Symeon, Metropolitan

Symeon, Metropolitan [Симеон]. Metropolitan of Kyiv (1480–8; see Kyiv metropoly). A bishop of Polatsk, he assumed the post of metropolitan and was confirmed in his position by the patriarch of Constantinople in 1481. His tenure was hampered by the anti-Orthodox sentiments of the Polish king Casimir IV Jagiellończyk, as well as by the damage caused by the plundering of the Saint Sophia Cathedral and the Kyivan Cave Monastery during a raid on Kyiv by the khan of the Crimean Tatars Mengli-Girei in 1482.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]