Abstract

The article analyzes the role and place of the “secular element” in the process of preserving ecclesiastic and religious life of Orthodox believers in the post-Brest period and provides a historical and theological analysis of the phenomenon of church brotherhoods as beyond the hierarchical structures of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The author pays a considerable attention to the effect of church brotherhoods as beyond the hierarchical structures on the ecclesiastic and religious life of Orthodox believers in the post-Brest period, visualizes forms and methods of their struggle for the restoration of Orthodox hierarchy and the legalization of its activity in the XVIIth century. The author provides conceptual objectivation of ideological, religious, social and political transformational processes that greatly affected the further destiny of Kyiv Orthodox Metropolitanate in XVII century.