Outline History of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church — Volume IV, Part II

Wlasowsky, I. Outline History of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Translator's note: This is an English translation from the Ukrainian original. Theological and ecclesiastical terms are rendered in standard Orthodox English usage. Where a Ukrainian term has no precise English equivalent, the original is given in parentheses. Proper names follow standard Ukrainian transliteration. Page markers from the original edition are preserved.

This English translation was produced through AI-assisted translation in March 2026, with multiple review passes against the Ukrainian original.

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Table of Contents

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Outline History of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Volume IV (20th Century). Part Two. THE UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH. New York 1966. Bound Brook

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Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate. Ivan Wlasowsky. Outline History of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Volume IV. Part Two. Reprint Edition. Kyiv

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SECTION III. THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL-ECCLESIASTICAL MOVEMENT IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN POLAND IN 1921–1939

FIFTH PERIOD. THE REVIVAL OF THE UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH IN THE ERA OF NATIONAL REVIVAL OF THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE WITH THE REVOLUTION OF 1917. (Up to the Second World War).

The events in the life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church during the era of national revival with the revolution of 1917, narrated in Part 1 of Volume IV of this work (Sections I and II), took place across the vast territories of "Greater Ukraine," "Eastern Ukraine," and "the Dnipro Region." Before the revolution, these comprised the governorates of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Poltava, Katerynoslav, Kherson, Podillia, Volyn, and the corresponding Orthodox dioceses. Beyond these territories, however, there were still other Ukrainian lands with an Orthodox Ukrainian population, cut off from the mother trunk and possessing their own national-ecclesiastical history, shaped by the awakening of national consciousness. These lands were Western Volyn, Ukrainian Polissia, the Kholm region (Kholmshchyna), and Pidliashshia.

During the First World War, these lands were on the terrain of military operations, which brought devastation to the region and ruin to church life, along with a significant evacuation of the population eastward. And when, with the end of that war and the capitulation of the Germans in November 1918, life began to revive there and refugees began returning to the ashes of their native

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land, they were already being met by the gradual expansion of new political authority from Warsaw onto these Ukrainian lands — the ancient Polish Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) was being restored as a consequence of the First World War and the peace conference at Versailles. Its eastern borders were finally established by the Treaty of Riga (March 18, 1921) between the Polish government and the Bolshevik authorities of the USSR. On the Ukrainian lands with an Orthodox Ukrainian population under restored Poland, according to the 1921 census, there were 2,007 thousand Ukrainians, of which 1,050 thousand were in Western Volyn (the districts of Kremenets, Ostrih, Dubno, Rivne, Lutsk, Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Kovel), 263 thousand in the Kholm region, 257 thousand in Pidliashshia, and 437 thousand in Ukrainian Polissia (Prof. I. Shymanovych. Western Ukraine. Territory and Population. A Statistical Study. Lviv, 1926).

In 1931, out of the total number of Orthodox faithful in the Orthodox Church in Poland — according to official Polish statistics, 3,762,500 souls — there were approximately 2,500 thousand Ukrainians, that is, roughly 70% of the Orthodox in Poland. The overwhelming majority of them resided in the Volyn and Polissia voivodeships (Stepan Baran. Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. Munich, 1947, p. 104).

The situation of these Ukrainian lands, the so-called Northwestern Ukraine, directly on or near the military front — and when the war came to its end, on territory being annexed by the restored Poland — caused these lands to be very weakly affected by the events of Ukrainian national revival taking place in 1917–1918 in Greater Ukraine. With their still small number of Ukrainian intelligentsia, these lands remained largely isolated from those developments. The weakest of all could be the echo here of the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in Greater Ukraine at that time, both due to the aforementioned devastation and disorganization of church life and due to the specific role that the Orthodox Church played in Volyn, the Kholm region, and Pidliashshia as an outpost of the Russian state apparatus in the "Western" and "Vistula" regions before the revolution of 1917. Metropolitan Evlohiy Heorhiyevsky recounts that when in 1914 he was transferred by the Synod from the Kholm cathedra to the Volyn one (Archbishop of Volyn Antoniy Khrapovytsky had been transferred to the Kharkiv cathedra) and arrived in Pochayiv, where a congress of clergy of the Volyn diocese was then taking place, he "quickly understood from conversations with many priests that the diocesan clergy were very 'rightist.' The cathedral archpriest (Fr. K. Levytsky) declared outright to me: 'We are all Black Hundreds members.' This term at the time meant," Metropolitan Evlohiy adds, "that extreme monarchist faction that called itself the 'Union of the Russian People'" (The Path of My Life. Paris, 1947, pp. 245–246).

And yet, when the life shaken by the four-year Great War and the waves of the All-Russian Revolution began to settle into its present banks and stabilize, even in these lands of Northwestern Ukraine that found themselves under restored Poland, the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement began to grow and gather

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strength, alongside the general awakening and growth of national consciousness among the Ukrainian population of these lands.

This Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement had to proceed under particular conditions in the Orthodox Church in Poland. Before it there arose here pages of the ancient church history of the Ukrainian Orthodox people from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, when the forebears of that people fought for the freedom of their Orthodox faith — which was also a mark of Ukrainian national belonging. They were exhausted in the struggle under the pressure of Catholicism, supported by the Catholic Polish state authorities for the purposes of assimilating the Ukrainian people and their political, national, and social subjugation.

In olden times, Orthodox Lviv, Pochayiv with its holy sites, Ostrih with the activities of Prince K. K. Ostrozky, Lutsk, Volodymyr, Kholm, and so on — all evoked memories of the great religious and cultural achievements of the Ukrainian Orthodox people in these lands. And now, historical destiny decreed that this people would once again encounter on their own soil the Polish Catholic authorities, for whom the role of the Orthodox Church in the life of their citizens was by no means a matter of indifference. Equally important was the question of whether behind the Polish state authority would once again rise the grim shadow of Rome with its hunger to "convert" people by all means "ad majorem Dei gloriam."

Thus, while the revived Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Greater Ukraine had to contend with a godless state authority that only for the sake of appearances decreed the separation of Church and state — immediately beginning to persecute, plunder, and destroy the Church — the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in Northwestern Ukraine under Poland was fated to deal with a different reality. Here, the Church was not separated from the state, but the government was burdened by a traditional Catholic legacy far from benevolent toward Orthodoxy. The historian must not lose sight of this difference when examining the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland.

On the other hand, for Eastern Dnipro Ukraine in the USSR and for Northwestern Ukraine under Poland, a common task in the struggle for the national character of the Orthodox Church of the Ukrainian people was the de-Russification (rozmoskovlennia) of the Church, which had been used for political purposes and for the Russification of the Ukrainian population through it by the pre-revolutionary Russian authorities.

1. The leading role of Volyn in the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church on the territory of restored Poland. The beginnings of this movement in Volyn itself. The Ukrainian Brotherhood of the Holy Savior in Zhytomyr. The Volodymyr Spiritual Administration. Biographical data on Bishop (later Metropolitan) Dionisiy Valedynsky.

The center of the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church in restored Poland was, without doubt, Western Volyn, which became part of restored Poland under the Treaty of Riga (March 18, 1921) between the Polish government and the Soviet government, though in fact it was gradually occupied by the Poles already in the second half of 1919. It was entirely natural that Volyn was such a center, for among the Ukrainian lands with an Orthodox population under Poland, it was the largest. The Volyn diocese in pre-revolutionary times had 1,200 parishes (Metropolitan Evlohiy, op. cit., p. 244); under Poland, the Volyn diocese, according to 1925 data, had 760 parishes. Thus, more than half of the former Volyn diocese was now part of the Orthodox Church in Poland, making it also the largest diocese. In 1925, it alone was larger than all the other dioceses of the said Church combined, namely: the Polissia diocese had 298 parishes, the Vilna diocese — 158, the Hrodna diocese — 130, the Warsaw-Kholm diocese — 65 — together 651 parishes (Orthodox Church-People's Calendar for the Year 1925. Published by the Warsaw Synodal Printing House, pp. 72–76).

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Being almost entirely Ukrainian in its national composition, the Volyn diocese, even before its separation by political events from its whole, was during the revolutionary years of 1917–1918 affected by that movement of Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical revival whose center was Kyiv and which began in Ukraine at the diocesan assemblies or congresses of clergy and laity convened with the revolution. The question of de-Russification of the Church became a subject of discussion at the first post-revolutionary Volyn Diocesan Congresses of clergy and laity in Zhytomyr, held on April 14–19 and June 23–30, 1917. At the latter, the following resolutions were adopted:

  1. "The Congress of clergy and laity, recognizing that the normal life of the Volyn diocese is possible only with the complete unity of the clergy with the people on the basis of a church structure close to the people's needs, speaks in favor of the free development and self-awareness of the Ukrainian people."
  2. "Considering that the immediate, forcible implementation of reforms connected with the Ukrainization of school and church may encounter obstacles in the localities arising from the general unpreparedness of the population for this, the Congress recommends to priests and teachers wise moderation and gradualism. But the latter must be dictated by love for the native land and language, and not by a desire to postpone implementation."
  3. "The Congress categorically declares that it recognizes Eastern Orthodoxy as the national, ancient faith of the Ukrainian people, on the basis of the history of the region, and at the same time recognizes as necessary the following measures: a) the restoration of the old pious church customs and prayers, such as the prayers for the blessing of fruits on August 6, the churching of the bride, the prayers for admission to a Brotherhood, and the prayers for the blessing of candles (hromnytsi); b) preaching in the local Ukrainian vernacular; c) the pronunciation of liturgical texts in the local pronunciation and congregational singing" (Pravoslavnaia Volyn, 1917, no. 16; Tserkva i Narid, 1, 1935, p. 17).
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In the diocesan organ Pravoslavnaia Volyn, which replaced the Volyn Diocesan News and was itself, essentially, still published in Russian, articles began to appear calling for the transition to the Ukrainian language in church preaching, along with supplements to the journal of sermons in Ukrainian by Archpriest Petro Antonovych.

On January 23, 1918, the Brotherhood of the Holy Savior was founded in Zhytomyr, uniting clergy and laity, conscious Ukrainians, on the basis of the tasks of Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical revival. "In accordance with our ancient custom, bequeathed to us by our forefathers," the brothers addressed the public on the occasion of the opening of the Brotherhood of the Holy Savior, "in times of terrible turmoil, of mockery of our Orthodox Church, in times of human negligence toward the 'one thing needful,' we are founding the 'Brotherhood of the Holy Savior in Volyn,' to the praise of God, One in Trinity, and of His Most Pure Mother, to the glory of our Holy Church, for the union in spiritual love of those who believe in Christ, for common religious and cultural-educational work in our native field."

