Структуры Кіеўскай мітраполіі ў Вялікім Княстве Літоўскім у святле матэрыялаў генеральных візітацый уніяцкіх цэркваў XVII–XVIII стст

ENThe article is devoted to the issue of the organisation of general visitations (episcopal inspections) in the Kyiv Metropolis in the 17th–18th centuries. After 1509, for almost a hundred years, no synod was convened in the Kyiv Metropolis. As a result, inspections by bishops subordinated to the church effectively ceased. This was one of the reasons for the organisational crisis of the Kyiv Metropolis in the 16th century. One of the main issues considered by the hierarchy of the Uniate Kyiv Metropolis (after the Union of Brest in 1596) was the resumption of general visitations. First of all, general visitations began to be conducted in the dioceses directly subordinate to the Kyiv metropolitans. Some of the first visitations were carried out by Metropolitan Joseph Velamin-Rutski in the 1620s. However, written records of general visitations began to be kept on a large scale only in the 1670s. A qualitatively new stage in the organisation of the general visitation system began in 1674, during the administration of the Kyiv Metropolis by Cyprian Zhukhovsky. It was during this metropolitan’s tenure that full general visitations began to be conducted, including the compilation of a preliminary list of visited churches and their mandatory written recording. The article indicates the main places where the materials from the general visitations of the Uniate churches of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 17th–18th centuries are kept.