Dionysius Balaban

Dionysius Balaban (monastic name – Hilarion; Ukrainian: Діонісій Балабан; ? – 10 May 1663, in Chyhyryn) was the Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus'[lower-alpha 1] in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Eastern Orthodox Church from 1657 to 1663. He came from an old noble family from Volhynia. He was known as a religious and political leader. He was a defender of the rights of the metropolis against the attempts of its liquidation by the Patriarchate of Moscow.

Balaban studied at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy. He was a bishop of Kholm (1650–1652), Lutsk (1655) and later the Metropolitan of Kyiv (1657–1663).

In 1658 Balaban was forced to relocate his see to Chyhyryn due to occupation of Kyiv by the Muscovite troops. At the same time his place in Kyiv was kept (locum tenens) by the bishop of Chernihiv Lazar Baranovych.

Metropolitan Balaban supported the policies of Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky and was a co-author of the 1658 Treaty of Hadiach. In 1663 he accepted monastic vows of Yuriy Khmelnytskyi to the Kaniv Monastery.