Germany returns to Ukraine the Letter of Peter I

Germany gave back to Ukraine the ancient letter of Peter I

Germany returned to Ukraine the Letter of the Russian Tsar Peter I on the appointment to the Kiev Throne of the last Metropolitan of Kiev, elected in Kiev. The document also stipulates his rights and the position of the Kiev Metropolis. The document has been kept in Germany since the Second World War, according to DW.

Germany’s Federal Foreign Office noted that the original document has been in the library of the Institute for Eastern European History and Area Studies of the University of Tubingen in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg since the 1950s. 

The German-Ukrainian expert group concluded that the Nazis must have carted off the Letter as a war trophy in 1941 from Kiev to Germany. The Federal Foreign Office helped the German-Ukrainian research group study the document. The work was carried out from July to October 2016 in the archives of Kiev, Berlin, Tubingen and Freiburg im Breisgau.

Theresia Bauer, Minister of Science, Research and the Arts of Baden-Wurttemberg, decided to give the document to the Ukrainian side upon coordination with the Federal Foreign Office and the University of Tubingen.

“I am grateful to the researchers from Tübingen and Ukraine for their important work and conclusions regarding how the Letter of the king went to the University of Tübingen. The fact that we can now return to Ukraine this symbolic and very important document that was carted off to Germany is also a sign that our country understands its historical responsibility,” Bauer noted.

The royal charter is an important church historical document. This is a confirming letter of the Russian emperor Peter I dated 1708 to Metropolitan Joasaph (Krokovsky) on the appointment to the Kiev Throne of the last Metropolitan of Kiev during his stay in Kiev as part of the Russian Empire, who was freely elected by the Kiev clergy and approved by the tsar, and not directly appointed from Moscow.

Also, Metropolitan Joasaph is known as the bishop, who proclaimed anathema to Ivan Mazepa.

The old document was handed over to the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andrei Melnik.

“How symbolic: the other day it will meet our Tomos,” the Ukrainian diplomat said.

As reported by the UOJ, the Phanar in its claims to the church territory of Ukraine refers to the historical documents of 1686.

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