Zhelyborsky, Arsenii

Zhelyborsky, Arsenii [Желиборський, Арсеній; Želybors’kyj, Arsenij; secular name: Андрій; Andrii], b 1618, d 18 September 1662 or 1663. Orthodox bishop of Lviv (1641–63) (see Lviv eparchy). He established a printing press at the Saint George's Cathedral in 1645, oversaw the publication of many church liturgical books there, and wrote Pouchenie novosviashchennomu iereevi (Instructions to a Newly Consecrated Hierarch, 1642). He also provided the first printing press for the Univ Monastery Press. In 1648 he was rumored to have sent material support to the Bohdan Khmelnytsky forces, but during Khmelnytsky’s siege of Lviv in 1648, he and his brother, Adam, served as Polish royal emissaries to the Cossacks. In 1658 he assisted Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky in writing the Treaty of Hadiach.

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