Antin Anhelovych

Antin Anhelovych was born on 14 April 1756 in Hryniv, near Bibrka, now in Ukraine. He studied at the Barbareum (a Greek Catholic college in Vienna) and in 1793 he became the first rector of the Greek Catholic Theological Seminary in Lviv. In 1794 he became professor of dogma and in 1796 rector of University of Lviv.

In 1795 he was appointed eparch of Eparchy of Przemyśl and so consecrated a bishop on 14 February 1796.[1] by Bishop Porfyriy Skarbek-Vazhynskyi of Chełm.[2][3] In 1798 he was appointed administrator of the Lviv eparchy, in 1804 administrator of the Chełm eparchy, and in 1805 administrator of both the Lviv and Kholm eparchies.[4]

Since 1772 the Western Ukraine was under the Kingdom of Galicia (a crownland of the Habsburg Monarchy) and Emperor Francis I of Austria on 11 September 1806 took the decision to re-establish Galician Metropoly.[5] In this way these territories were split from the jurisdiction of the main Metropolis of Kyiv of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which was suffering under the Russian Empire (actually in 1839 the Greek-Catholic church was dissolved in the Russian Empire, and all its property was transferred to the Orthodox state church).

Pope Pius VII approved this split on 24 February 1807 elevating the Eparchy of Lviv to the rank of Metropolis and granting it the same rights of the Metropolis of Kyiv. On 16 March 1808 Angelovych was appointed the first Greek-Catholic Metropolitan in Lviv. The enthronement occurred on 25 September 1808. Antin Anhelovych died in Lviv on 9 August 1814.[5]