08 — After 1453: The Unia, the Encyclicals, and 1965

After the fall of Constantinople the union question took new forms: the Unia — Brest 1596 and its successors, with its Orthodox confessors and martyrs (St. Athanasius of Brest at their head) and its Uniate self-understanding reported fairly; the great conciliar encyclicals of 1848 and 1895 answering the popes; and the 1965 mutual lifting of the 1054 anathemas — an act of pardon that, by its own text, did not restore communion.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Contents

File Description
the-unia-and-brest-1596.md The Kyivan crisis and the making of the union; the two synods of Brest (1596); the exarch Nikephoros; coercion and resistance — Kuntsevych and Vitebsk reported honestly, St. Athanasius of Brest (d. 1648) and the martyrs of the unia era; Uzhhorod, Transylvania, the 1724 Melkite schism, Zamość Latinization; Balamand 1993 on uniatism as method — with the disputed question of the bishops’ motives flagged (Gudziak vs the Orthodox historiography)
from-1848-to-1965.md Pius IX and the 1848 Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs (“the protector of religion is the very body of the Church”); Leo XIII and the 1895 reply; Jerusalem 1964; the Joint Declaration of 7 December 1965 quoted and parsed — what it did (lifted the personal anathemas of 1054) and did not do (restore communion or touch doctrine) — with the intra-Orthodox dispute over the act recorded per §4.2

Reading Order

Read the-unia-and-brest-1596.md first, then from-1848-to-1965.md, which carries the story to the threshold of the modern dialogue.

See Also