Divochka, Onysyfor

Divochka, Onysyfor [Дівочка, Онисифор; Divočka]. Metropolitan of Kyiv in 1579–89. Divochka defended the interests of the Ukrainian Orthodox church before the Polish kings Stephen Báthory and Sigismund III Vasa. He was consecrated in violation of canon law (he had been married twice), and he permitted gross infringements of church law. Because of complaints from the laity in 1585, on 21 July 1589 Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople divested him of his office.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]