Kolienda, Havryil

Kolienda, Havryil [Колєнда, Гавриїл; Koljenda, Havryjil], b 1606, d 11 February 1674 in Suprasl, Podlachia. Uniate Kyivan metropolitan. Kolienda was probably born in Belarus. After joining the Basilian monastic order, he studied philosophy and theology in Braunsberg, Prussia (1627–30), Vienna (1633–6), and at the Greek Collegium in Rome (1636–9). He served as coadjutor (1652–5), then bishop (1655–74) of Polatsk eparchy, although he was not able to assume his post because of the incessant wars between the Cossacks, Poland, and Muscovy. After the death of Antonii Atanasii Seliava, he administered the Kyiv metropoly (1656–65), as Polish King Jan II Casimir Vasa had promised the Cossacks not to appoint a new Uniate metropolitan; it was only in 1665 that the Vatican appointed him metropolitan; in 1667, after the Treaty of Andrusovo, this appointment was confirmed by the Polish government. At the same time, he was protoarchimandrite of the Basilian monastic order. Kolienda’s correspondence with the Vatican was published by Atanasii Velyky in two volumes in 1956.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]