, and new accusations and attacks rained down on Ostrozhsky.

He was accused of not strengthening the areas entrusted to him against a possible invasion of the Tatars, and they demanded that he pay a tax, which was calculated at 40,000 kopecks.

However, Ostrogsky did not dare to take drastic actions against the Polish government, despite the fact that the moment was very favorable, and the Russian population, extremely excited by the union and long dissatisfied with the oppression of the Polish lords, would easily rise to defend their faith and their nationality.

Sending the decree of the Polish Sejm against the Orthodox to the Lvov brotherhood in 1600, Ostrozhsky wrote to the brothers: “I am sending you a decree of the last Sejm, contrary to popular law and holy truth, and I give you no other advice than that you be patient and wait for God’s mercy, until God, in His goodness, inclined the heart of His Royal Majesty to offend no one and leave everyone to their rights." Only in his Ostrog printing house did Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich fight against the union and Catholicism until the end of his life, printing appeals and books against Catholics and Uniates and thus supporting the Orthodox Western Russian population in the difficult struggle for their faith. Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrogsky died in old age, on February 13, 1608, and was buried in Ostrog in the Castle Epiphany Church.

Of his children, only one, Prince Alexander, was Orthodox, while the other two sons, Princes Konstantin and Ivan, and daughter, Princess Anna, converted to Catholicism.

Soon his printing house and school passed into the hands of Catholics, and in 1636 his granddaughter Anna Aloysia, appearing in Ostrog, ordered the prince’s bones to be removed from the tomb, washed, consecrated according to the Catholic rite and transferred to her city of Yaroslavl, where she laid them in the Catholic chapel.

Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky, despite this apparently lack of success in his activities, rendered, however, enormous services to the cause of the Russian people in Western Rus'. According to contemporaries, he was the center around which the entire Russian Orthodox party in western Rus' was grouped. With his printing house and school, he provided significant moral and cultural support to Orthodoxy in the fight against Catholicism, and with his influence and wealth he was useful to him as a major material force. Smart and capable by nature, Ostrozhsky understood the importance of the current moments for Western Rus' and strained all his strength to fight Western European culture, which was preparing, with the help of such an improved apparatus as the Jesuit order, to absorb the Western Russian people.

Ostrogsky even abandoned his personal career: he could rarely be seen at court, and he rarely took part in campaigns, where it was easiest to advance at that time. Only in 1579, to please King Stefan Batory, he undertook a campaign against the Seversk region and this ended his military activity.

Nevertheless, he directed his influence and all his strength to the defense of Orthodoxy, which largely owes him the fact that it withstood the centuries-long struggle with Catholicism and the Catholic Polish government.

Acts of Western Russia vol. III and IV; Acts of Southern and Western Russia, vols. I - II; Archiwum ksiazat Lubortowiczow-Sanguszkow w Slowucie, t. t. I - III; Danilowicz, "Skarbiec dyplomatow" t. t. I-II (Wilno 1860-62); Archives of South-Western Russia, vol. II-VI; Monumenta confraternitatis Stauropigianae Leopoliensis, t. I, p. I-II. (Leopoli, 1895); Mukhanov's collection (according to the index);

Monuments published by the temporary commission for the analysis of ancient acts, vol. IV (Kyiv 1859); Stebelski, Przydatek do Chronologjy, t. III (Wilno 1783); Kulish, "Materials for the history of the reunification of Rus'", vol. I-II; Karataev, “Description of Slavic-Russian books” vol. I (St. Petersburg, 1883); "The Life of Prince Kurbsky in Lithuania and Volyn" ed. Ivanisheva (1849); Tales of Prince Kurbsky (2nd edition, St. Petersburg, 1842); Russian Historical Library, vol. IV, VII, XIII; Scriptores rerum polonicarum, t. t. I-III; (Krakow 1872-1875); Sakharov. "Review of Slavic-Russian bibliography" (1849); Collection of monuments of the Russian people and Orthodoxy in Volyn (published by the technical and construction department of the Volyn Governorate), vol. I-II (1862 and 1872); Sopikov, “The Experience of Russian Bibliography” Part I, Nos. 69, 109, 193, 435, 464, 670, 750, 752, 987, 1, 447: “Chronicle of Grabyanka”; Batyushkov, “Ancient Monuments in the Western Provinces” (8 vols. 1868-1885, according to indexes); Stebelski, "Zywoty S. S. Eufrcizyny i Paraskiewy z genealogia, ksiazat Ostrogskich; Lebedintsev, "Materials for the history of the Kyiv Metropolis" ("Kievsk.

