The book is devoted to the controversial issue of the status of the Kyiv Metropolis since 1686, when the diocese of the Patriarchate of Constantinople was transferred under the control of the Moscow Patriarchs. It examines the history of the trip of the Moscow messenger Nikita Alekseev and the hetman's representative Ivan Lisitsa to Adrianople and Constantinople in 1686, as well as the content of the patriarchal letters they received on the permission to ordain the Kyiv metropolitans in Moscow.