Michalovce

Michalovce (Ukrainian: Михайлівці; Mykhailivtsi). A district center in the Prešov region in eastern Slovakia (2011 pop 40, 027), situated on the Laborets River in the Eastern Slovak Lowland. It is the former administrative and trading center of the Ruthenians in Zemplén komitat. Until the late 19th century Michalovce was largely an agricultural town owned by Hungarian and German landowners. In 1876 it became a circle center, and in 1919, a zhupa center. Its Orthodox inhabitants (Greek Catholic after 1646) belonged to the Mukachevo eparchy. From 1951 the town was the seat of one of the four Orthodox eparchies in Czechoslovakia. The Church of the Holy Spirit was built by Volodymyr Sichynsky in 1933–4, and served as the monastery church of the Redemptorist Fathers until 1949. Most of the Ukrainian population has been Slovakized.

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