Uniate Convents in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Early Modern Period

Abstract

The article focuses on the development of the network of convents (female monasteries) in the Kyivan Uniate Metropolitanate from the time of the Union of Brest (1596) to the first half of the 19th century. The first communities of Uniate nuns appeared within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the beginning of the 17th century. Unlike the men, they were not united in a single Order but were subordinated to the local bishop. The second half of the 17th century, with its almost continuous wars and internal conflicts in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, negatively impacted the development of monastic communities. Favourable circumstances for the Uniate Church and its monasticism emerged only in the late 17th and 18th centuries. During this period, three eparchies (dioceses) of the Kyivan Orthodox Metropolitanate joined the Union. Along with the bishops, numerous monastic communities located in these areas accepted the Union. However, between the 1730s and 1760s, there was a gradual dissolution of small convents. One of the main reasons for this was the implementation of the decisions of the Synod of Zamość (1720). The suppression of the Uniate female communities after the three partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was continued by the Russian authorities, albeit for different reasons. At the end of the 18th century and in the first half of the 19th century, all convents in the Russian Empire were suppressed.