The article analyzes the political rhetoric of the Kievan church hierarchs after Pereyaslav 1654. Its characteristic features were appeals to the Old Russian past, demonstration of the uniqueness of Kiev as an "Orthodox Zion" and declaration of the historical right of the Moscow Tsar to the "Kiev heritage of Vladimir". The use of this rhetorical arsenal, which was formed during the 1620s and 1640s, is explained by the attempts of the church elite of the Hetmanate to justify to Moscow the special status of the Kiev Metropolis as the sphere of jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Immediately after the Pereyaslav Rada of 1654, where the hetman and the Zaporozhye Army were "brought under the high royal hand", the Moscow embassy headed by V. Buturlin went to Kiev. As we read in the embassy report," before reaching the city rampart, from the Golden Gate about a mile and a half " they were met by the Kiev Metropolitan Sylvester Kosov (1647-1657) with the Chernihiv bishop and abbots of Kiev monasteries. Near this historical "place of remembrance" - the traditional triumphal entrance to the once majestic "capital city", which a few years before Bohdan Khmelnitsky (1649) and Lithuanian Hetman Janusz Radziwill (1651) solemnly entered the city-the metropolitan "spoke a speech": "Always come from the pious and Christ-loving his serene Highness the Tsar and Grand Duke Alexey Mikhailovich, autocrat of all Russia, from the Orthodox, Orthodox tsardom of men who have the desire to visit the pious legacy of the ancient Grand Dukes of Russia (here I give you my seat-Ya. Z.); always come to the seat of the first pious Russian Grand Duke, we proceed to you on candlemas; and he, the pious Vladimir, the Grand Prince of Russia, kisses you on my face; the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called, who was foretold in this place to shine forth the glory of God, who now by your coming is safely restored; the Venerable Anthony and Theodosius of the Pechersti, and all the venerable ones, ... Read more