Lopatynsky, Teofilakt

Lopatynsky, Teofilakt [Лопатинський, Теофілакт; Lopatyns'kyj], b 1670 in Volhynia, d 6 May 1741. Theologian and churchman. A graduate of the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, he taught there and then served as rector of the Moscow Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy (1706–22). He was a member of the Russian Holy Synod, bishop of Tver (1723–5), and archbishop of Pskov (1725) and then of Tver (1726–36). Lopatynsky was one of a number of Ukrainian hierarchs grouped around Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky who sought to reform the Orthodox church in Russia but opposed the more radical positions, the destruction of the patriarchate, and the complete subservience to the state espoused by Teofan Prokopovych. Lopatynsky helped prepare a new edition of the Ostrih Bible and published Yavorsky’s Kamen’ very ... (The Stone of Faith ..., 1718). For his opposition to Prokopovych, Lopatynsky was arrested in 1736 and defrocked in 1738. He was released in 1740. He left several unpublished manuscripts on philosophical and religious topics.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]