STAUROPIGHIA of Leopoli. - A confraternity of Galician, Moldavian, and Greek merchants based in Leopoli, confirmed in 1596 by the Patriarch of Antioch, Joachim, and in 1587 by the Byzantine Patriarch Jeremiah II, who placed it under his immediate dependence, whence the name S.
Among the purposes of the S. were the supervision of sound doctrine and the maintenance of legitimate ecclesiastical usages in Leopoli; this gave rise to disputes with the local bishops, from whose jurisdiction the S. was exempt. It possessed a printing press and a school and later also a monastery and a hospital. Throughout the seventeenth century the S. opposed the Union of Brest-Litovsk (1596), which it accepted only in 1709. Pope Clement XI granted the S. exemption. Even in later times the S. displayed a conservative and pro-Russian spirit. The metropolitan Andrea Szeptyckij deprived the S. of the right to appoint its own chaplains.