Smohozhevsky, Yason

Smohozhevsky, Yason [Смогожевський, Ясон; Smohoževs'kyj, Jason; aka Smogorzhevsky], b 1714 in Smohorov, Belarus, d 1788 in Radomyshl in Right-Bank Ukraine. Uniate metropolitan. He joined the Basilian monastic order and left in 1734 for Rome, where he studied at the Saint Athanasius College and was ordained (1740). He returned to Polatsk to serve as a preacher and then vicar to Bishop Floriian Hrebnytsky. In 1762–80 he was archbishop of Polatsk, and in 1780–8 he was Uniate metropolitan of Kyiv. Although the 1772 partition of Poland had divided the metropoly among three powers, he attempted to maintain control over all its eparchies from his see in Radomyshl. He ordained Petro Biliansky as bishop of Lviv and defended the rights of the metropolitan of Kyiv to appoint bishops, against Roman Catholic encroachments.

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