Fearless metropolitan
Oleksandr Matsiievych (1697-1772) was born in the town of Volodymyr-Volynsky into a family of an Orthodox priest descended from Ukrainian Orthodox nobility. He completed a full course at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 1728. During his studies he became a monk of the Bratsk Monastery, adopting the name Arsenii. He served in the Kyivan Cave Monastery, various monasteries in Chernihiv and Novhorod-Siversky, and the Slavonic, Greek, and Latin Academy, where he was an examiner of monks belonging to the Moscow Eparchy.
At the request of the metropolitan of Tobolsk and All Siberia, Arsenii was sent to Tobolsk, where he became known as a brilliant preacher. He reformed the local consistory and defended the newly-converted natives from tsarist voivodes and the clergy — from secular court interference.
The Ukrainian monk from Volodymyr-Volynsky traveled frequently. He made an arduous pilgrimage to Ustiug, Kholmogory, and the Solovetsky Monastery, where he waged a polemic against imprisoned Old Believers and wrote Uveshchanie k Raskolniku (Admonition to a Schismatic) published in the 19 th century. He took part in the Kamchatka expedition of 1734-37 and sailed the Arctic Ocean.
For some time he lived in St. Petersburg, where he was a religion teacher at the Noblemen’s Cadet School, an examiner at the synod, and a religion teacher at the gymnasium of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Beginning in 1740 he played a considerable role in the synod’s work. (Since the rule of Peter I, the synod “played the role” of the Moscow Patriarch.)
The peak of Arsenii’s ecclesiastical career was his ordination as metropolitan in 1742 and appointment to the Rostov Eparchy. At the same time he became a member of the Moscow Church Synod.
After being appointed metropolitan of Rostov, Arsenii dared to do what no Russian Orthodox Archbishop had dared do before him (nor since) — he refused to swear an oath to Empress Elizabeth and stated publicly that the “supreme judge is God, not the Russian monarch.” Thanks only to Elizabeth’s weakness for “Little Russians” (for known reasons) the metropolitan’s courageous demarche was ignored. He continued to be a thorn in the side of the authorities, for example, demanding the abolition of the post of synod’s supreme prosecutor and the restoration of the canonical church order.
Arsenii was an energetic metropolitan, excellent administrator, and an eloquent preacher. In the library of the Yaroslavl Theological Seminary 12 volumes of his sermons have been preserved, only eight of which were published. On his initiative the synod raised the question of the canonization of the Ukrainian, Dymytrii Rostovsky (Tuptalo). Arsenii wrote a biography of Tuptalo and headed the solemn opening of the relics and canonization of the Rostov archpastor in 1757. Metropolitan Arsenii always spoke Ukrainian (as well as Old Church Slavonic) which sparked suspicion and opposition among many people.
At the time a “reform” was swirling in the Russian Empire: Empress Catherine II introduced secularization (removal) of church lands and their transfer — together with serfs — to the state. The tsarina granted a considerable part of these lands to her favorites. Metropolitan Arsenii categorically and publicly disagreed with the confiscation of church lands and even proclaimed an anathema against those who “violate and offend holy churches and monasteries.” He also sent two letters to the synod, in which, disregarding all ranks and positions, he “reprimanded” the synod and even the tsarina for their anticlerical policy.
Catherine II viewed this as a revolt and ordered the immediate arrest of Arsenii and his personal interrogation. Arsenii behaved properly during the interrogation, but he did not remain silent. He expressed all his opinions to the tsarina. He was tried, defrocked, and sentenced to death for offending Her Majesty. The death penalty was commuted to defrocking and life imprisonment.
At first he was sent to the St. Nicholas Monastery in Karelia, but when rumors reached St. Petersburg that Arsenii was continuing to blame Catherine II for her secularization policy even there, he was immured in a stone “sack,” a cell with a tiny window in the fortress of Revel. It was forbidden to visit Arsenii or speak to him. This is how he spent the last four years of his life. After his death, the following words from a psalm were found scratched on the wall of his cell: “I am blessed to be humbled by Thee.”
In this article I do not want to discuss whether Metropolitan Arsenii was right or wrong in his conflict with the Russian throne and his defense of church property. After all, it is difficult to say where the peasants’ serfdom was more severe — on church or state lands or on the estates of the empress’s favorites. What is most important is the metropolitan’s courage in protecting the church’s rights and his brave championing of his views. All this took place in the age of absolutism and Russian despotism, when the least objection to the monarch’s will was regarded as a betrayal of the throne and an attempt against “His” or “Her” Majesty, i.e., equal to death.
As the Russian historian Anton Kartashev writes, “Arsenii’s tragic fate illustrates a deep difference in ideology, lying in the subconscious of Russian southerners [i.e., Ukrainians-Ed.] who had been raised in a Latin and Polish atmosphere. Despite how difficult the secularization revolution was for them, the Great Russian clergy accepted it and bore it as a duty to the native state and people. That is why it is no surprise that the southerners, as well as Arsenii, were not supported by the Great Russian majority in their internal drama.”
Before the 20 th century few people remembered the name and life of Arsenii of Volodymyr-Volynsky. In 2001, the “Local Synod of the Kyiv Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church...after a thorough examination of the life and saintly and confessional achievements, full of zealousness before God and the grace of the Holy Spirit, of the Ukrainian-born Arsenii, Metropolitan of Rostov (Matsiievych) regards it as timely to canonize this great confessor and saint.”
(Based on materials by Father Yurii Mytsyk, Mykhailo Popov, and Anton Kartashov)
