HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

REGIONALISM AND POLITICAL THOUGHT 179Orthodox privileges. Central to his argument were the assumptionsthat the nobles of the incorporation lands represented the entire Rus'people, and that the guarantees of the acts of incorporation had forceoutside the annexation territories.Kysil argued: "The year was 1569 when the Ruthenians acceded tothe Crown, and the year was 1596 when a few Ruthenians instigatedthe union. Since it was not to those Ruthenians who did not yet existthat the rights were given, it follows clearly that the privileges havebeen given to us, who are living today, and to our ancestral religion." 30By resting the Orthodox case on the guarantees of the incorporation,Kysil avoided the complex issue of whether privileges had been issuedin the fourteenth or fifteenth century at a time when the Ruthenianscould be considered in union with Rome. By referring to 1569, hecould also largely ignore the tangled web of decrees and privilegesissued after the Union of Brest, although he did mention the divisionof church benefices and buildings between the Uniates and Orthodoxagreed upon during the election of Władysław IV (1632-33) and itsreaffirmation in 1635. 31Kysil chose to point to acts that dealt with aspecific territory and to treat them as if they applied to the entireCommonwealth. Hence he brought up the controversy over the Lublinchurch in his votum, and during the Diet frequently spoke out aboutthe controversy over the bishopric of Peremyshl'. 32Although he didnot explain how the agreements of 1569 affected areas outside theincorporation territories, we can assume that he saw the persecution ofthe Orthodox church anywhere as an infringement on the religiousliberty of the Orthodox nobles of the incorporation lands. That forauthority he referred to the acts of 1569, rather than to the Confederationof 1573, which guaranteed religious toleration throughout theCommonwealth, emphasizes his conviction that the incorporationcharters were the primary regulatory decrees defining the rights of theincorporation lands' nobles in the Commonwealth.Although Kysil complained primarily about discrimination againstOrthodox nobles, he also defended the rights of other strata of thepopulation. He defended the liberty of the commoners of the "Ru-30The manuscript copy is corrupt, giving 1564 and 1576 as the dates, but thecontext makes clear that these are a copyist's errors.31Steinwehr, III, fol. 84.32Steinwehr, III, fol. 84.