In the program of the Brotherhood's activities, we see the following points, imbued with the aspiration for national-ecclesiastical revival: 1. Defense of the Orthodox faith as the national, ancient faith of the Ukrainian people. — 2. Revival of the old church life. — 3. Preservation of the ancient Ukrainian church customs. — 4. Acquisition of the Brotherhood's own church in Zhytomyr. — 5. Acquisition of a Brotherhood preacher for the churches of the city of Zhytomyr and of the Volyn land. — 6. Establishment of a Brotherhood hospital for the elderly and the infirm. — 7. Founding of a Brotherhood elementary school. — 8. Acquisition of a Brotherhood printing press. — 9. Publication of church books, as well as other books of religious and educational content. — 10. Preservation of church antiquities of Volyn and revival of the Ukrainian church style. — 11. Organization of readings and talks for the people and school youth. — 12. Founding of a Brotherhood choir. — 13. Introduction of the Ukrainian language into church services.

Among the initiative group of founders of the Brotherhood of the Holy Savior and its active members were prominent Volyn clergy, such as the Chairman of the Consistory, Archpriest P. Antonovych; member of the Consistory, Archpriest M. Burchak-Abramovych; inspector of parish schools of the Zhytomyr district, Archpriest V. Vyshnevsky; Priest Nikanor Abramovych (now Metropolitan of the UAOC in emigration); supervisor of the Zhytomyr Theological School, Archpriest Afanasiy Viktorovsky, and others. Among the laity were professors of the Volyn Theological Seminary: P. Abramovych, Orest Fotinsky, Yevhen Nenadkevych, Mykh. Yanevych; Chairman of the Volyn Provincial Zemstvo, Samiilo Pidhirsky (later a deputy to the Warsaw Sejm from Volyn), and others. Such a composition was a guarantee of the Brotherhood of the Holy Savior's broad activity in de-Russifying church life in Volyn.

But the Brotherhood was fated to work only in 1918, when, as we know, a fierce struggle was underway at the center for a Ukrainian Church independent from Moscow against reactionary elements in the Church,

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headed by Kyiv Metropolitan Antoniy Khrapovytsky (see Vol. IV, Part 1 of this work, Section I, Subsection 4). Already at the beginning of 1919, the Directorate of the UNR, which at the end of 1918 had taken power in Ukraine from the overthrown Hetman government, was forced to abandon Kyiv before the Bolshevik advance. The Bolsheviks also occupied Eastern Volyn, including Zhytomyr. The consequence of these political events for church life in Eastern Volyn was the dying down of the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement there, as attested in his memoirs by the present Metropolitan of the UOC in the USA, Ioan Teodorovych. He recounts the Volyn Diocesan Congress, which took place in the spring of 1921, in which he participated as a delegate from his deanery district in the Starokostiantyniv county. At this congress, among 300 priest-delegates of the diocese, Fr. Ioan Teodorovych alone stood in defense of the ideas and work of the VPCR in Kyiv (this was still before the Kyiv Sobor of October 1921), speaking moreover in the Ukrainian language. (Ioan, Archbishop. A String of Reminiscences. Ukrainian Orthodox Calendar for 1951. New York, pp. 90–98.)

The very small number of UAOC parishes in Eastern Volyn after the Kyiv Sobor of 1921, as well as the fact that Zhytomyr almost throughout the entire existence of the UAOC in Ukraine did not have a spiritual leader of the district — a bishop of the UAOC — also confirms the decline of the national-ecclesiastical movement in Eastern Volyn under Bolshevik rule in that part of Volyn (See Vol. IV, Part 1, Section II, Subsection 4).

Thus it happened in Eastern Volyn, but — "the very organization envisioned and realized by the Brotherhood of the Holy Savior in Zhytomyr was revived," as Metropolitan Nikanor Abramovych writes to the author of this work (dated May 10, 1960), "on Polish territory," that is, in Western Volyn under Poland. A number of Brotherhood members, such as Fr. Nikanor Abramovych himself, Fr. Myk. Bukhovych, Fr. Vas. Lopukhovych, Fr. Viroslav Tkhorzhevsky, Fr. Feodosiy Kvasnetsky, Fr. F. Perkhorovych, Samiilo Pidhirsky, Mykh. Cherkavsky, and others, were from Western Volyn, and whoever among them had worked in Zhytomyr during the first two years of the revolution (1917–1918) left the provincial capital of Zhytomyr when it and Eastern Volyn were seized by the Bolsheviks. The ideological successor of the Ukrainian Brotherhood of the Holy Savior in Western Volyn was the Volodymyr Spiritual Administration.

As the very name of this organization or institution indicates, the Volodymyr Spiritual Administration had certain church-administrative functions in a particular area of Western Volyn. This fact was falsely portrayed in some historical works. In it was seen a manifestation of anarchism among the Volyn clergy. "Anarchistic elements brought to life by the war and the revolution," wrote Archbishop Oleksiy Hromadsky, "opposed church discipline and were ready to refuse obedience to the sole bishop in Volyn, citing their dependence on other bishops who were outside of Poland" (Toward a History of the Orthodox Church in Poland during the Ten-Year Tenure at Its Head of His Beatitude Metropolitan Dionisiy (1923–1933). Warsaw, 1937, pp. 12–13).

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In the monograph by Fr. Heyer, the creation of the "Volodymyr Spiritual Administration" is examined as "the renunciation of obedience by 85 Volyn parishes to their bishop." The explanation for such a stance of the clergy toward their hierarch (Bishop Dionisiy), who had entered into cooperation with Warsaw, is found in the supposed love of the Volyn clergy for the Moscow Patriarchate, similar to what existed in other Orthodox dioceses of the Polish Republic. This manifested itself in the aspirations of the Volyn clergy to subordinate themselves to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the episcopal cathedras in Zhytomyr or Hrodna, but Bishop Dionisiy managed to break this opposition (Fr. Heyer. Die Orthodoxe Kirche in der Ukraine von 1917 bis 1945, p. 135). About the role in the organization of the Volodymyr Spiritual Administration of aspirations of a Ukrainian national character for the revival of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Oleksiy was silent, and Fr. Heyer, evidently, did not know.

In reality, the Volodymyr Spiritual Administration — the ideological successor in Western Volyn of the Ukrainian Brotherhood of the Holy Savior founded in Zhytomyr in January 1918 — took upon itself church-administrative functions in four districts of Western Volyn (Volodymyr, Kovel, Liuboml, and Horokhiv) not out of anarchistic tendencies, and certainly not out of "love" for the Moscow Patriarchate. This was caused by the circumstances of church life in these territories after the war, amid the upheavals of the revolution and changes of political authority, and from the standpoint of church canon law there was no "anarchy" whatsoever in it.

The Volodymyr Spiritual Administration began conducting church-administrative functions (appointment, transfer, and dismissal of members of parish clerical staffs, church judicial matters, marriage permits, divorce cases, and the like) not arbitrarily, but with authorization from its Bishop of Volodymyr-Volyn, Faddey (Uspensky), the 1st vicar of the Volyn diocese. The diocese was large. In it there were three vicar bishops (Volodymyr-Volyn, Kremenets, and Ostrih); already in the pre-revolutionary period, the Volyn vicars, on the initiative of Archbishop of Volyn Antoniy Khrapovytsky, were not nominal bishops, as was customary for vicars in the Russian Church, but actual administrators in their regions under the authority of the Volyn Archbishop (Bishop Nikon. Biography of His Beatitude Antoniy, Metropolitan of Kyiv and Halych. New York, 1957, Vol. II, p. 89).

To this condition of semi-independence of Vicar Bishop Faddey in the Volodymyr region was added another circumstance: Volyn Archbishop Evlohiy, with the revolution of 1917, spent very little time in Volyn or Zhytomyr. He was either in Moscow at the All-Russian Church Sobor (church assembly/synod) or in Kyiv at the All-Ukrainian Church Sobor; and when in December 1918 he was taken by order of the UNR Directorate from Kyiv to the Greek Catholic monastery in Buchach, he thus never returned to Volyn, having departed in January 1920 from the south into emigration while still holding the rank of Archbishop of Volyn and Zhytomyr.

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Thus Bishop of Volodymyr Faddey, as the 1st vicar of the Volyn diocese, had to stand in for the absent diocesan hierarch and, having moved to Zhytomyr, served as the administrator of the diocese. The great difficulties of communication with Western Volyn, and subsequently the complete severance of those communications with the advance of the Polish army (Lutsk was already occupied by the Poles on May 13, 1919) and the establishment of Polish administration, were the reason — precisely in order to prevent anarchy in church life — for Bishop Faddey's granting of administrative rights in his Volodymyr church region to the organized Volodymyr Spiritual Administration.

The chairman of the Volodymyr Spiritual Administration was the rector of the Volodymyr cathedral, Archpriest Arseniy Bordiuhovsky; the member-secretary was Dean Archpriest Nikanor Abramovych; the Spiritual Administration also included two other clergy and three laymen; among these members of the Administration was Archpriest Damiian Hershtansky, elected in 1922 from the Volyn voivodeship to the Polish Senate. The organization of church life in the territory of four districts — Volodymyr, Kovel, Liuboml, and Horokhiv (the last two were formed by the Poles from the large Volodymyr district) — was established by the Spiritual Administration and proceeded without disruption.

But such a state of church administration over part of Volyn could only be temporary. As Canon 17 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council states, "in every diocese, the parishes existing in villages or cities must remain invariably under the authority of the bishops who administer them"... and "the distribution of church parishes must follow the civil and administrative order." And with the normalization of the administrative-political life of Western Volyn under the new Polish state authority, normalization of its church-administrative life was also bound to come.

