authorities replaced him with Jonah of Moscow. Like his immediate predecessors, he permanently resided in Moscow, and was the last Moscow-based primate of the metropolis to keep the traditional title with reference to the metropolitan city of Kiev. He was also the first metropolitan in Moscow to be appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as had been the norm. This signified the beginning of the de facto independence (autocephaly) of the Moscow (north-eastern) part of the Church. The struggle for ecumenical union at Ferrara and Florence, while promising, never bore fruit. While progress toward union in the East continued to be made in the following decades, all hopes for a proximate reconciliation were dashed with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Following their conquest, the Ottomans encouraged hardline anti-unionist Orthodox clerics in order to divide European Christians. Establishment The Polish-Lithuanian rulers rejected Jonah and continued to recognise Isidore as metropolitan. Jonah was unable to exercise any pastoral control beyond the borders of Muscovy. In 1458, while Isidore was still alive, his nephew Gregory the Bulgarian was appointed to succeed him as the Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' by Patriarch Gregory III of Constantinople with the agreement of Pope Pius II. Gregory III was an exile in Rome from Constantinople at the time. In 1469, Patriarch Dionysius I of Constantinople also gave his blessing to Gregory's appointment. Ecclesiastical structure This is a list of bishops who supported the new metropolitan: Przemysl Chelm Halych Turow Volodymyr Lutsk Polotsk Smolensk There were two bishops - in Moscow and Chernigov - who did not support him. At least two more diocesan bishops of Great Novgorod and Tver chose to abstain in selection either side. List of metropolitans Gregory (1458–1473) Spyridon (1476–1482) Misail (1474–1480) Simeon (1481–1488) Jonah Hlezna (1488–1494) Macarius I (1495–7) Joseph the Bulgarian (1498-?) Jonah II Joseph II Joseph III Macarius II Sylvester Jonah III Elias Onesiphorus Michael (1588–1599) Disestablishment In 1569, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was established. The Warsaw Confederation of 1573 secured the rights of minorities and religions; it allowed all persons to practice any faith freely. However, in the eastern territories, the aristocracy was mainly Polish and they carried out a policy of Polonization of their peasants, the majority of whom were neither Polish nor Catholic. At the same time, colonization of the eastern territories (nowadays roughly western and central Ukraine), heightened tensions among nobles,