Turning the pages back...

June 10, 1654

In 1652, the Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, Makarios III, set out on a long trek from Aleppo, Syria, that took him to Istanbul, Wallachia, Moldova, Ukraine and Muscovy. He was accompanied by his son, an archdeacon, who became known as Paul of Aleppo.

The archdeacon kept a journal in which he recorded a vast array of details of the history, geography, culture, folkways, architecture and religious life of the territories they passed through.

On June 10, 1654, their contingent reached Rashkiv on the Dnister River (about 65 miles north of Kishinev, today's Chisinau, Moldova). The rest of their itinerary included Zhabokrychi, Uman, Lysianka, Bohuslav (where they met Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, on June 21, 1654), Trypillia, Vasylkiv, Kyiv, Pryluka and Putyvl.

While in the Ukrainian capital, they visited the Kyivan Cave Monastery (Pecherska Lavra) and the St. Sophia Cathedral.

On their way back from a two-year sojourn in Muscovy, the patriarchal expedition passed through Putyvl, Kyiv, Boryspil, Pereyaslav, Cherkasy and the Kozak capital of Chyhyryn (where Makarios once again met with Khmelnytsky), Medvedivka, Zhabotyn and Smila.

The journal's original was not preserved, but several Arabic manuscript copies exist, of which the most complete version is part of a collection at the National Library in Paris. They have been translated into English, French and Russian.

The Syrian archdeacon described Ukraine as a highly cultured land: "In the entire land of the Ruthenians, that is, the Kozaks, we noticed something strange but wonderful: all of them, with minor exceptions, even the majority of wives and daughters, know how to read and know the order of the church services and church songs."

Source: "Paul of Aleppo," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vol. 4 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 9, 1996, No. 23, Vol. LXIV

| Home Page |