On the territory of Western Volyn occupied by the Poles, there was the second vicar of the Volyn diocese, Bishop of Kremenets Dionisiy (Valedynsky), whose name is so closely linked with the entire history of the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland. Bishop (later Metropolitan) Dionisiy, in secular life Konstantyn Valedynsky, was a native of Muscovy (Moskovshchyna), the son of a priest of the city of Murom, Vladimir governorate, born in 1876; He was left an orphan early after the death of his father and was raised by his mother. During his studies in the upper classes of the Vladimir Theological Seminary, he "became involved, in the words of Metropolitan Evlohiy, in a scandal at the seminary" (a rebellion of seminarians in 1895) and was expelled, along with 75 students, with the right to be admitted to another seminary. He entered the Ufa Theological Seminary, which he completed brilliantly, after which he completed the Kazan Theological Academy (1900), under the rectorship of Bishop Antoniy Khrapovytsky, by whom Konstantyn Valedynsky was tonsured as a monk

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while still a student, receiving the monastic name Dionisiy. After completing the Academy, Hieromonk Dionisiy served briefly as a teacher at the Taurida Theological Seminary (Crimea); at Pascha 1902, he was appointed inspector of the Kholm Theological Seminary, and at the beginning of 1903 he became its rector, succeeding Rector Archimandrite Evlohiy, who had been consecrated as Bishop — Vicar of Lublin. In the position of rector of the seminary in Kholm, Archimandrite Dionisiy remained until 1911, when he was appointed rector of the church of the Russian embassy in Italy. Two years later, on Thomas Sunday 1913, he was consecrated as Bishop of Kremenets, Vicar of the Volyn Archbishop. The episcopal consecration of Archimandrite Dionisiy was extraordinarily solemn in character: it took place in the Pochayiv Lavra and was performed by a sobor of bishops headed by Patriarch Grigoriy IV of Antioch, who was visiting Russia at the time; the Volyn Archbishop was Metropolitan Antoniy Khrapovytsky.

During the First World War, Bishop Dionisiy remained at his post (Kremenets was in immediate proximity to the front); with the revolution and during it, with the convocation in January 1918 of the All-Ukrainian Church Sobor, he traveled to Kyiv and was a participant in the said sobor, which held its sessions throughout 1918 (until the fall of the Hetman government). In January 1919, after the UNR Government departed the capital before the Bolshevik advance, Bishop Dionisiy returned from Kyiv to Kremenets. He brought with him the acts of the All-Ukrainian Church Sobor of 1918, which were then kept in his possession in Warsaw, as Archbishop Oleksiy Hromadsky told the author of this work.

Obviously, upon returning to Kremenets, his cathedral city, Bishop Dionisiy began to organize the church-administrative life of his region, in the districts of Kremenets, Luben, Rivne, and Lutsk, which were, along with other districts of Western Volyn, free from "Soviet" authority. We have no data as to whether Bishop Dionisiy had any dealings at that time with Bishop Faddey as the administrator of the Volyn diocese. He most likely conducted church-administrative work entirely independently from Zhytomyr, which was cut off along with all of Eastern Volyn. In April 1920, a Diocesan Rada (governing council/board) was organized in Kremenets as a temporary governing body under the bishop.

From this, one can see that the part of Volyn outside Bolshevik authority was already being regarded as a diocese; the "temporary" was transitioning into permanence, which was cemented by the Treaty of Riga between the Poles and the "Soviets" on March 18, 1921, according to which Western Volyn found itself within the borders of the Polish Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita). In 1921, Bishop Faddey was also transferred from Zhytomyr to Tver in Muscovy (Heyer, op. cit., p. 74), and the Zhytomyr cathedra of the patriarchal jurisdiction was taken by the third vicar of the Volyn diocese, Bishop of Ostrih Averkiy Kedrov.

Finally, the government of Poland, by decree of July 1, 1921, recognized Bishop of Kremenets Dionisiy's right of canonical jurisdiction within the boundaries of the Volyn diocese under Poland.

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Following the above-mentioned transition from temporary to permanent arrangements in the administration of Western Volyn's parishes, there evidently also came the gradual "intervention" of Bishop Dionisiy into the affairs that the Volodymyr Spiritual Administration had been managing within four districts of Western Volyn. The expansion of the bishop's diocesan authority came to extend over these four districts as well, which had until then enjoyed autonomy. After all, a situation could not continue in which four districts of the Volyn diocese within the borders of Poland were not subject to the jurisdiction of the Volyn bishop within those same borders but remained under the jurisdiction of Zhytomyr. But the resolution of this "nonsense" was carried out by Bishop Dionisiy with the tact and flexibility of which he himself and his closest assistant at the time in administration, Archpriest Oleksander Hromadsky (in monasticism Oleksiy, who died tragically in the rank of metropolitan on May 7, 1943), were capable.

As Metropolitan of the UAOC Nikanor recalls in his letter to the author of this work: "Bishop Dionisiy arrived one rainy day from Kremenets, accompanied by Archpriest O. Hromadsky, to visit me (Fr. N. Abramovych) in the Volodymyr region, in the village of Seltse. It was a difficult conversation, but ultimately we managed to come to an agreement regarding the coordination of our work. We agreed that it was necessary to convene a Diocesan Congress at which we would try to resolve all misunderstandings and possibly agree on the matter of canonical authority. We parted from Bishop Dionisiy almost as friends. I came away with the impression that he would be sincerely useful to us in the cause for which we had been working. He promised us his support and kept his word" (Letter dated May 10, 1960).

The understanding with the "anarchists" obviously concerned, as we shall see further, the matter of de-Russifying the Church in Volyn, which the Volodymyr Spiritual Administration had been pursuing in its territory, while Kremenets had "Russophile tendencies," in the words of Metropolitan Nikanor.

Thus matters came to the first Volyn Diocesan Congress within the borders of restored Poland, the need for which was also felt by the Diocesan Rada established in Kremenets under the bishop in April 1920. This congress was distinctly Ukrainian in character and played a significant role in the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland from the very beginning of its organization.

2. The attempt by Russians to seize control of the organization of the Orthodox Church within the borders of restored Poland; Bishop of Kremenets Dionisiy's counteraction. The Pochayiv Congress of representatives of the clergy and laity of Volyn, October 3–10, 1921; its resolutions.

While church life in the districts of Volyn that found themselves under Polish authority began to normalize and take on certain organizational forms, which were evidently of a local character, in Warsaw the Russians had already formed an "Orthodox Church Council" (Pravoslavnyi Tserkovnyi Sovet), which

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took upon itself the task and the right to organize Orthodox church life not only in the capital but within the entire territory of Poland. With the permission of the Polish authorities, headed by N. S. Serebrennikov, the Orthodox Church Council was to hold in Warsaw a Congress of representatives of Orthodox parishes from all of Poland, with a broad program; the congress was to take place in August 1921. Which bishops within Poland gave their consent and blessing for the convening of this congress is unknown. The Bishop of Kremenets, Dionisiy, opposed this initiative of the Church Council in Warsaw. Bishop Dionisiy published his protest in the press, where he wrote:

"In the congress's program, I find questions about the legal position of the Orthodox Church in Poland, about the organization of church-public bodies, about the organization of parishes, about the resources of the Orthodox Church and their distribution. Obviously, these questions have been posed not just as a formality. They will be discussed and decided, and the Church Council will want to send the resolutions where necessary, as the voice of the entire Orthodox Church in Poland. May the Warsaw Church Council forgive me, but I cannot understand who gave it the right to be an ecclesiastical organization for the entire Orthodox Church in Poland, just as I cannot agree that the voice of a non-canonical Congress should be presented as the true voice of the Orthodox Church in Poland" (Newspaper Za Svobodu, August 4, 1921).

The protest of the Bishop of Kremenets, as well as his prohibition to Volyn clergy to participate in the Congress being convened by the Warsaw Church Council, were the reason that this congress did not take place at all.

In Volyn, meanwhile, Bishop Dionisiy convened a Diocesan Congress of clergy and laity to Pochayiv, which took place on October 3–10, 1921.

From the districts of Volyn that had until then been the territory of the Volodymyr Spiritual Administration's church administration, representation at the Pochayiv Congress, from both clergy and laity, was organized and quite numerous; from other districts it was random. From Lutsk, for example, a delegate was sent from the Lutsk Prosvita Society (Andriy Hlushchuk), but, according to Metropolitan Nikanor's testimony in his letter to me, predominantly conscious Ukrainians came to the Congress at Pochayiv. The Honorary Chairman of the Congress was Bishop Dionisiy. The Acting Chairman was elected as Archpriest Nikanor Abramovych, with Archpriest Oleksander Hromadsky and Archimandrite Damaskin as Vice-Chairmen; Archpriest Petro Tabinsky and teacher Mykhailo Kybaliuk served as secretaries.

The question of the Ukrainization of the divine services provoked lively discussion at the Congress, as a result of which the delegates decided for the time being: to entrust the speaker on this matter, who was the Chairman of the Congress, Archpriest N. Abramovych, to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in the Pochayiv Lavra's Trinity Cathedral in the Ukrainian language, which would demonstrate whether it was possible to celebrate divine services in that language. A Ukrainian choir was quickly organized under the direction of Fr. Mykola Kvasnytsky. The Divine Liturgy was served by

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Archpriest N. Abramovych with his deacon Ivan Zalusky. The cathedral was packed with Congress participants, Lavra monks, and peasants from the town of Pochayiv and its surroundings who, having heard about the "novelty," streamed to the Lavra. Everyone listened with enthusiasm to every word of prayer and chant, for the general resolution for the diocese on the matter of using the Ukrainian language in the divine services was to depend on the impression made, at the evening session.

"Everything would have been fine," recounts Metropolitan Nikanor, "if not for the fact that I, out of habit, did not commemorate the Moscow Patriarch, but only the bishop present here, Bishop Dionisiy. Having noticed the omission of the Moscow Patriarch's commemoration, the monastics raised such a clamor in the cathedral that the service could no longer be heard. Waving their arms in despair, the monks shouted: 'They have beheaded the Church!'... But then an old schemamonk came out and, grabbing a vessel of holy water and a sprinkler, chased the shouters out of the cathedral: 'A demon has entered you, brother!'"

"After the service, the Congress participants retired for rest, and Bishop Dionisiy sent Archpriest Hromadsky to me with a warning that at the evening session the monastics were preparing to protest against the non-commemoration of the Moscow Patriarch. I asked him to reassure the Bishop and say that everything would be fine. At the evening session, Archimandrite Damaskin spoke on behalf of the monastics, with the Book of Canons in hand, and, having read out Canon 13 of the Council of Constantinople (Dvukratny), entered a protest against the non-commemoration of the lawful Patriarch in the Lavra. The monks present at the meeting, headed by the well-known Hieromonk Tykhon Sharapov (in 1919, he had been taken by the Ukrainian authorities from Pochayiv together with Archimandrite Vitaliy to Buchach, where he stayed in a Uniate monastery with Metropolitan Antoniy and Archbishop Evlohiy. — I. W.), raised a commotion again, wishing to disrupt the Congress. Bishop Dionisiy instructed me to respond to the accusations. I answered briefly: 'The practice of the Constantinople Church, whose canonical rule the archimandrite cited here, prescribes the commemoration of the Patriarch only by bishops of the Church, while priests there, by custom, commemorate only their ruling bishop. Therefore, I am justified in not commemorating one whom I was not obligated to commemorate. But let the monks explain to me on what grounds they themselves do not commemorate their own ruling bishop, the Bishop Dionisiy present here?...' This struck a nerve with Bishop Dionisiy, and he indignantly began to reproach the monks for their cunning and hypocrisy. The monks were forced to leave the hall, and the meeting thereafter took on a businesslike character."

