Peter Mogila

Who was Peter Mogila?

Metropolitan Peter was a Metropolitan of Kiev, Halych and All-Rus' from 1633 until his death. He was born into a Moldavian boyar family — the Movilești — one that gave Moldavia and Wallachia several rulers, including his father, Simion Movilă; also, his great-grandfather was the Moldavian Voivode Petru Rareș. Moldavia, Wallahia and part of Transylvania belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Old Church Slavonic was used, until the 17th century, as the common liturgical language in Romanian principalities. Peter Mogila's mother, Marghita, was the daughter of a Moldavian logothete, Gavrilaș Hâra. Peter Mogila's sister Raina Mohylanka married prince Wisniowiecki, and their son Jeremi Wiśniowiecki was Mogila's nephew and supporter even though he himself changed the faith to marry a Roman Catholic princess and to inherit the Polish crown. From his early childhood, Petro Mohyla and his mother were on the move in foreign lands seeking refuge due to instability in Wallachia. For a time, they lived in Kamianets-Podilskyi in Ukraine. But in 1608 they moved to Poland and for sixteen years stayed in Stanisław Żółkiewski's castle. There he started his formal schooling, which, prior to the arrival to the castle, was often interrupted by frequent moves. Petro’s teachers were monks from the Lviv brotherhood and later, he continued his studies of classical literature in Latin, Greek, Polish, Old Slavic and Old Belorussian languages at the academy in Zamość, founded in 1594 by Polish Crown Chancellor Jan Zamoyski. Later Mohyla continued his studies in Paris.