Brest
Town on the river Bug, called Lithuanian Brest in the sixteenth century. The union of the metropolitanate of Kiev with Rome was proclaimed at a synod held here in October 1596.
Brest stands on the river Bug; John Paul II’s letter of 1995 calls it Brest-Litovsk and dates the proclamation of the union there to 16 October 1596 (John Paul II, Letter on the Union of Brest (1995) 1). Clement VIII, writing in January 1597, says that the bishops and magnates who reported the synod to him wrote “from Lithuanian Brest” (Clement VIII, letters, in Theiner, Vetera monumenta Poloniae, vol. 3, no. 198 (18 January 1597), pp. 269–270). The town was also the seat of a bishop: Hypatius Potij, one of the two envoys to Rome, signs as bishop of Volodymyr and Brest, and the articles of 1595 name Brest among the towns with a church brotherhood (Articles of the Union of Brest articles 26 and 33). See the Union of Brest.
What happened here
- October 1596, firm dateThe Union of Brest
In 1595 the metropolitan of Kiev and most of his bishops, Orthodox subjects of the Polish king, offer union with Rome on thirty-three conditions. Clement VIII receives them, and the union is proclaimed at Brest in 1596. Other bishops and Prince Ostrogski stay outside it.