Podilia eparchy

Podilia eparchy [Подільська or Подільсько-Брацлавська епархія; Podilska or Podilsko-Bratslavska eparkhiia]. An Orthodox eparchy comprising the territory of Podilia gubernia, with its see in Kamianets-Podilskyi. It was established in 1795, after the partitions of Poland, out of territory that had formerly belonged to the Kyiv eparchy and then Halych eparchy. Initially the see was in Bratslav, so afterward the eparchy was often referred to as Podilia-Bratslav eparchy. At the turn of the 20th century the eparchy had almost 1,700 parishes and 5 men's and 5 women's monasteries. In 1917, in addition to the titular bishop, the eparchy had two vicar bishops (in Vinnytsia and Balta). The Podilia Church Historical-Archeological Society published several volumes of materials on the history of the eparchy, and Yevtym Sitsinsky published several histories and descriptions of the eparchy in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The eparchial organ, Podol’skie eparkhial’nye vedomosti (see Eparkhial’nye vedomosti), appeared from 1863 to 1917.

In the 1920s the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church established a church okruha in Podilia, which, under Bishop Ioan Teodorovych, was for some time the largest eparchy in the church. Part of the Podilia eparchy was included in the Khmelnytskyi eparchy created by the Russian Orthodox church after 1945.

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