On the matter of Ukrainization of the divine services, the Congress resolved: "A living faith demands a living language in prayers and in the divine services; therefore, the transition from Church Slavonic to the vernacular, living Ukrainian language is necessary. But this transition must occur gradually, to the extent that the necessary liturgical books are translated and approved by authoritative church authority. The celebration of the divine services in Church Slavonic with Ukrainian pronunciation is to commence immediately."

Regarding the matter of translating the Holy Scriptures and liturgical

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books into the Ukrainian language, "it is necessary to establish a special commission of persons educated in philology and theology, which would undertake the work of translating the needed books."

On this resolution, Bishop Dionisiy placed his endorsement: "I agree" (Pravoslavna Volyn, 1922, nos. 13–14).

Besides this resolution on the cardinal question of the language of divine worship, the Pochayiv Congress adopted the following additional resolutions, dictated by the movement for national-ecclesiastical revival of the Ukrainian people:

a) The Congress requests the restoration of the ancient Lutsk episcopal cathedra, for the maintenance of which the revenues from the estates of the former Zhydychyn Archimandria should be allocated;

b) It accepts that the diocesan organ in Volyn, with its residence in Kremenets, should be the "Diocesan Rada." The foundation for the organization of the diocese should be the Statutes of Diocesan Administration and District Church Administration developed by the All-Ukrainian Sobor in Kyiv in 1918;

c) The Congress resolves to begin publishing the organ of the Volyn Diocesan Administration under the name Pravoslavna Volyn ("Orthodox Volyn");

d) The Congress considers it necessary to maintain parish registers, as well as civil status books, and to issue documents in the Ukrainian language;

e) It adopts the Parish Statute developed by the Kyiv Sobor;

f) The Congress resolves to petition the state authorities that schools be national, with local Ukrainian teachers, and where possible, that permission be granted to open church-parish national schools;

g) The Congress calls upon the clergy: 1. To take religious instruction in schools exclusively into their own hands; 2. To acquaint students with the history of the Orthodox Church, especially the history of the Church in Volyn; 3. To print in the Ukrainian language books on the Sacred History of the Old and New Testaments, as well as explanations of divine worship (Ibid.).

Prof. V. O. Bidnov, who shortly before the Pochayiv Congress had moved to Kremenets from Tarnów, where the UNR government was then residing, wrote after the Congress to Fr. Petro Bilon and "the entire praiseworthy Editorial Board of the Relihiyno-Naukovyi Visnyk" (letter dated October 17, 1921): "The Congress made a good impression on me. It demonstrates that our ecclesiastical cause stands on firm ground, that its supporters are already to be found everywhere in Volyn, and that those who oppose it do so either because they are unfamiliar with our ecclesiastical objectives or because they are old enemies of the Ukrainian people, who have always waged a struggle against it and dream of 'the one, indivisible' [Russia]. The supporters of our ecclesiastical cause displayed at the Congress their great moral and intellectual strengths, while our opponents were entirely weak. In the extreme case, they acknowledged the truth and expediency of the Ukrainization of divine services (Archpriest Venedykt Turkevych), only asking us not to rush with it, to proceed a little at a time, gradually; or else they clamored that we are 'enemies of

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Russia, working with Berlin's money, degenerates, and striving to become Poles.' But in substance, no one disputed anything."

To such "clamoring" voices from 40 years ago, those "true Russians" (istinno-russkikh) who opposed the living Ukrainian language of divine worship for the Ukrainian people, there was added in 1959 Master of Theology Aleksandr Svitich, a former student of Prof. Bidnov at the "Department of Orthodox Theology" at Warsaw University. In his monograph The Orthodox Church in Poland and Its Autocephaly (Buenos Aires, 1959), Svitich wrote: "The beginning of all the troubles in the Church in Volyn was laid by the Volyn Diocesan Congress, which took place in the autumn of 1921 at the Pochayiv Lavra. At this Congress, the first stones of the Church's disunion (?) were laid, namely — it was recognized as timely to Ukrainize the Church by replacing the Church Slavonic liturgical language, which has a thousand-year tradition, with the Ukrainian language. Then followed the blessing for the use in churches of unverified (?) translations of the divine services with a mass of errors, so that soon the faithful people themselves (?) began to appeal to the church authorities with requests to remove these translations from use" (p. 67). Svitich provides no concrete facts whatsoever to prove these generalized clamorous phrases, and therefore they have no historical value and bear the character of slander.

3. Metropolitan of Warsaw Yuriy Yaroshevsky. The organization of church administration under him for the Orthodox Church in Poland. The "Temporary Rules on the Relationship of the Government of the Polish Commonwealth to the Orthodox Church," January 30, 1922. Metropolitan Yuriy and the Ukrainian church movement. The murder of Metropolitan Yuriy by Archimandrite Smaragd Liatoshenko and the motives for the murder. The Ukrainian press on the tragic death of Metropolitan Yuriy. Resolutions of the Holy Synod of June 16 and December 14, 1922, and September 3, 1924, on the use of the native language of the peoples in the divine services and preaching.

In the above-mentioned letter of Prof. V. Bidnov to Fr. P. Bilon, dated October 17, 1921, Prof. Bidnov writes: "The Diocesan Congress of Volyn in Pochayiv unfortunately closed without having reviewed all the matters on the agenda. Lack of funds compelled many delegates to leave the Congress early, and it had to be closed for lack of a quorum..." But the principal resolutions, particularly regarding de-Russification in church life, were adopted by the Congress, and gradually, as we can see from their formulation, were to be implemented in practice, to which the diocesan bishop Dionisiy also expressed his agreement in his endorsements on these resolutions.

"A bright era in the history of our Church in Volyn was being heralded," as we read in the press of our time. "Unfortunately, things did not turn out as was heralded... The resolutions of the Pochayiv Congress went for ratification to Warsaw, to the Head of the Orthodox Church in Poland, Archbishop Yuriy (Yaroshevsky), who with one stroke of the pen crossed out all our achievements and extinguished all our hopes" (N. Burchak. The Beginnings of Ukrainian Church Revival in Volyn. Journal Ridna Tserkva, October–December 1960).

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With such expressions as "crossing out of all our achievements" and "extinguishing of all our hopes," the historian of the Ukrainian Orthodox ecclesiastical movement in Poland would have nothing left but to put down the pen, for there would be nothing further to write about. But the main point here is not this hyperbole. Such a portrayal of Metropolitan Yuriy Yaroshevsky's role in Ukrainian national revival, including in the sphere of church life, we encounter for the first time in our memoirist literature. Until now, negative assessments of Metropolitan Yuriy's short-lived tenure as Primate of the Orthodox Church in Poland have come invariably from the "Black Hundreds" (chornosotentsi — members of the "Union of the Russian People"), vividly maintained in the above-mentioned monograph of A. Svitich as well. Ukrainian authors, by contrast, have positively evaluated Metropolitan Yuriy's tenure at the head of the Orthodox Church in Poland, which lasted less than a year and a half (November 28, 1921 to February 8, 1923) and ended with his tragic death.

Attention must be drawn to the fact that the above-cited "sensational" assertions of the author of the article in Ridna Tserkva, as well as the further account of the supposed persecution by Metropolitan Yuriy, and after his death by Metropolitan Dionisiy and the Synod, of Archpriests A. Bordiuhovsky, Damiian Hershtansky (from autumn 1922, a senator of the Polish Commonwealth!), Hegumen Aleksiy, and Archpriest N. Abramovych for their national-ecclesiastical activity in 1919–1921, are not confirmed by any document. This obliges us to examine the fate of the resolutions of the Pochayiv Congress of 1921 in the very first years following that Congress, for the matter was not as simple as it is presented in the formulaic manner of the Ridna Tserkva article: "With one stroke of the pen, [Metropolitan Yuriy] crossed out our achievements and extinguished our hopes" — and that was the end of it.

Even before the Pochayiv Congress, Archbishop Yuriy, with the consent of the Polish government and the Moscow Patriarch, had received from Patriarch Tikhon the appointment to be the Patriarchal Exarch of the Orthodox Church in Poland with the rights of a regional metropolitan, the patriarchal decree for which is dated September 15/28, 1921, but the organization of the administration of the Orthodox Church in Poland had not yet begun.

A brief biography of Metropolitan Yuriy, prior to his arrival in Poland, is as follows. Metropolitan Yuriy, in the world Hryhoriy Yaroshevsky, was the son of a Ukrainian priest, Fr. Antoniy Yaroshevsky, of the Podillia diocese, born on November 18, 1872. He completed the Podillia Theological Seminary, and in 1896 the Kyiv Theological Academy, where he was a classmate of Prof. O. Lototsky, who warmly remembers Metropolitan Yuriy in his memoirs, published by the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw (Pages of the Past, Vols. I–II). After completing the Academy, Yaroshevsky devoted himself to pedagogical work, having already in 1898 taken monastic vows. He contributed scholarly work to theological journals; some of his works also appeared in the Proceedings of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. In the position of Rector of the Tula Theological Seminary, Archimandrite Yuriy was consecrated on July 2, 1906, as Bishop of Kashyra, Vicar of the Tula

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diocese; he was then transferred to the cathedra of Bishop of Lubny, Vicar of the Poltava diocese. At the end of 1910, Bishop Yuriy was appointed rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy; during his rectorship, N. Inozemtsev completed the Academy, a favorite pupil of the rector, whom Metropolitan Yuriy later consecrated in Poland as Vicar Bishop of Lublin (in monasticism Oleksander, later Metropolitan of Polissia). From mid-1913, Bishop Yuriy served as archpastor on independent cathedras — Kaluga, Minsk. In 1918 he was elevated to the rank of archbishop; in 1919 he temporarily administered the Kharkiv diocese, and at the beginning of 1920 he emigrated abroad, to Italy, whence, at the invitation of the Polish government, he arrived in Poland, approximately at the end of summer 1921.

