Abstract

As a result of the partitions of Poland about 60% of the faithful of the Uniate Church, which was set up at the Council of Brest in 1596, became inhabitants of the Russian Empire. Since then, the situation of Uniates in that country was largely determined by the attitude of the successive rulers of Russia to this Church. Empire's approach to the Uniate Church changed completely with the enthronement of Tsar Nicholas I (1825-1855). His main helper, a person who played a key role in the return of many Uniates to Orthodoxy, was archbishop Joseph Siemaszko (1798-1868), son of the Uniate priest and initially also Uniate priest. In February 1839, at the day of feast of Triumph of Orthodoxy, in Polotsk (Belorussia) a meeting of the Council of Bishops of the Uniate Church took place. At this meeting, held under the chairmanship of archbishop Siemaszko, the return of the Uniates, that lived on the Western territories of the Russian Empire, to the Orthodox Church was announced. Participants of the meeting also asked Tsar Nicholas I to connect Uniates to Orthodoxy faster. As a result, more than one and a half million Uniates from both Belorussian and Lithuanian Dioceses had been faithful of the Russian Orthodox Church. Orthodox Church memebers became also three bishops, over 1.500 priests, over 200 monks as well as 1.227 parishes. Within the borders of the Russian Empire Uniate Church officially stopped existing, although in practice the process of converting Uniates to Orthodoxy in the Belorussian and Lithuanian lands lasted until 1915.