St. Petersburg State Academic Capella, praised the quality of Vedel's teaching. In September 1796, Vedel was promoted to become a senior adjutant, with the rank of captain. Decline in fortunes In December 1796, on the orders of Tsar Paul I, the Kharkiv Governorate was abolished, and was replaced by the newly created Sloboda Ukrainian Governorate. Levanidov was dismissed on 9 January 1797, when his corps was disbanded by Paul I, and he left Kharkiv. Paul I decreed that all regimental chapels were to be abolished, which caused Vedel to resign from the army in October 1797. He worked as a musician for the governor of the new province, . Teplov, who as a young man had received an excellent musical education, treated Vedel as well as he could. The tsar's decrees caused the cultural and artistic life of Kharkiv to decline. The city's theatre was closed, and its choirs and orchestras were dissolved. Performances of Vedel's works in churches were banned, as the tsar had prohibited singing in churches of any form of music except during the Divine Liturgy. The loss of Levanidov's support caused Vedel to become deeply depressed. Despite the support he received from Teplov, Vedel decided to leave Kharkiv. He distributed his belongings (including all his manuscripts), and the end of the summer of 1798 he returned to live at his parents' house in Kyiv. There he wrote two choral concertos, "God, the law-breaker of the rebellion against me" (11 November 1798) and "To the Lord we always mourn". The concertos were performed in the and St Sophia Cathedral in the city. Life as a novice Early in 1799, frustrated by the lack of opportunities to compose and teach and possibly suffering from a form of mental illness, Vedel enrolled as a novice monk at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. He was an active member of the community and was respected by the monks for his asceticism. According to Turcaninov's biography, the Metropolitan of Kyiv commissioned Vedel to write a song of praise in honour of a royal visit to Kyiv, but Vedel instead wrote a letter to the tsar, probably of a political nature. Vedel was arrested in Okhtyrka, pronounced insane, and returned to Kyiv. Vedel returned to live with his father in an attempt to regain his mental health. Back home in Kyiv, he was able to compose, read, and play the violin, and he may