If the previous metropolitans were demoted from their degrees, then even more so the dignity of metropolitan was again not given to anyone. At the beginning of 1722, it was considered necessary to replace the Kyiv department, which had remained idle since the death of Metropolitan. Joseph the Bloody, who died on July 1, 1718. Four candidates were presented: 1) Varlaam Vanatovich, archimandrite of the Tikhvin Monastery (originally from Yaroslavl, Poland, a bourgeois son, studied in Kyiv schools for 8 years, before philosophy), 2) Leonid, archimandrite of the Petrovsky Monastery, synodal adviser (originally from Meshchovsva, church son), 3) Anthony, archimandrite of the Chrysostom Monastery (merchant son from Luk), 4) Veniamin, archimandrite Khutynsvy (originally from the city of Yuryevets Polsky, from popovich ancestors, and he himself was a priest in his father’s place) * 8). The lot to be the Kyiv High Hierarch fell on Varlaam Vanatovich. Of course, this was greatly facilitated by the fact that Varlaam was a confessor
') Right Review 1863. No. 1, p. 76.
*) Chistovich, Feofan Prokopovich 708.
*) Description of documents of St. synod. T. I, p. 767.
F THE Kyiv TH CENTURY.
the then powerful vice-president of St. Synod, Archbishop Theodosius of Novgorod. Be that as it may, on May 14, 1722, Varlaam Vanatovich was consecrated to the rank of Archbishop of Kyiv. Modest and unassuming by nature, Varlaam was of course pleased with the title of archbishop and did not think of standing higher than his powerful patron. But the history of the Kyiv see gave its shepherd every right to desire the rank of metropolitan. Fifty-seven predecessors of Barlaam at the Kyiv See - from St. Michael to Joasaph of Krokovsky - bore the rank of metropolitan. Moreover, the Kyiv department even had official assurance from the Moscow government of the inviolability of its rights. When the Kyiv metropolis in the person of Gedeopa Svyatopolk-Chetvertinsky passed from the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the jurisdiction of the patriarchs. Moscow, then the sovereigns John and Peter Alekseevich and Princess Sofya Alekseevna, in a letter sent to Little Russia in September 1685, solemnly promised that the Kyiv metropolis would be “in the same respect as it has been until now under the blessing of the Most Holy Ecumenical of Constantinople Patriarch, both in the metropolitan honor, and in the correction of the spiritual rank and church principles and in the preservation of the rights and liberties acquired according to ancient custom - during the time of Varlaam Vanatovich - were an event of recent days. the highest Kyiv clergy, always jealous of the observance of the rights of Little Russian liberty.
Without a doubt, it was not the right time during the reign of the formidable first emperor to remember these rights. The best times in this regard came under the grandson of Peter I, Peter P Alekseevich (1726-1730) - “At that time,” testifies the author of the monograph on Varlaam Vanatovich B. M. Kryzhanovsky (Proceedings of V. D. Av. 1861 No. 2, 281) - dissatisfaction revived in Kyiv regarding the destruction of the title in the person of Vanatovich Metropolitan. The fugitive abbot of the Sorochinsky monastery, Epifaniy Revutsky, obtained for himself the rank of bishop from the Iasi Metropolitan George, and was later the bishop of the Vetkovo schismatics.” We don't know what the basis is
') Archive Yugosap. Russia, part 1, volume U, page 99.
The testimony of E. M. Kryzhanovsky is revealed, as well as details of the fact, otherwise reported. But we have at hand documentary evidence that under Peter N. the idea of restoring the metropolis really came to life in Kyiv. This is precisely the petition of the Emperor, found in the manuscript of the Kyiv-Sofia Library No. 430. To Peter the Great of Varlaam Vanatovich with the clergy under his jurisdiction for the restoration of the metropolitanate in Kyiv, a petition that reads word by word like this:
“The Most Illustrious, Most Powerful, Great Sovereign, Emperor and Autocrat, All-Russian Sovereign, Most Compassionate.