Seliava, Antonii Atanasii

Seliava, Antonii Atanasii [Селява, Антоній Атанасій; Seljava, Antonij Atanasij], b ca 1583, d 1655. Uniate metropolitan. He completed his theological studies in Rome and became archimandrite of a monastery in Vilnius. In this position he engaged in polemics with Meletii Smotrytsky (see Polemical literature). In 1624, following the death of Archbishop Yosafat Kuntsevych, he became archbishop of Polatsk. He was elevated to the office of Uniate metropolitan of Kyiv in 1640 and took part in delicate negotiations with Orthodox hierarchs regarding the creation of a single Uniate patriarchate for the Ruthenian (Ukrainian and Belarusian) church. These negotiations ended at the death of the Orthodox metropolitan, Petro Mohyla, in 1647. The turbulent events of the Bohdan Khmelnytsky uprising (see Cossack-Polish War) forced Seliava into exile to the Podlachia region, where he died.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]