Shumliansky, Yosyf

Shumliansky, Yosyf [Шумлянський, Йосиф; Šumljans'kyj, Josyf; secular name: Ivan], b 1643, d 1708. Bishop of Lviv. The scion of an Orthodox noble family, he grew up with close ties to the court of Jan III Sobieski and even joined him in defending Vienna from a Turkish onslaught in 1683. In spite of strong opposition from church authorities, Shumliansky was made Orthodox bishop of Lviv in 1676. A year later he secretly converted to Catholicism and then used his position to steer the Lviv eparchy to a union with Rome. His secret negotiations with the Vatican and preparatory work among the eparchy’s clergy culminated in 1700 in the conversion of the entire eparchy (with the exception of the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood, which accepted the union in 1708, and the Maniava Hermitage). Mykola Andrusiak published a biography of Shumliansky in Lviv in 1934.

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