The transfer of Kiev to the Russian tsardom had far-reaching consequences. Kiev, situated in the Greek-Orthodox part of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy before the
Union of Lublin (1569) and in the Polish kingdom thereafter, was the seat of the orthodox metropolitan, who, despite being formally placed under the Roman pope since the
Union of Brest (1596), retained authority over the Orthodox population in Poland-Lithuania's eastern territories. Prior to Andrusovo, Kiev had been an orthodox counterweight to the Moscow patriarchate, founded in 1589, and since the metropolitanship of
Petro Mohyla hosted the
Mohyla Academy, that opened orthodoxy to Western influence. The transfer of Kiev to Russia came only days after
patriarch Nikon, who reformed the rites within the Muscovite patriarchate, had won the upper hand over his adversary
Avvakum, resulting in an intra-Russian schism (
raskol) between the Reformed Orthodoxy and the
Old Believers. Kiev now supplied the Russian patriarch with an academy (after Mohyla's offer to found an academy in Moscow had been rejected) on whose scholars Nikon had relied already for his reforms. Nikon himself, having proposed to replace the Russian
simfonia (the traditional balance of ecclesiastical and secular power) by a more theocratic model, was banned upon his success, effectively shifting the power balance to the
Romanov tsars ruling Russia since the end of the
Great Smuta (1613). As the see of the metropolitan, Kiev furthermore granted Moscow influence on the Orthodox population in Poland-Lithuania. "Protection" of the Orthodox population thus became a future argument for Romanov influence over eastern Poland-Lithuania. ==Perspectives==