The Wisdom of Virtue: Iosyp Turobois’kyi’s Praise of Ioasaf Krokovs’kyi

The article is devoted to the analysis the poem devoted to Ioasaf Krokovs'kyi (rector of the Kyiv Mohyla Collegium, archimandrite of the Kyivan Caves Monastery, finally metropolitan - 1707), by Iosyp Tyrobojs'kyi (1699). Ioasaf Krokovs’kyi, former rector of the Kyiv Mohyla Collegium, who acceded to the second-most-important post in the Orthodox Church in the Hetmanate after the metropolitan, is depicted as the perfect incarnation, in his sancta eruditio, of the Renaissance ideal of wisdom, particularly in its Erasmian articulation. This portrayal is a tacit assertion of Ukraine’s full-fledged assimilation of and participation in contemporary European culture. At the same time, Turbois’kyi, who in his poetic celebration of Krokovs’kyi as a model of virtue availed himself masterfully of the lexical and rhetorical arsenal of the cultural language of contemporary Europe, sought to make a contribution to the project that endeavoured to portray the key institutions of Ukrainian Orthodoxy and their representatives as Wisdom’s abode.