he would not stray "even a hair's breadth" from the Catholic faith. On July 10, 1627 Uniate Archbishop Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky was instructed in a letter from the pope to convert Meletius Smotrytsky. The fact is that the profession of faith by a former Orthodox archbishop and polemicist was even then being kept secret. Smotrystsky asked the pope for permission to temporarily keep his Orthodox titles and duties apparent in a separate letter sent at the same time as the letter requesting admission to the Catholic Church. As Uniate Bishop Following the adoption of the Union Smotrytsky was a huge advocate of complete reunification of the Church. He hid the fact that he had already converted to the Union. His attitude, however, began to raise suspicions among the clergy. While retaining his popularity among the priests and faithful in Belarus, he lost trust among both the Vilnius fraternity and Kyiv monks in monasteries. At the same time, Catholics were not yet convinced that Smotrytsky maintained full fidelity to his recently adopted Catholicism. On April 8, 1628, Cardinal Ludovisi in a letter to Alexander Zasławski demanded that the minister make a public profession of the Catholic faith. Smotrycki by then no longer resided in Vilnius, but in a monastery in Derman. The events that led to the final disclosure of Smotrytsky's conversion to Catholicism are known from a number of documents originating from himself or from his Orthodox opponents. Smotrytsky claimed that for the first time after conversion he had met with the Orthodox bishops of the Republic during the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lady in 1627 in Kyiv. The meeting was also attended by Peter Mogila, who was still a layman. Mogila and Archbishop Job asked Smotrycki to show them the catechism which the Patriarch of Constantinople had presented. The next meeting of the hierarchy took place on the sixth Sunday of Lent in Horodku, on property belonging to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. It was attended, in addition to Meletius Smotrytsky, by the Metropolitan Job, Bishop Isaac of Lutsk, Chelm Paisjusz and Peter Mogila, who was already igumen in the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. Smotrytsky delivered a speech at the meeting, discussing the six basic differences between the two confessions. Then the assembled council decided to convene the Orthodox Church in Kyiv; not only the clergy had taken part in it, but also representatives of the Orthodox nobility and