When, after formalizing his hierarchical position in the Orthodox Church in restored Poland, Exarch Yuriy proceeded to organize the Supreme Church Administration and the Diocesan Administration in the Orthodox Church, his first act was to close the "Church Council in Poland" (Tserkovnyi Sovet v Polshe), which, headed by N. Serebrennikov, had been functioning in Warsaw as a "supra-diocesan church organization," uniting Russians who had begun an action aimed at seizing the "vacant" supreme church authority in the Orthodox Church in Poland, with the goal of having the Church here serve as a bulwark of "Russianness" (russkost), as it had been before the First World War and the Revolution. We have already seen how Bishop Dionisiy had earlier rebuffed the same "Church Council."

In January 1922, the first sobor of Orthodox bishops on the territory of Poland took place in Warsaw, whose principal task was not only the organization of internal governance of the Orthodox Church in restored Poland but also the legalization of the legal position of that Church in the state through negotiations with the Polish government and the establishment of what was then called a concordat between the Orthodox Church and Poland. At this sobor, opened on January 11/24, 1922, under the chairmanship of Bishop-Exarch Yuriy, Bishop of Kremenets Dionisiy, Bishop of Pinsk Panteleimon, and Bishop of Bilostok Vladymyr participated; the government did not agree to the participation of Archbishop of Vilna Elevferiy, as his diocese had not yet entered the borders of Poland.

But presenting themselves — the Sobor of Orthodox Bishops — as an equal partner in negotiations with the Polish government was naïveté. The government of the Commonwealth could conclude "concordats" only with Rome. Thus, after several sessions of the Sobor of Bishops, during which discussion of the text of the "concordat" with government representatives was underway, suddenly, on January 17/30, 1922, the government issued the "Temporary Rules on the Relationship of the Government of the Polish Commonwealth to the Orthodox Church in Poland." These were signed by the Minister of Religious Denominations and Public Education, Antoni Ponikowski. These "Temporary Rules" of January 30, 1922, by Minister A. Ponikowski remained in force almost until the end of post-Versailles Poland, for it was only on November 18, 1938, that there came, with the force of law, the "Decree of the President of the Commonwealth on the Relationship of the State to the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church."

In a calendar for the year 1923, published with the blessing of the Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland, we read: "Unfortunately, as a result of certain extra-conciliar outside influences, the unanimous adoption of the concordat at the Sobor did not take place, and instead, in the character of state directives, the Government issued 'Temporary Rules...'" (pp. 49–50).

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The historian of the Orthodox Church in Poland, and particularly of the Ukrainian church movement in that Church, cannot fail to reckon with the fact that with the issuance of the said "Temporary Rules" of January 30, 1922, there began an active, and quite painful, interference by the Polish government in the internal life of the Orthodox Church, regulated by those "Rules."

Thus, for example, could the "Volodymyr Spiritual Administration" in Volyn continue to operate after the issuance of these "Rules" — the closing of which N. Burchak in the above-cited article in Ridna Tserkva attributes to Metropolitan Yuriy? This "Spiritual Administration" should have ceased to exist already on the basis of the resolution of the Volyn Diocesan Congress in Pochayiv regarding the "Diocesan Rada" in Kremenets as the organ of diocesan administration; and if this resolution had been ignored in Volodymyr, then the "Temporary Rules" issued three months after the Pochayiv Congress would have closed it regardless. The "Rules" (Art. 13) establish "Spiritual Consistories" in each diocese (for the Volyn diocese, in Kremenets) and know nothing of either "Spiritual Administrations" or "Diocesan Radas."

The "Temporary Rules" contain no organs of district church administration, nor "church radas" in parishes, the statutes for which had been adopted at the All-Ukrainian Sobor in Kyiv in 1918 under the Hetman government. What remained in local church administration were the positions of deans and deanery districts (Art. 5 of the "Rules"); deanery meetings were held after prior notification to the district head (starosta), diocesan congresses — after notification to the appropriate voivode, general church sobors (with the participation of clergy and laity) — with the consent of the Minister of Religious Denominations and Public Education (Art. 14 of the "Rules").

The Sobor of Bishops, which the "Temporary Rules" recognized as the "lawful representative body of the Orthodox Church in Poland" (Art. 1 of the "Rules"), consisting of all diocesan bishops recognized by the Government, subsequently — at the third session of the Sobor on June 14–15, 1922, in Warsaw — established for the resolution of ordinary current matters a "small Sobor of hierarchs," named the "Holy Synod of the Orthodox Metropolia in Poland."

Such are the historical facts regarding the origins of the forms of internal governance of the Orthodox Church in Poland during the leadership of Metropolitan Yuriy Yaroshevsky. The "Temporary Rules" of January 30, 1922, know nothing whatsoever of the principle of election to spiritual positions and in church governance. Everywhere in appointments to positions, transfers, and removals, whether of priests to parishes, deans, members of consistories, or bishops, these acts take place through administrative procedure, by order of the appropriate church authority, but with the understanding

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of that authority with representatives of the appropriate organs of state power.

As for the language question in the life of the Orthodox Church, the "Temporary Rules" say nothing about the liturgical language of that Church; however, they require that civil status records ("metric books") of parishioners be kept in the Polish state language, permitting, alongside the Polish text, the recording of acts also "in the language used by the parishioners" (Art. 7 of the "Rules"). In communications with state institutions, the Polish language must be used (Art. 8); official documents are issued by the Consistories in the Polish language (Art. 13). Religious instruction in schools, mandatory for students of the Orthodox faith, is to be conducted in the students' native language (Art. 8).

At the session of the Sobor of Bishops in Warsaw on January 14/27, 1922, permission was granted for the publication in Kremenets of a diocesan organ in the Ukrainian language under the title Pravoslavna Volyn ("Orthodox Volyn"). At that same time, the Sobor resolved to open in the Volyn diocese the cathedra of the Vicar Bishop of Lutsk.

At the first session of the Holy Synod, on June 16, 1922, in Warsaw, the report of Bishop of Kremenets Dionisiy regarding the resolution of the Pochayiv Congress on the matter of liturgical language (the resolution cited above) was heard, and the Synod resolved: "To bless His Grace Dionisiy to permit, in the Slavonic liturgical language, the use of the vernacular Ukrainian pronunciation and the reading of the Word of God at the divine services in the Ukrainian language, in those cases where and when this is deemed by him to be necessary" (Dukhovna Besida, no. 7, 1924).

The cited resolutions of the Sobor of Bishops and the Synod, as we can see, also testify to the complete opposite of what is written in Ridna Tserkva about Metropolitan Yuriy's attitude toward the Ukrainian church movement.

In September 1922, in the Pochayiv Holy Dormition Lavra, the consecration as Bishop of Lutsk of Archimandrite Oleksiy (Hromadsky) was performed by Metropolitan Yuriy, Archbishop Dionisiy, and Bishop Oleksander.

Upon presenting the episcopal staff to the newly consecrated Bishop Oleksiy, Metropolitan Yuriy said in his address: "As a bishop, you will carry out your ministry here, in Volyn, among the Ukrainian people. This is a good people, capable of lofty ideal experiences, a people that perceives in an especially poetic way the beauty of God's world and of God, and among this people the episcopal ministry can be especially beneficial and salvific. This people, more easily than any other, can be drawn to God and united to salvation. This should be especially achievable for you, as one who is native to this people not only in faith but also in blood. Your knowledge of the people's language is a powerful means of influence on this people, for Christian ideas, clothed in the dear images and forms of the native tongue, become especially comprehensible and move the heart. And your knowledge, as a Ukrainian by origin, of the people's soul, its virtues and faults, the secret strings of its heart, will show you how, when, and about what to speak with it, in order to unite it to God and His truth, to root in it Christian

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foundations of life. All the more so must this be said, since you have long been working among this people, as pastor, pedagogue, and administrator. You have studied all strata and ages of that people: clergy, intelligentsia, and common folk; adults, youth, and children. And all the more beneficial and successful will your ministry among them be" (Shliakh, September 1937, pp. 4–5).

From this address of Metropolitan Yuriy to Bishop Oleksiy, we see the Metropolitan's clear understanding of the full significance of the national element in the life of the Church, applied here specifically to the church life of the Ukrainian people.

Most powerfully, in our view, against the falsehood of the claim that Metropolitan Yuriy "prohibited all de-Russification of church life" (Ridna Tserkva, October–December 1960, p. 7) speaks the fact of his having embarked on precisely the path of making the Orthodox ecclesiastical life in restored Poland independent from Moscow. The entire odium in the struggle against the departure from Moscow and in favor of continued existence "in brotherly unity and communion with the Orthodox Church of Russia, with which we are bound by inseverable historical ties in the common church life" (A. Svitich, op. cit., p. 30) — was directed by the "true Russians" (istinno-russkikh liudei), of both clerical and lay rank, against Metropolitan Yuriy.

These people still "looked toward Moscow, expecting that at any moment a mighty hand would reach out from there and change the situation"... And this hatred, brought to the breaking point, ended with an unprecedented tragedy in the history of Orthodoxy: the death of Metropolitan Yuriy at the hand of a clerical person, from a bullet fired by Archimandrite Smaragd (in the world, Pavlo Liatoshenko) on February 8, 1923, in Warsaw, in the metropolitan's residence.

The matter of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland, which we shall examine more closely in the next subsection from the historical standpoint of its significance for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, was not completed under Metropolitan Yuriy. It had been initiated by the Polish government, when at the conference in Warsaw in the autumn of 1921 between Archbishop Yuriy, Bishops Dionisiy and Panteleimon (Rozhnovsky, of Polish nationality), and the Minister of Religious Denominations and Education, M. Rataj, the latter firmly declared that "the Polish government does not envision any governance of the Orthodox Church in Poland other than on the basis of autocephaly" (Ibid., p. 7). The more the godless character of the state authorities in Soviet Russia manifested itself, and the Moscow Patriarch Tikhon himself was first confined in a monastery and then in a GPU prison (1922), the stronger were the grounds the Polish government had for insisting in its declarations to the Sobor of Orthodox Bishops on the swifter proclamation of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland.

