Who Are the Basilians?

Abstract

The main topic of the article is the history of the Basilian Order in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the seventeenth–eighteenth centuries, including the foundation and daily life of the order, its most important personalities, its internal laws, and relations between the clergy and laity. Particular attention is paid to the cultural role of the Basilians in social life, their struggle to survive under the Russian authorities, as well as the Basilian movement ’s crucial role in the development of Ukrainian and Belarusian culture of the Modern era. The article also describes the Basilian Order’s most revered shrines, the activities of its main donors from the Polish-Lithuanian nobility, and the masterpieces of church architecture of that era that were created in Basilian monasteries