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Istorija. 2025, t. 137, Nr. 1
Articles
ISSN 1392-0456 (Print)
ISSN 2029-7181 (Online)
Uniate Convents in the Grand Duchy of
Lithuania in the Early Modern Period
Abstract. e article focuses on the development of the network of convents (female mon-
asteries) in the Kyivan Uniate Metropolitanate from the time of the Union of Brest (1596) to
the first half of the 19th century. e first communities of Uniate nuns appeared within the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the beginning of the 17th century. Unlike the men, they were
not united in a single Order but were subordinated to the local bishop. e second half of the
17th century, with its almost continuous wars and internal conflicts in the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, negatively impacted the development of monastic communities. Favourable
circumstances for the Uniate Church and its monasticism emerged only in the late 17th and
18th centuries. During this period, three eparchies (dioceses) of the Kyivan Orthodox Metro-
politanate joined the Union. Along with the bishops, numerous monastic communities located
in these areas accepted the Union. However, between the 1730s and 1760s, there was a gradual
dissolution of small convents. One of the main reasons for this was the implementation of the
decisions of the Synod of Zamość (1720). e suppression of the Uniate female communities
aſter the three partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was continued by the
Russian authorities, albeit for different reasons. At the end of the 18th century and in the first
half of the 19th century, all convents in the Russian Empire were suppressed.
Keywords: convents, nuns, Uniate Church, Kyivan Metropolitanate, foundation, suppression
of the convents.
https://doi.org/10.15823/istorija.2025.137.1
Istorija / History
2025, t. 137, Nr. 1, p. 5–22 / Vol. 137, No. 1, pp. 5–22, 2025
Straipsniai / Articles
Dr. Oleh Dukh
Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Faculty of History, Universytetska 1, 79000 Lviv, Ukraine
E-mail: olko.duch@gmail.com
ORCID: 0000-0003-3860-5681
Copyright © 2025. Oleh Dukh. Published by Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania. is is an open-access article
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.