Kiev Theological Academy

The Kyiv Academy traces its history back to 1615, when Yelisey Pletenetsky founded a school at the Brotherhood Monastery in Kyiv.[1] Several decades later, Peter Mohyla, from 1632 an Orthodox Metropolitan of Kyiv under the Patriarchate of Constantinople, merged it with a newly established Lavra school into the Mohyla Collegium (Latin: Collegium Kijovense Mohileanum). The Collegium alumni include Innokentiy Gizel, Lazar Baranovych, Dmitry Tuptalo, Stephen Yavorsky, Feofan Prokopovich and many other state activists and Orthodox clerics who helped reform the Russian Orthodox Church under the auspices of Patriarch Nikon and Peter the Great. In 1658 under the terms of the Treaty of Hadiach the Collegium obtained the status of an Academy, similar to Cracow Academy. This was recognized in 1694 by the Russian tsar Ivan V, then reaffirmed by Peter I in 1701, when it became the Mohyla Academy.

The Mohyla Academy was closed in 1817 by the decree of Alexander I of Russia. In 1819, the Kyiv Theological Academy, an ecclesiastical educational institution, was opened in the Brotherhood Monastery. In contrast to its predecessor, the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, like all similar establishments in Russia at the time the Kyiv Theological Academy admitted sons of clergy only. The Kyiv Theological Academy continued under this name until its closure by the Soviets in 1919. Some unofficial courses were held even at a later period. The academy was revived in 1992 and is based on the grounds of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. (The main cathedral of the Brotherhood Monastery was destroyed in 1935 by the Soviet authorities.)

Upon the closure of the Kyiv Theological Academy, its quarters were passed to the Soviet's Red Army Dnieper Flotilla staff headquarters.