Bolharynovych, Yosyf I

Bolharynovych, Yosyf I [Болгаринович, Йосиф; Bolharynovyč, Josyf]. Church leader, metropolitan of Kyiv. In 1494 he became bishop of Smolensk, and from 1498 to 1501 he was metropolitan of Kyiv. He was appointed metropolitan by the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Alexander Jagiellończyk, who in 1499 granted the church under Bolharynovych self-rule and independent ecclesiastical courts. Bolharynovych supported the Church Union of Florence. Pope Alexander VI adopted one of his proposals and in a separate bull recognized baptism in the Eastern Orthodox rite as valid in the Catholic church.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]