REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH SINGING BY METROPOLITAN PETRO MOHYLA IN KYIV

Abstract

The information collected from the ancient Kyiv’s Irmologions with a modern staff notation indicates that the initiator, or at least the patron of their creation in the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves, was Petro Mohyla. Until our time, three samples of such manuscripts have been preserved, which date from around 1630. Preserved reliable evidence that it was Petro Mohyla. He initiated the introduction of partes singing in churches and monasteries of Kyiv. This testimony is in the polemical work of Λίθος, created in 1644 by the metropolitan himself. From this book, it becomes clear that Petro Mohyla, on the example of the Lviv Dormition Brother-hood, received permission to use figural singing from the Patriarch of Constantinople. Such permission contributed to the legitimization of new singing. Historical sources kept information about the choir of Petro Mohyla, which consisted of monks of the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves. At that time, the future Metropolitan was the archimandrite of this monastery. Information about this choir dates from 1630–1631 years. Historical sources also allow the identification of at least two partes singing teachers who acted in Kyiv during the time of Petro Mohyla. Their names are Eliseus Ilkovskyi and Joseph Zagvoiskyi. The first information about the residence of Eliseus Ilkovskyi in Kyiv dates back to 1635. At that time he was a monk and protopsalt, that is, the main singer of the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves. In the city he stayed at least until 1647. Eliseus Ilkovskyi came from Vilnius and in 1625 stayed in the city, but soon after accompanying his patron, the Orthodox Archbishop of Polotsk Meletius Smotrytskyi, he first arrived in the Derman monastery. Subsequently, in 1627 he became a teacher of a Brotherhood school in Lutsk, but in the next year, due to a conflict with the local Jesuits, he returned to his patron. After Kyiv, Eliseus Ilkovskyi passes into the Greek Catholic Church and moves to Minsk, where, remained until 1655. However, due to the military action of the Moscow-Polish war (1654–1667), he was forced to flee Minsk. In 1661, Eliseus Ilkovskyi was already mentioned as an old monk and regent of music in the Zhyrovichy Monastery, where he died in 1669. About the second teacher of partes singing during the times of Petro Mohyla knows much less. In 1656, he refused to go to the Moscow royal court, instead moved to Chyhyryn, the capital of the Cossack state of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. By that time he was already an elderly person. As a result of Petro Mohyla’s reforms, partes singing spread not only in Kyiv, but also far beyond its eastern boundaries. In 1656, he refused to go to the Moscow royal court, instead moved to Chyhyryn, the capital of the Cossack state of Bohdan Khmelnytskуі. By that time he was already an elderly person. As a result of Petеr Mohyla’s reforms, partes singing spread not only in Kyiv, but also far beyond its eastern boundaries.