Podilia Church Historical-Archeological Society

Podilia Church Historical-Archeological Society (Подільське церковне історично-археологічне товариство; Podilske tserkovne istorychno-arkheolohichne tovarystvo). A scholarly society established in 1903 in Kamianets-Podilskyi and dedicated to the study of Podilia.

Its forerunner, the Podilia Eparchial Historical-Statistical Committee (est 1865), published several volumes of Trudy (12 vols, 1876–1916) containing valuable historical, statistical, geographic, and ethnographic studies of Podilia and Podilia eparchy's parishes and monasteries. Under its permanent president, Rev Yevtym Sitsinsky, the society ran the Kamianets-Podilskyi Church Museum of Antiquities (now the Kamianets-Podilskyi Historical Museum and Preserve). In 1919 it was amalgamated with the Podilia Society. The society was forced to dissolve in late 1920. It was replaced by the Kamianets-Podilskyi Committee for the Protection of Ancient, Artistic, and Natural Monuments, under the direction of Pylyp Klymenko, and, in 1925, by the VUAN-affiliated Kamianets-Podilskyi Scientific Society, headed by V. Chuhai, O. Polonsky, Sitsinsky, and V. Zborovets. The latter society was abolished in the early 1930s, and many of its 70 members suffered repression during the Stalinist terror.

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