RUTSKIJ, JOSIF VELJAMIN. - Basilian, metropolitan of Vilna, b. at Ruta (White Russia) in 1574, d. at Vilna in 1637. On a journey through Germany, at Würzburg, he converted from Calvinism to Catholicism and later entered the Greek College in Rome. At the express wish of Pope Clement VIII, R. adopted the Byzantine-Slav rite, although for a long time he could not bring himself to be ordained a priest.

Through a special design of Providence, he entered in 1609 the recently founded Basilian monastery of Vilna, soon became its archimandrite and then in 1613 metropolitan for the Uniates in Rome. As such he worked, though without success, for the founding of schools for the laity and of a seminary for the clergy. When the schismatics founded a new hierarchy (1621), R. sought to promote a "second union" with them, but again in vain. He did succeed, however, in reforming the Order of the Basilians, making of them a clerical order above the dean, exempt from the bishops and from the metropolitan. With this he became, certainly without realizing it, the originator of the "Ruthenian" rite as it still is today. The memory of R. is held in the greatest veneration among his countrymen.

Pope Urban VIII called him "the Athanasius of the Ruthenian Church."

Bibliography

BIBL.: A. M. Ammann, Storia della Chiesa russa e dei paesi limitrofi, Turin 1948, pp. 261-71, 285-300.

Alberto Maria Ammann

@incollection{ec10_rutskij_josif_veljamin, author = {Ammann, Alberto Maria}, title = {Rutskij, josif veljamin}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {X}, pages = {1494}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/rutskij-josif-veljamin} }

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Rutskij, Josif Veljamin

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