8. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, however, it became daily more obvious that there was no hope of achieving the desired renewal and reform of the Ruthenian Church, which w as then borne down by grave abuses, except by restoring union with the Apostolic See. Even dissident historians describe and freely admit the wretched state this Church was then in. In 1585 the Ruthenian nobles, meeting together in Warsaw, asserted, in the course of a sharp and vivid exposition to the metropolitan of their grievances, that their Church was plagued by greater evils than had ever previously existed or could ever be in the future. These nobles did not hesitate to arraign the metropolitan himself, the bishops and the superiors of monasteries, bringing serious charges against them. The mere fact that laymen should thus rise up against the hierarchy made it evident that ecclesiastical discipline was not a little relaxed.