Eparch. Vedom." for 1873); Boniecki, "Poczet rodow w Koronie i W. Ks. Litewskim XVI wieku" (Warsz. 1887); Wolff, "Kniaziowie Litewsko-Ruscy" (Warsz. 1895); Macarius, "History of the Russian Church", vol. VII, VIII and IX; Narbutt, "Dzieje narodu polskiego" t. t. IX - X; Dashkovich, “The struggle of cultures and nationalities in the Lithuanian-Russian state” (Kievsk.

Univ. Izvestia" 1884, X-XII); Koyalovich, "Lithuanian Church Union" vol. I; Bantysh-Kamensky, "Historical news of the former union in Poland"; Chistovich, "History of the Western Russian Church" (St. Petersburg 1884) part II; "Minister Magazine.

The people of enlightenment." 1849, IV; "Prince Konstantin (Vasily) Ostrozhsky" ("Orthodox Interlocutor" 1858, II - III); "The beginning of the union in southwestern Rus'" ("Orthodox.

Sobesedn." 1858, IV-X); Maksimovich, "Letters about the princes of Ostrog" (Kiev 1866); Kostomarov, "Russian history in the biographies of its main figures", issue III (St. Petersburg 1874) 535-563; Perlstein, " A few words about the Principality of Ostrog" (Vremennik Moskovsk.

General History and Ancient." 1852, book XIV, section I); "The Kievite" 1840, book I; Elenevsky, "Konstantin II Prince of Ostrog" ("Bulletin of Western Russia" 1869, VII?IX); Zubritsky, " The beginning of the union" ("Readings Moscow.

General Stories Ancient. 1848, No. 7); Batyushkov, "Volyn" St. Petersburg. 1888); A. Andriyashev, "Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky, governor of Kiev" (Kiev People's Calendar for 1881); "Proceedings of the Kiev Theological Academy" 1876, Nos. 3 and 4; 1877, No. 10, 1886, No. 1; Metropolitan.

Evgeniy, “Dictionary of writers of the clergy”; Wisniewski, “History of Polish Literature” vol. VIII; Metropolitan

Evgeniy, “Description of the Kiev-Sophia Cathedral”; Petrov, “Essay on the history of the Orthodox school in Volyn” (“Proceedings of the Kyiv Theological Academy.” 1867); Lukyanovich, “About the Ostroh School” (“Volyn Diocesan.

Vedomosti" 1881); Kharlampovich, "Ostrozh Orthodox School" ("Kiev Antiquity" 1897, No. 5 and 6); "Kiev Antiquity" 1883, No. 11, 1885, No. 7, 1882, No. 10; Arkhangelsky, "The Fight against Catholicism and Western Russian literature of the late 16th and 1st half of the 17th centuries" (1888); Seletsky, "Ostrozh printing house and its publications" (Pochaev, 1885); Maksimovich, "Historical monographs", vol. III; "Proceedings of the Kiev Archaeological Congress", vol. II; "Ancient and New Russia" 1876, IX, 1879, III; Demyanovich, "Jesuits in Western Russia"; "Readings in the Society of Nestor the Chronicler", vol. I pp. 79-81; "Volyn Diocesan.

Vedomosti" 1875, No. 2; Solsky, "Ostrozh Bible" ("Proceedings of the Kiev Theological Academy" 1884, VII); Levitsky, "The internal state of the Western Russian church at the end of the 16th century and the union" (Kiev 1881); Karamzin, (Ed. Einerling ) vol. X; Soloviev (published by the company "General Benefits", vol. II and III. E. Likhach. (Polovtsov)