Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky

Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky
Metropolitan of Kiev
Church	Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Appointed	5 April 1614
Term ended	5 February 1637
Predecessor	Ipatii Potii
Successor	Rafajil Korsak
Orders
Ordination	1608 (Priest)
Consecration	June 1611 (Bishop) by Ipatii Potii
Personal details
Birth name	John Rutski
Born	1574 Ruta
Died	5 February 1637 (aged 62–63) Dermaniu, in Volhynia

Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky (also spelled Josyf Rutsky) (Ukrainian: Велямин Йосиф Рутський) - (1574–1637) was a Greek-Catholic Metropolitan bishop of Kyiv from 1613 to 1637. He worked to build the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the first few decades after the Union of Brest of 1596; he also reformed the Basilian monks.^[1]

Early life

The family name of Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky is not known: his family lived in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, had possibly Ruthenian origins and was noble and Calvinist. John Velamin was born in 1574 and, according to a use of noble families, was named after the estate where he was born, Ruta, thus he was named John Velamin Rutsky.^[2] At 17 he moved in Prague where he studied under the Jesuits and converted to the Catholic Church of Latin Rite against the will of his parents. From 1593-1596, Rutsky studied philosophy at Wurtzburg. After the death of his father, his mother, who remained a Calvinist, opposed Rutsky's desire to enter in religious live, and stopped to support his studies. But Rutsky continued his studies in the St. Athanasius Greek College in Rome, where he was authorized by Pope Clement VIII to change from the Latin Rite to the Byzantine Rite. Rutsky completed his studies in 1603.^[2]

Metropolitan of Kiev

Rutsky was sent to Vilnius by Pope Clement VIII in 1605 and entered the Basilian Monastery of the Holy Trinity there in 1607 where he took the monastic name Josef. After was named archimandrite of the monastery, in 1611 he was appointed coadjutor bishop of Kiev and consecrated as bishop by Metropolitan Ipatii Potii in June 1611. On Potii's death in 1613, Rutski became Metropolitan of Kiev. He was assisted by Josaphat Kuncevyc, with whom he worked beginning at the Monastery of the Holy Trinity. After becoming metropolitan, Rutski consecrated Josaphat as coadjutor of the Archbishop of Polotsk with the title of Bishop of Vitebsk.^[3][4]

In 1617, Metropolitan Rutski united a number of monasteries into the Congregation of the Holy Trinity of the Order of Saint Basil the Great.

He died February 5, 1637 and is buried in Vilnius. His cause for beatification was begun in 1937.

Notes

1. "Metropolita Józef Welamin Rutski". Unici.pl. Retrieved 30 April 2011.
2. Haluscynskyj, Theodosius; Welykyv, Athanasius (1956). "Introductio". Epistolae Josephi Velamin Rutskyj metropolitae Kioviensisis catholici. Analecta OSBM. Serie 2. Sectio 3. Rome. p. IX.
3. Ludvik Nemec, “The Ruthenian Uniate Church in Its Historical Perspective,” Church History; Vol. 37, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), pp. 365-388
4. Patritium Gauchat (1935). Hierarchia catholica Medii aevi sive summorum pontificum, S.R.E. cardinalium, ecclesiarum antistitum series 4. Regensburg. p. 149.