The hierarchy of the Church adopted at the Sobor of Bishops in Warsaw on June 14–15, 1922, the following resolution: "Taking into consideration the declaration of the Government and the events of church life in Russia, in agreement with its resolution in Pochayiv, the Sobor of Bishops by majority vote resolved: 1. Due to the cessation in Moscow of the activity of the lawful

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Supreme Church Administration, all matters concerning the Orthodox Church in Poland are to be decided locally by the Sobor of Orthodox Hierarchs, with ordinary current matters decided by the small Sobor of Hierarchs, or Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland, in accordance with Art. 1 of the 'Temporary Rules on the Relationship of the Government to the Orthodox Church in Poland.' 2. 'The Sobor of Hierarchs resolves not to accept any directives from the non-canonical Church Administration established in Moscow.' 3. 'The Sobor of Orthodox Hierarchs, in view of the ecclesiastical turmoil and upheaval in Russia, has nothing against the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland and is prepared to work in Poland on the basis of autocephaly, confident in good cooperation with the Polish Government on the foundations of the Constitution, with the proviso, however, that the Polish Government obtain the blessing for autocephaly from the Patriarchs of Constantinople and the other Patriarchs, as well as from the Heads of the Autocephalous Churches — Greek, Bulgarian, and Romanian, and also from the Moscow Patriarch, if the latter returns to power and if the Patriarchate in Russia is not abolished'" (The Orthodox Church in Poland. Orthodox Calendar for 1923. Warsaw, 1923, pp. 50–51).

The resolution was adopted by the votes of Metropolitan Yuriy, Archbishop Dionisiy, and Bishop Oleksander, Administrator of the Polissia diocese, while Archbishop of Vilna Elevferiy and Bishop of Hrodna Volodymyr voted against. They were opponents of the independence of the Orthodox Church in Poland from the Moscow Patriarch, and thus could not remain on their cathedras in Poland, where the Church was not separated from the State. The Polish state authority demanded the independence of the Orthodox Church in Poland from an ecclesiastical authority located in another state, where, moreover, the persecution of the Church, Christianity, and religion in general had begun.

After the above-cited resolution of the Sobor of Bishops of June 14–15, 1922, regarding the governance of the Orthodox Church in Poland — a resolution, in our opinion, entirely reasonable under the given circumstances and not contrary to the canons of the Orthodox Church — there was no new conciliar resolution on this subject under Metropolitan Yuriy, nor was there generally another Sobor of Bishops (from June 16, 1922, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland commenced its activity).

Archimandrite Smaragd's shot at Metropolitan Yuriy and the Metropolitan's sudden death on February 8, 1923, came eight months after the resolution of June 1922 by the Sobor of Bishops regarding the "readiness to work in Poland on the basis of autocephaly," a resolution that historian Svitich qualifies as "the unauthorized introduction of autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland" (op. cit., p. 35). It is then difficult to believe that Archimandrite Smaragd's crime was committed by him in the capacity of "a firm opponent of autocephalous tendencies and a champion of the unity of the Church" (Ibid., pp. 25, 38).

Indeed, in Svitich himself we find, though in a rather confused chronological account, the story of Exarch Yuriy's suspension of Archimandrite Smaragd from sacred ministry, and consequently the consecration of the latter as Vicar Bishop of Slutsk (Minsk diocese), entrusted by Moscow Patriarch Tikhon to Archbishop of Vilna Elevferiy, could supposedly not take place. Thus, this account does not give grounds for a conclusion even about the personal motives that drove the murder of Metropolitan Yuriy by Archimandrite Smaragd.

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In Svitich's account, the murder was committed by a "nervously ill" archimandrite who had "finally lost his mental equilibrium" after several heated conversations in which he reproached the Metropolitan for "non-canonicity and treason" (?). This state led him, however, to a deliberate plan of action: "He acquired a revolver and, as it later came to light, secretly practiced shooting with it in the forest." "Having appeared at 5 o'clock in the evening on February 8, 1923, for a meeting with the Metropolitan, he conversed with him for two hours, but when Metropolitan Yuriy expressed doubt about the afterlife and urged the archimandrite 'to come over to his camp' (of unbelievers?), Smaragd drew the revolver and with several shots killed the Metropolitan with the words: 'This is for you, executioner of Orthodoxy!'..." (pp. 39–40).

To this account, Svitich adds that it was reported that Archimandrite Smaragd stated at the preliminary investigation that he had also intended to kill Archbishop Dionisiy, but the latter was at that time in the lower rooms of the metropolitan's residence, which Archimandrite Smaragd deeply regretted (p. 40). It is not clear what exactly caused the archimandrite's regret — his intention to kill, or the fact that he had not succeeded in killing the archbishop as well. But with this addition about the intention, it is underscored that Archimandrite Smaragd appeared as an avenger precisely for the resolution of the "executioners of Orthodoxy" to embark on the path of autocephaly, of making the Orthodox Church in Poland independent from Moscow.

It is well known that ecclesiastical "autocephaly" is not any dogma of the Church but only a form of the external structure of the Orthodox Church as a human community in its earthly, temporal life. Therefore, the dogmatization of the concept of "autocephaly," the understanding of it as one of the essential truths of Orthodoxy necessary for salvation, is a non-Orthodox understanding. And the polemical fervor around "autocephaly," the fierce struggle for it and against it to the point of fanaticism, is explained not by its essence for salvation, but precisely by its "temporal character," its worldly aims, its connection with political and national motives (the prestige of a people, of a state, the desire to free oneself from an alien hierarchy and clergy, from denationalization through the Church; on the other hand — the use of the Church for purposes of assimilation, imperialism...).

Thus, the fanatical act of Archimandrite Smaragd and the glorification of that act, if one accepts that it was not driven by purely personal motives, must be understood not as vengeance for "desecrated truth of Orthodoxy" but as an act of politicking in the Church by so-called "true Russians" in the name of a united and indivisible Russia, in the service of which a single All-Russian Church was also to remain. It is not without reason that Archimandrite Smaragd had also participated in the "missionary-patriotic" campaign of converting to Orthodoxy the Ukrainian Greek Catholics during the First World War in the newly occupied areas of

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Galicia (1914–15), a campaign that was headed by Archbishop of Volyn Evlohiy (The Path of My Life, op. cit., pp. 264–265). Metropolitan Evlohiy gives the surname of Archimandrite Smaragd as "Liatoshenko," not "Liatoshenkov," as in A. Svitich's book.

After the tragic shooting of the Metropolitan, the church authorities stripped Archimandrite Smaragd of all spiritual dignities, and he, as an ordinary layman prior to ordination and tonsure, Pavlo Liatoshenko, was sentenced by the Warsaw District Court to 12 years of imprisonment; he served this sentence in Warsaw, in the Mokotów prison; upon release from prison, he moved to Czechoslovakia.

On the second anniversary of Metropolitan Yuriy's death, the Ukrainian press portrayed the tragic death of the Metropolitan as follows: "The Orthodox Church in Poland, from the very first days of its separate existence from Moscow, found itself in an extraordinarily difficult position. There are two main reasons for this phenomenon. First, our Church, as a component part of the pre-war Russian Church, was all the time under the 'care' of the Tsarist authorities and was not prepared for independent existence... This phenomenon introduced a certain disorganization into the life of the Church, which was only beginning to adapt to new conditions of life, and even pushed individual persons toward disobedience to the supreme church authority. Certain Russian emigrants residing in Western states contributed to this disorganization, who, by old habit, interfered in church affairs in Poland as if this were Russia; on them falls part of the blame for the terrible crime that took place here two years ago.

The second reason was that a certain part of the clergy continued to live a life separate from the people, not understanding and not recognizing their national and spiritual needs, their aspirations, their demands — in a word, continuing the line of the old official Russifiers; the slightest intention from any quarter to cut this criminal line, or to turn it aside, was regarded by these old and faithful servants of our people's denationalization as treason against Russia, 'the unity of the Russian people,' Orthodoxy, and so on.

Thus the lot of the one who first ascended to the new metropolitan cathedra was a great and heavy task: 1. To carry out the internal organization of the Church, halting and eliminating disorder, disobedience, and self-rule; 2. To bring the clergy closer to the people by establishing closer relations with representatives of the believing masses — the Ukrainian and Belarusian intelligentsia. The late blessed Metropolitan Yuriy invested much labor and effort in the fulfillment of these two principal tasks, and in the end gave his life for them. He understood the significance of the national element in the life of the Orthodox Church, and in the metropolitan's chambers, peaceful, brotherly discussions of the Church's needs with representatives of our Ukrainian intelligentsia took place more than once. And it is precisely this that created, among other things, senseless enemies for the deceased among those who had become accustomed to viewing Ukrainians as material for denationalization, who had become accustomed not to serving the believing people but to killing them spiritually, that is, nationally. This attitude of Metropolitan Yuriy toward the national needs of the faithful

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— among other things — also guided the hand of the murderer, a 'unitarist-indivisibilist' and faithful devotee of the idea of 'Russification' of our popular masses" (Dukhovna Besida, no. 3, 1925, "In Blessed Memory of Metropolitan Yuriy").

To the mention in the cited article from Dukhovna Besida about discussions in the metropolitan's chambers of the Church's needs with representatives of our Ukrainian intelligentsia, we can add from ourselves that from the deputy to the Polish Sejm, Pavlo Vasylchuk, and from Archbishop Oleksiy (Hromadsky), I heard about Metropolitan Yuriy's generous donations to Ukrainians for the electoral campaign in the elections to the Polish Sejm and Senate in November 1922, when, from list no. 16 from Volyn, the Kholm region with Pidliashshia, and Polissia, 22 Ukrainian deputies and 6 Ukrainian senators were elected. (Among the senators was Archpriest Damiian Hershtansky, a former member of the Volodymyr Spiritual Administration.)

The Holy Synod itself, recognizing the significance of the national element in church life, two months before Metropolitan Yuriy's death extended its earlier resolution. At its session of December 14, 1922, the Synod broadened its June 16, 1922 resolution on Ukrainian pronunciation of liturgical texts and on the vernacular in the reading of Holy Scripture at divine services and in preaching, to the same use in churches of the Belarusian, Polish, and Czech languages in parishes with a majority Orthodox population of one or another nationality and depending on the desire of the parishioners themselves.

Following these resolutions of June 16 and December 14, 1922, adopted during Metropolitan Yuriy's lifetime, and developing them further, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland adopted the resolution of September 3, 1924, on the use of the native language of the peoples in their church-religious life, which resolution remained in force until the end of post-Versailles Poland, as well as during the German occupation in the Second World War.

At this session of the Synod on September 3, 1924, there was heard "the proposal of Metropolitan Dionisiy to discuss the question of such an arrangement in the present time of the divine services and church preaching that both the divine services and the sermons would influence the souls of the faithful as powerfully as possible, with the aim of nurturing in the bosom of our Holy Orthodox Church her faithful sons, devoted to ancestral traditions and strong in spirit, firm defenders of the traditions and folk customs in the religious-national life of the Orthodox population in Poland, incapable of easily succumbing to sectarian and non-ecclesiastical propaganda."

