Most merciful Empress! The most all-submissive Synod is simple, will V.I.V... most mercifully deign to command that in the said city of Kyiv there will be a metropolis as before11.
Original signed: Ambrose, arch. Novgorod, Stefan, E. Pskov, Simon, E. Suzhdal, Mitrofan, E. Tver, Plato, Archimandrite. Rozhdestvensky, Varlaam, archimandrite. Miraculous, Peter Archpriest of Blagoveshchensk.
Elizabeth was slow to make decisions. For 8 whole months she kept the report of the Synod with her. Finally, such a decree was issued to the Holy Synod. “In response to the report submitted to us from the Synod on October 25 of last year, 1742, we command: in the city of Kyiv, for the reasons presented, there will continue to be a metropolis*.
Elisaveta.
On June 11, 1745.
In Peterhof.
After this, the Holy Synod could only circularly notify the governing Senate, the diocesan bishops and the Bishop of Kyiv Raphael himself about the highest will.
III.
Hierarchical changes in Kyiv after the death of Metropolitan. Rafaila
Zaborovsky *
On October 22, 1747, at the end of the 9th hour, Metropolitan of Kyiv Raphael Zaborovsky died. The deceased left behind a will, very simple and short, which testified very well to his honesty and non-covetousness. Here it is:
“Glory to the holy and consubstantial and life-giving and indivisible Trinity always, now and ever and unto ages of ages Amen.
The will and determination of my cell from the willing donors to the righteously collected chervonnies I deem as follows. After the burial of my sinful body, I distributed one hundred ducats to the clergy for prayer. I don’t have any more money in me. And my other money and my own things were given away by me for my life. Humble Raphael, Metropolitan of Kyiv. 1747 Septemvria 12 days*.
F. A. Ternovsky,
The Kyiv consistory hastened to convey to St. Synod about the death of the metropolitan and asked for orders. "The body of His Eminence should be consigned to the earth in Christian order, and the affairs of the diocesan proper and properly sent to the episcopal authority and others, to whom it will be carried out, we ask Your Holiness with the most humble resolution. And there is the Most Holy Macarius, Metropolitan of Thebaid, who came to His Eminence with the writings of His Holiness the Patriarch Matthew of Alexandria to ask for alms, who had not yet been allowed to leave the Kyiv provincial office for St. Petersburg, to whom, of blessed memory, our Most Reverend Archpastor allowed him to perform priesthood and ordain proteges for his illness.” 1747 Oct. 23.
The Holy Synod was quick to respond. The council of the Kyiv clergy, with the Metropolitan of Thebaid at the head of the cathedral, was entrusted with burying the body of Metropolitan Raphael: neighboring bishops Ambrose of Chernihiv and Nicodemus of Pereyaslav were also invited to take part in the funeral ceremony, but they declined this invitation. — On November 30, the deceased M. Raphael was buried in the Kievosophical cathedral church. His body—says the catalog of Kyiv bishops sent to St. The Synod of April 3, 1780 - and remains incorruptible to this day. It remained incorruptible at the beginning of this century. Metropolitan Serapion in his diary on August 24. 1805 wrote: "We went (with I.V. Lopukhin) to the crypt, where the coffins of the Metropolitan of Kyiv stand and looked at the remains of M. Raphael. The entire composition has not collapsed, and the vestments are not only all intact, but almost new. Migage! For 58 years since he died." Subsequently, the entrance to the burial crypt under the St. Sophia Cathedral was blocked by order of Metropolitan. Evgenia.
It was necessary to take care of choosing a successor to the Kyiv Metropolitan. Empress Elizabeth was slow in carrying out affairs in general, and in particular in filling the episcopal departments. Reports on candidates for idle episcopal sees lay with her without moving for entire years. But this time she changed her usual slowness, perhaps because Kyiv, which she had recently visited, was close to her heart and memory. November 6 Impe-
ESSAYS AND8Ъ HISTORY OF THE Kyiv TH CENTURY.
The ratrida instructed the synod to present candidates for the Kyiv metropolis; On November 8, in her winter palace, she verbally declared to the synodal chief prosecutor, Prince Ya. P. Shakhovsky, that she was choosing Kyiv Pechersk Archimandrite Timofey Shcherbatsky, presented as one of the candidates for the idle Moscow see, as metropolitan of Kyiv; and the next day (November 9) the next written
Decree to the Holy Synod