Montenegrin monk Domtiash Vladevich and his stay in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra').
On July 10, 1797, Emperor Paul I received the following letter:
All-merciful Sovereign!
„ Last March, on the 27th, I wrote to V.I. the Headquarters through the hands of Count V.P. Musin-Pushkin, that there is nothing more ruinous for the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra than for it to be under the control of a diocesan bishop, like the current Most Reverend Hierotheus, who in his ways is very arrogant, unmerciful, and overly dainty for covetousness and insatiable and extremely indiscriminate in his rule and ruinous for the holy Lavra.” What follows is a calculation of the misdeeds of M. Ierotheus, of which there are five: a) failure to serve a solemn prayer service after the oath of allegiance to the emperor. Paul, b) not serving memorial services for the late empress, c) inflicting cruelty on 10 monks on December 6, 1796 by knitting them in the cruel cold, d) using 25,000 rubles. With. from the enormous Lavra sums for unnecessary and incorrect expenses, e) non-repair of the great Lavra church and printing presses. The letter ends like this: Thank God, Your Imperial Majesty, truth reigns in Russia; and here in a private place untruth is rampant. The Right Reverend never instilled me in his personal justification, but, having established himself on false witnesses, he prepared a gpbel for me. Some of those close to him announced to him that the great Sovereign knew about me; he answered: let him perish, but I will destroy him. All-merciful Sovereign! I most reverently ask your imp. Veli-
') From the archives of St. Synod. 1797 No. 158.
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
honors: for the sake of God and the Mother of God, spare the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra from such ruin and oppression of the brethren and deliver by High Monarchal authority from the authorities of the Most Reverend. Hierothea. Do not bite, Great Sovereign! don't bite. Falling at the most sacred feet of V. I. V-stva, I am V. I. V-stva, the most devoted hieromonk of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra
Dometian Vladevich."
June 19, 1797 Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.
Sovereign through D. II. Troshchinsvogo handed over the letter in the original to the leading member of St. Synod of Metropolitan Gabriel and St. The synod at its meeting on July 17, 1797 determined: Met. send a decree to Hierotheus of Kyiv, inscribing it in secret, with a proposal to send it to St. The synod, in the most basic justice and clear conscience, made a detailed response against Dometian’s denunciation, and if Dometian still lives in the monastery, then leave him until further orders from the synod.
From 11 Aug. 1797 Met. Hierotheus sent to St. The synod gave a detailed and thorough response against Dometianov’s denunciation. Having in fact shown the complete inaccuracy of the accusations leveled against him by Dometian, the Metropolitan ended his justification as follows: “I did not have and do not have any inclination towards whims, and therefore, according to my authority, I did not use anything for it, I did not destroy the Lavra monastery in anything, and I never took any things into my bishop’s house, which is the truth of the oldest Lavra brethren and all those who have something in their contents can confirm with their conscience, but I tried in every possible way to preserve the Lavra’s goodness in inviolability. And for this reason, when the rumor reached me about Dometian’s idle talk, I imputed this to nothing; having heard enough about his Asian morals and fearing that, due to his passion and severity, he would do me some kind of offense. And I didn’t say these words: let me disappear and destroy him, to anyone and under no circumstances; but Dometian himself made such impudent speeches in front of some of the brethren: “Let me perish myself, but I will prove that he will not be a commander of the bishop in the Lavra.”
At the same time, M. Hierotheus presented a report to the spiritual council of the Lavra on the behavior and character of Dometian. In this report, the inter-
F THE Kyiv DIOCESE IN HIPT SGOLTIA.