To this proposal of Metropolitan Dionisiy was added a number of important references, among them the observation that "in the absence in the vast majority of state schools of instruction for children in the native mother tongue, the Orthodox Church with her divine services, rites, and preaching of the Word of God is the only place where a healthy church-national, life-giving element for the state and its citizens can be born, grow, and be strengthened."

And then the Synod resolved:

"In supplement to the resolutions of the Holy Synod of June 16 and December 14, 1922, and in development of them: 1) to permit the use of the Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, and Czech languages in those liturgical

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rites whose texts have been approved by the supreme church authority, and in those parishes where the parishioners desire this and where this is possible given local conditions; 2) to bless the clergy of the Metropolia to strengthen the delivery of church sermons in the language of the local Orthodox population; 3) to permit the clergy to organize extra-liturgical talks in churches and to conduct them also in the native language of the local population; 4) in schools where there are Orthodox religion teachers, to recommend that they also teach the Law of God in the mother tongue native to the children; 5) in theological schools, to strengthen the practice of reading and studying the Word of God and prayers, as well as composing and delivering sermons in the students' native language; 6) to communicate this resolution to the Ministry of Religious Denominations for information and for the purpose of appropriate directives. Orders concerning this are to be sent to His Eminence Metropolitan Dionisiy and to all Diocesan Bishops."

This session of the Synod took place under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Dionisiy, with the participation of Archbishop of Vilna Feodosiy, Bishop of Polissia Oleksander, and Bishop of Hrodna Oleksiy.

Comparing the cited resolution, in the part of it that pertains to the Ukrainization of divine worship, with previous resolutions on this subject, beginning with the resolution of the Pochayiv Congress in October 1921, one should note that after three years, the desideratum of Ukrainian pronunciation of Church Slavonic texts (as is the practice in Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches) was already abandoned — the Synod's resolution now speaks of the living vernacular in the divine services (Dukhovna Besida, no. 7, 1924, pp. 97–98).

At the end of April 1925, there was established under the Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland a "Commission for the Translation of the Holy Scriptures and Liturgical Books into the Ukrainian Language." At the sessions of the Commission on April 27–29, 1925, the Statute of the Commission was adopted. In his introductory remarks, Metropolitan Dionisiy said: "The time has come when the matter of translating the Holy Scriptures and liturgical books into the Ukrainian language must be placed on a firmer foundation. In approving and blessing this or that translation, the Supreme Church Authority must have firmer grounds for doing so. Until now, the matter of translation has been a matter of private initiative. I have already blessed several such translations, but what was possible at first is impossible with the further development of church life."

The Commission included: Metropolitan Dionisiy — Chairman of the Commission; Prof. I. I. Ohienko — Vice-Chairman; Archpriest P. Tabinsky — academic secretary; Senator M. K. Cherkavsky — member of the Commission; Prof. P. I. Zaitsev — secretary of the Commission's office; as contributing members of the Commission were elected: Prof. O. H. Lototsky (Prague), Prof. V. O. Bidnov (Prague), and Ukrainian writer M. P. Levytsky (Poděbrady).

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4. How autocephaly was obtained by the Orthodox Church in Poland. The "Tomos" of Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory VII; its proclamation in Warsaw on September 17, 1925; its significance for the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement. The attitude of Ukrainians toward the act of autocephaly, carried out without the conciliar voice of the Church. The Assembly of representatives of clergy and laity in Warsaw, January 10–12, 1927. The struggle for the de-Russification of the Orthodox Church in Poland on the basis of the act of autocephalous existence. The "Memorandum" to Ecumenical Patriarch Basil III by the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Rada (VPCR; Ukr. Всеукраїнська Православна Церковна Рада), February 13, 1926, on the matter of autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland.

During the lifetime and administration of the Orthodox Church in restored Poland by Metropolitan Yuriy, the hierarchy of that Church set out on the path of autocephaly in the governance of the Church, which corresponded to the express intentions of the Polish government that the governance of the Orthodox Church within the borders of the Commonwealth should not depend on any extra-territorial ecclesiastical authority. But these were first steps, also prompted by the circumstances of the power vacuum that had arisen in the Moscow Patriarchate with the imprisonment of Patriarch Tikhon and the seizure of power in the Patriarchate, with the consent of the Bolsheviks, by the "Renovationists" (zhivotserkovtsy). Further acts for the formalization, recognition, and proclamation of autocephaly followed after Metropolitan Yuriy's death.

Having elected on February 27, 1923, Archbishop of Volyn Dionisiy to the metropolitan cathedra, the Sobor of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in Poland, for the blessing of Archbishop Dionisiy's accession to the metropolitan cathedra in Warsaw, resolved to address not Moscow (Patriarch Tikhon was under arrest) but the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. The Polish government was notified of this and was to support this step of the Orthodox hierarchy in Constantinople. This appeal of the Sobor of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in Poland to the Ecumenical Patriarch was, in essence, a change of canonical jurisdiction.

In the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, something similar had already taken place in the old Polish Commonwealth at the end of the 18th century, in the era of the Four-Year Sejm. At that time, the Polish government undertook the organization of the Orthodox Church in Poland so that it would be independent in its governance from the Russian Synod, and the first thing deemed useful was that the Orthodox in Poland should be returned "to their original see," that is, to Constantinople. (For a detailed account, see this work, Vol. III, pp. 215–217.) In the present circumstances in the restored Poland, we see the same turning to Constantinople as the Mother Church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (the Kyiv Metropolia from the 10th century). And as in the analogous event of the late 18th century, so too now Constantinople did not refuse spiritual oversight, did not say: turn for a blessing to Moscow, for you are subject to her.

The Ecumenical Patriarch, who was then Meletios IV (Metaxas), on the basis of a resolution of the Patriarchal Synod as well, gave his blessing to the newly elected Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church in Poland and thereby strengthened his authority. Later, when Patriarch Meletios,

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expelled from Constantinople by the Turks, was elected to the cathedra of the Patriarch of Alexandria, and Metropolitan Dionisiy visited him in Alexandria (during his journey to the Orthodox East in 1927), the latter described in his address to the Patriarch the significance of the act of blessing his election in 1923: "When the Orthodox Church in Poland was in a grave state, deprived of its Primate, who had laid down his life for the good of the Church of God, You, in the rank of Ecumenical Patriarch, paternally understood the grave situation of that Church and deigned to avert what could have been a catastrophe in its life by taking this Church under Your paternal care. You recognized as necessary for the good of Christ's cause to confirm me in the position of Metropolitan of all Poland, and thereby laid the foundation for the proper course of Orthodox church life in Poland, which recently concluded with the autocephaly of that Church" (Bishop Aleksiy. The Visit of His Beatitude Metropolitan Dionisiy to the Holy Orthodox Autocephalous Eastern Churches. Warsaw, 1928, p. 48).

The historical act that formed the foundation of the autocephalous existence of the Orthodox Church in restored Poland was the "Patriarchal and Synodal-Canonical Tomos of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, dated November 13, 1924, on the Recognition of the Orthodox Church in Poland as Autocephalous." This recognition (and not a "granting," as some historians, poorly versed in the canons, write) of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland took place under Patriarch Gregory VII, who occupied the cathedra of the Ecumenical Patriarch after Meletios IV.

Ecumenical Patriarch Constantine VI, elected to the cathedra after the death of Patriarch Gregory VII, communicated to the Orthodox Autocephalous Church the act of Constantinople's recognition of autocephaly in Poland, and in that communication wrote: "All autocephalous sister churches feel sincere joy in the recognition of the need and necessity of the autocephalous structure, which lies in the interest of the Orthodox population of Poland"...

On September 16–19, 1925, celebrations took place in Warsaw on the occasion of the presentation to Metropolitan Dionisiy of the Patriarchal Tomos of November 13, 1924, and the proclamation of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland. The Ecumenical Patriarch at this time was Basil III, after Constantine VI, who had been expelled from Constantinople by the Turks in January 1925, and the patriarchal cathedra had been vacant for a long time.

Basil III sent to Warsaw a delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which brought the "Tomos," and this delegation was joined in Bucharest by a delegation from the Romanian Patriarch.

The actual day of the proclamation of autocephaly, the independence of the Orthodox Church in Poland, was September 17, 1925, when in the metropolitan cathedral of St. Mary Magdalene in Warsaw, before the Divine Liturgy, with the participation of the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church in Poland, the hierarchs of the arriving delegations, the clergy and the faithful, and in the presence of representatives of the Polish government, a solemn ceremony took place, during which, after the welcoming address of the head of the patriarchal delegation, Metropolitan Joachim of Chalcedon, the "Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos of November 13, 1924" was read in the original, that is, in the Greek language, by Metropolitan Herman of Sardis; in the Polish language by Bishop of Hrodna Oleksiy; in the Russian language by Archbishop of Vilna Feodosiy; and in the Ukrainian language by Priest Petro Tabinsky.

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We have already had occasion to write about the significance of the Patriarchal Tomos of November 13, 1924, for the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at the end of the 17th century, when the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Metropolia) was subordinated to the Moscow Patriarchate (Vol. II of this work, p. 342). We established there that in the said "Tomos," after 238 years, an authoritative recognition was given by the Ecumenical Patriarchate itself of the non-canonical nature of the procedure in the annexation of the Kyiv Metropolia to the Moscow Patriarchate in 1685–86. This is in the words of the "Tomos": "The original separation from Our See of the Kyiv Metropolia and the Orthodox metropolias (dioceses) of Poland and Lithuania dependent upon it, and their annexation to the Moscow Church, took place not according to the prescriptions of canonical rules, nor was all that had been established regarding the full ecclesiastical autonomy of the Kyiv Metropolitan, who bore the title of Exarch of the Ecumenical See, observed"...

Here we must underscore that the cited just assertions of the "Tomos," by which the Ecumenical Patriarchate evidently wishes to justify its present procedure in the matter of recognizing the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland, also have valuable significance for the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in that Church in our times.

Indeed, historians or publicists with the ideology of the RNO (Russkoe Narodnoe Ob'edinenie — "Russian National Union" in Poland, the successor to the "Union of the Russian People"), such as S. Ranevsky, K. Fotiev, and A. Svitich, present the matter of the autocephaly of the Orthodox in Poland as a grievous anti-canonical act of willful apostasy from their "Mother Church of Russia." Svitich is particularly indignant about this act. "Easily and without appeal," he writes, "the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland severed the canonical bond with its Mother Church of Russia and recognized the Mother Church to be the Church of Constantinople. After all, obtaining the blessing of the Mother Church, in this case the Russian Church, was one of the most essential conditions for obtaining autocephaly"... (op. cit., p. 50).

