A starting note

The Ukrainian Wikipedia has an image [1] that is very tempting to use but it does not provide any info on its source. If anyone can find out that that image is indeed free from copyright restrictions, please post the info here or just add the image to the article. The article itself is also a good source of information to be used here.

One more note: This historic figure is of a profound importance in several cultures and we should be careful to avoid conflicts about the terms. To start with the very title, I used Peter Mogila because this is the name this person is called in English literature (for example in Britannica). I hope, the editors will be careful with choosing the best terms (I will also try my best) and will concentrate on the article content rather than in pushing the terms they favor into the article. This is not to say, that terms I chose are the best, but I tried. Thanks to all, who will contribute Irpen 03:22, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

There's no reason to assume that image is infringing copyright. Perhaps it is scanned from a book, but if it is not identifiable as such, then I think the image of the painting itself is free of copyright under U.S. law (it looks old enough to me). Pre-1973 Soviet publications are also out of copyright. I'll move it to English-language WP.

Regarding the name, all the popular references are naturally using his name in Russian. But it seems that the people actually using his name, in both academic and other contexts, are Ukrainian (esp. the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and their U.S. foundation). You can get some idea of this by looking at image search results Petro Mohyla (14 relevant results on 9 sites), Peter Mogila (0), Petro Mogila (0). —Michael Z. 2005-04-15 15:16 Z

To be merged

from St. Peter Moghila

Petru Movila, descendant of the Romanian boyar family Movila, whose members ruled for some periods the Romanian medieval states of Moldavia and Wallachia, took the chair of Kyiv Mitropoly into then Polish territory of Ukraine. Had the big merritt to introduce for the first time the western-style instruction and Latin language study into the Orthodox Church, and to unify the big thesis of Russian, Greek, Constantinople and Romanian orthodox churches (Iassy Declaration).

Even if he was not a native Ukrainian, Petu Movila produced the first recognition of the orthodox (mainly Ukrainian) church in the Polish terittories. He established many printing workshops, in Ukraine and abroad.

The legend of Movila family is related to the ruler of Moldavia Stephen the Great (Stefan cel Mare) who, during a battle, was raised on his horse's saddle on the back of a little boyar (named Aprodul Purice). The boyar thus added, for him and his family, the surname of Movila ("little hill" in Romanian language).

from Peter Mogilas

Peter Mogilas, or Petru Movilă in Romanian, (1597-1647), was Metropolitan of Kiev and author of the Greek Confessio Orthodoxa, or Orthodox Confession .

He was born of a Wallachian family ca. 1597.

He was elevated to the metropolitanate in 1632 by Patriarch Theophanes of Jerusalem , and published several liturgical works.

In 1638, he prepared the first draft of his "Confession" with the aid of three of his bishops. The work, originally written in Latin, with a Romaic Greek version by Meletius Syrigus , was amended and approved by the Synod of Kiev in 1640, and by that of Jassy in Moldavia in 1642. With an introduction by Nectarius of Jerusalem (1642) and the approbation of Parthenius (1643) this "Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East" was first printed at Amsterdam in 1667. Several editions followed, the best that of E. J. Kimmel, in his Libri symbolici (Jena, 1843). The "Confession" was translated into Romanian in 1691 and into Russian in 1696.

The situation of the period was one of struggle for the Greek Church to preserve her individuality between Roman Catholicism, working vigorously in Russia and Poland, on the one hand, and Protestantism, to which individual Greeks (notably Cyril Lucar) felt themselves drawn, on the other. As the patriarchate at Constantinople was far too weak to take any step decisive for the Church at large, the overthrow of Cyril's creed by another based upon Greek tradition naturally proceeded from the younger, but more independent, Russian Church. The immediate cause of the "Confession" was a Roman Catholic catechism printed at Kiev, in 1632.

The "Confession" is a comprehensive summary of the doctrines of the Greek Church, and its substance is given in its declaration that the requisites of the Catholic Christian for eternal life are "orthodox faith and good works." This twofold division is obscured by Mogilas' basal arrangement according to faith, hope, and love, comprised in exegesis of the Nicene Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount, and the Decalogue.

A further twofold division is into the Bible and tradition, the latter leading to numerous patristic citations, especially from Gregory, Athanasius, Basil, Dionysius, and John of Damascus.

The Confession lays out a stance on a number of doctrinal issues. In the doctrine of the Trinity a distinction is drawn, though not too subtlely, between the essential and hypostatic idiomata. The controversy on the procession of the Holy Ghost is decided chiefly because of the lack of the Filioque clause in the oldest text of the Creed. The creation is traced in Greek fashions through nine classes of angels to man, who is termed a microcosm. The omnipresence of God is reconciled with his exaltation by the statement that, "himself being his own place," he at once controls and excludes all limitations of space. The definitions of original sin lack Roman Catholic and Protestant definiteness. Through disobedience Adam lost his perfect reason, righteousness, and ignorance of sin, and his nature became exceedingly inclined to evil. But he was only weakened, not destroyed, so that the spirit and grace of God might freely operate upon him--a synergism which is indispensable to Greek theology.

In his discussion of foreknowledge, foreordination, and providence, Mogilas makes the second conditioned by the first, while the third combines the other two, controls them, and thus guides all earthly things in the best possible way. The sole head of the Church is Christ, and the mother Church is Jerusalem. The traditional seven sacraments are defended, though the influence of non-Greek developments may here be discerned.

The second section of the "Confession" is on hope, or the grace partly given and partly promised by Christ. The exegesis is conditioned by ecclesiastical and ascetic points of view, while parallels and lists of analogies take the place of inner development. Revelation 4:5 and Isaiah 6:2 afford bases for the theory of the seven graces, and Galatians 5:22 for the doctrine of the nine fruits of the Spirit.

There are likewise nine rules of the Church (including confession, fasting, and avoidance of heretical books) and seven works of mercy each for the body and the soul, the number nine corresponding to the angels and seven to the sacraments and their effects.

In the third part of the "Confession," with its theme of love and its exegesis of the Decalogue, the same themes are further developed under the captions of the seven virtues of prayer, fasting, benevolence, understanding, righteousness, bravery, and moderation. The first two commandments give rise to a justification of the invocation of the saints and the use of icons. The saints are invoked, but not prayed to, as the friends of God; while icons are considered representations of actual persons and things, and hence fitted to raise the thought from the material to the celestial, and so to God. The worship, therefore, is not received by the icons, but by the divinity or the saint represented.

The "Confession" of Mogilas, accordingly, reproduces the point of view of ancient Catholicism, as maintained by the Eastern Church in opposition to Rome; nor can it be said, as is sometimes thought, that it is either Roman Catholic or Lutheran in tendency.