33. Brotherhoods as a cultural phenomenon

Brotherhoods as a cultural phenomenon. (Ukrainian singular: bratstvo). Fraternities affiliated with individual churches in Ukraine and Belarus that performed a number of religious and secular functions.The origins of brotherhoods can be traced back to the medieval bratchyny, which were organized at churches in the Princely era (first mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle, 1159). Brotherhoods as such appeared in Ukraine in the mid-15th century, with the rise of the burgher class. They adopted their organizational structure from Western medieval brotherhoods (confraternitates) and trade guilds. Initially the brotherhoods engaged only in religious and charitable activities. They maintained churches and sometimes assumed financial responsibility for them, ensured that church services, in particular parish feasts, were celebrated in a ceremonious way, arranged ritual dinners for their members, collected money, helped the indigent and the sick, and organized hospitals. Since these religious and charitable activities of the brotherhoods left no visible traces, some historians, such as Kost Huslysty and Yaroslav Isaievych, do not consider the early period of the brotherhoods as being part of their history.The brotherhoods began to play a historical role in the second half of the 16th and at the beginning of the 17th century. In this period they assumed the task of defending the Orthodox faith and Ukrainian nationality by counteracting Catholic and particularly Jesuit expansionism, Polonization, and later conversion to the Uniate church. Because they consisted predominantly of burghers, the brotherhoods acquired a secular character and often found themselves in opposition to the authoritarian practices of the clergy. Hence, they endeavored to reform the Orthodox church from within by condemning the corrupt practices of the hierarchy and of individual clergymen. Their interference in clerical affairs was one of the reasons for the favorable attitude towards the Church Union of Berestia among the Orthodox bishops. The brotherhoods brought about a revival in the life of the church by promoting cultural and educational activity. They founded brotherhood schools, printing presses, and libraries. The resulting cultural-religious movement found its literary expression in polemical literature. The brotherhoods also participated in civic and political life. They sent representatives to church councils and to the Sejm in Warsaw and maintained ties with the Cossacks. In Left-Bank Ukraine new brotherhoods, with a narrower focus, appeared at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century in Poltava, Novi Sanzhary, Starodub, Sribne (where the brotherhood supported a hospital), Lebedyn, and Kharkiv. After the Ukrainian church became subordinated to the Moscow patriarchate in 1686 and then to the Holy Synod, the Russian imperial government did not approve of the activities of the brotherhoods. Only much later, on 8 May 1864, did the Russian authorities issue a law permitting brotherhoods to be formed throughout the Russian Empire; these newly created brotherhoods, however, differed in their aims and work from the traditional Ukrainian brotherhoods.In Right-Bank Ukraine in 1679 the Polish Sejm prohibited the brotherhoods from maintaining ties with the Eastern patriarchs. By the beginning of the 18th century the Uniate church had established itself firmly in Western Ukraine. The Lviv Dormition Brotherhood had accepted the union in 1709 and had received from the Pope a guarantee of its right of stauropegion. Under the Austrian regime, however, the Galician brotherhoods were dissolved by the government decree of 1788.