And further, he even went so far as to say that "the Orthodox Church in Poland, artificially torn from the Russian Church and thereby also from the Universal Church as such, became the object of all sorts of experiments not only by the state authority but even by individual national minority groupings" (emphasis ours; p. 67. With 1% Orthodox Russians in Poland. — I. W.).

One would think that a Master of Theology (the author's title on the book's cover), Aleksandr Svitich, should know that the Kyiv Metropolia, to which in ancient times all those parts belonged that now entered the composition of the Orthodox Church in Poland, never had the Russian or Moscow Church as its mother, but only the Church of Constantinople, in whose canonical jurisdiction it had remained for 700 years (988–1686). He should have known what a struggle took place in the second half of the 17th century against the subordination of the Kyiv Metropolia (the Ukrainian-Belarusian Church) to the Moscow Patriarchate (in our work on this — Vol. II, pp. 299–342), that "Mother Church" which was born, it turns out according to the writings of RNO historians, after its "daughter" — the Kyiv Metropolia.

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Knowing the history of this struggle, Moscow's gross violation of the canons (after all, Moscow appointed a metropolitan to the Kyiv cathedra even before Constantinople's cession of the Kyiv Metropolia to it!) and Moscow's political machinations on ecclesiastical grounds generally, Svitich, if he truly writes "deeply honestly, in a documented, calm, businesslike, and objective manner" (so his book is praised in the preface by the Most Worthy Prof. N. Arseniev), would not have written such things as: "Thus, entirely unexpectedly, trampling all canonical rules, with a complete disregard for historical truth, the Orthodox Church in Poland was joining the ranks of autocephalous churches and falling into ecclesiastical dependence on Constantinople" (p. 49). One can write such things either dishonestly or truly without knowing the historical truth.

A historical truth in the "Tomos" of Patriarch Gregory VII is also that the Moscow Church "did not observe that which was stipulated regarding the full autonomy of the Kyiv Metropolitan," for already within a quarter century of the annexation to Moscow, the Kyiv Metropolitan was stripped of the rights of a regional metropolitan of an autonomous ecclesiastical region, and his metropolia became an ordinary diocese in the ranks of other dioceses of the Moscow Church (Vol. III of this work, pp. 8–37).

And when Svitich, citing as a source S. Ranevsky, and the latter citing a "script" from the lectures of Prof. Vilyanovsky, apparently with satisfaction underscores that the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland cost the Polish government three million dollars, supposedly paid in Constantinople (p. 53), would it not be appropriate for him to recall how much the Moscow government paid in 1686 for stripping the Ukrainian Church of its actual autocephaly and for Constantinople's cession of it (the Kyiv Metropolia) to Moscow?

Thus, all these "jeremiads" about the "violation of sacred canons" of the Orthodox Church in the recognition of the independence and autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland can lead astray only credulous people who, being experts in neither canons nor church history, take on faith those who present themselves as such experts.

For example, the canons of the Orthodox Church contain no stipulation making the emergence of a new Autocephalous Church contingent on the consent to this autocephaly by the supreme authority of the Mother Church, and the Moscow Church itself, which until 1448 was under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, in that year of 1448 appointed for itself, without any agreement with Constantinople, Metropolitan Iona, thereby beginning an autocephalous existence (unilaterally!), which continued as a de facto autocephaly, not de jure, for 140 years. In

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the canons of the Universal Orthodox Church, there are generally no directives about the methods of establishing autocephaly for new churches; these canons do not even know the very term "autocephaly." In the canons of the Orthodox Church, we find only the grounds on which Regional (Local) Churches can be independent in their governance. These grounds are: the national one (Canon 34 of the Holy Apostles) and the state-territorial one (Canon 17 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, Canon 38 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, and Canon 9 of the Council of Antioch). In church-historical practice after the era of the Ecumenical Councils, the emergence of new autocephalous churches was most often based on the combination of both these grounds (independent, autocephalous churches in national states).

The "Tomos" of Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory VII, in recognizing the Orthodox Church in Poland as autocephalous, stood on the "state-territorial" principle, as did the hierarchy of that Church, when, in the words of the "Tomos," they "turned to the Patriarchal Ecumenical See for the blessing and confirmation of the autocephalous constitution of the Church, considering that under the new political conditions, only this constitution could adequately satisfy and secure the needs of that Church."

Thus, the initiative and implementation of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland was the work of the Polish government and the hierarchy of that Church. The participation of the clergy and laity of the Orthodox Church did not have its proper place in this historical event. Such participation of the clergy and laity in the matter of the Church's autocephaly could obviously have taken the form of elected representation from them at a Local Sobor of the Church, which would have had to decide the very question of whether the Church in Poland was to be autocephalous or to remain under Moscow's ecclesiastical authority.

There can be no two opinions that the will of a Church itself to be independent, and if dependent, then on whom, is expressed through the resolution of a sobor of that Church; but there are no canons of the Universal Orthodox Church that prescribe that the question of the autocephalous existence of a Regional Church be decided only by a full sobor of that Church. Historical practice shows various ways of obtaining autocephaly by Churches; most often, perhaps, this was accomplished through the actions of state authority. The obtaining of autocephaly by the Moscow Church in 1448 was carried out by Grand Prince Vasily Vasilyevich together with the bishops, without any Local Sobor whatsoever. In our times, the Directorate of the Ukrainian People's Republic issued the law of January 1, 1919, on the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church also without a sobor of the Church.

We have no grounds to say, as Svitich does, that "the Orthodox population of Poland received with indignation the news of the aspirations of the bishops, who had sold themselves to the Polish government, to introduce the actual autocephaly of the Church," and that "the Orthodox faithful people considered autocephaly the greatest misfortune for the Church" (pp. 27, 66). One can speak not about "the population" and "the people," not about "the masses," who were surely indifferent to the matter of autocephaly and did not understand it, but about certain ecclesiastically active segments of the Orthodox

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citizenry, among whom, however, there were great divergences regarding the reasons for their negative attitude toward the proclamation of autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland. For the "true Russian" church activists, who had already in the summer of 1922 held diocesan assemblies protesting autocephaly in the small dioceses of Vilna and Hrodna, the most important thing was that autocephaly severed the bond with the "brotherly Russian Church, with which the Orthodox people of Poland were linked by inseverable historical ties in the common church life."

This motive of the "true Russians" in their negative attitude toward autocephaly absolutely did not exist for Ukrainians. On the contrary. "We shall take upon ourselves the boldness to assert," wrote Dukhovna Besida, "that there are no principled and unconditional opponents of the independence and self-governance of our Church among Ukrainians. We would say that, on the contrary, all conscious Ukrainians are autocephalists, in the sense of the Church's independence from whatever external ecclesiastical authority... The cessation of the unlawful dependence of our Church on Moscow can only bring joy, for the latter was for us an instrument of Russification, significantly blunted the national consciousness of our people, and tore away from us a great number of intellectual forces, who even now, living off the bread of our Orthodox Ukrainian, separate themselves from him and consider themselves people of another nationality. Thus we, Ukrainians, can only rejoice that the dependence harmful to us of our Church has been terminated" (Dukhovna Besida, no. 19–20, 1925, pp. 2, 4).

Therefore, in the larger dioceses — Volyn, Polissia, and also in the Kholm region and Pidliashshia, that is, in the Ukrainian lands with an Orthodox population — there were no diocesan assemblies protesting against the independence from Moscow of ecclesiastical authority and the aspiration toward autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland.

The restrained, and at times negative, attitude among Ukrainian church and political activists was caused not by the question of the autocephalous existence of the Church itself but by the methods through which the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland was being implemented.

First of all, there played a role here the oppositional mood toward the Polish authorities that prevailed in those years among Ukrainian society; it was so vividly manifested during the elections of autumn 1922 to the Polish Sejm and Senate, when from Volyn not a single Pole was elected to these legislative bodies, but only Ukrainians — 14 deputies and 5 senators, who together with the Ukrainian deputies from the Kholm region (6) and Polissia (2) and the senator from the Kholm region formed the Ukrainian Parliamentary Club of 28 members, which was in opposition to the Government. From the members of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation, all of whom were Orthodox, there appeared in the press statements protesting the Government's church policy, which did not legally normalize the legal position of the Orthodox Church in Poland and did not permit the convening of a Church Sobor of the Orthodox Church.

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Thus the protests regarding the implementation of the Church's autocephaly amounted, from the Ukrainians, to the demand that autocephaly be implemented through a Regional Sobor of the Church itself, and not bypassing the Church Sobor. As is well known, the idea of conciliarity (sobornist) in the life and governance of the Church was a living and active principle in the history of the ancient Ukrainian Orthodox Church. With the subordination in 1686 of the Kyiv Metropolia to the Moscow Patriarchate and the subsequent introduction by Peter I of the synodal system in the Russian Church, with an Ober-Procurator, and later the Tsar himself, at its head, the idea of conciliarity in the Russian Church died completely, and there were no sobors up to the Revolution of 1917.

But even during that period, on the Ukrainian lands that were still under Poland in the 18th century but ecclesiastically subject to the Russian Synod, the idea of conciliarity was revived at the end of the 18th century. We mean the Pinsk General Congregation of 1791, or as we would say, the Pinsk Church Sobor of Orthodox Ukrainians and Belarusians, at which the actual autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in the Poland of that day was carried out before the final (third) partition of that state in 1795 (for a detailed account, see Vol. III of this work, pp. 217–225). Now, these ideas of conciliarity in the ancient Ukrainian Church were awakened all the more because Church Sobors had already taken place in Greater Ukraine in 1918 and 1921.

It is difficult to say with certainty why exactly the Polish government decided to revive the Ukrainian conciliar traditions only, as we shall see below, in 1930, and did not immediately in restored Poland stand on the ground of the church policy toward the Orthodox that existed in the era of the Four-Year Sejm at the end of the 18th century, the era of efforts to save Poland's state sovereignty from destruction.

The Supreme Church Authority of the Orthodox Church in Poland, however much it is reproached for subservience to the Polish Government, did not have either the ideology of episcopal autocracy in the Church or anti-conciliar tendencies in the governance of the Church in Poland, knowing from history that in Catholic Poland, even in the 20th century, one could not be certain of religious tolerance, and Orthodoxy could draw strength only from reliance on the unity of hierarchy, clergy, and faithful. Therefore, the Polish Government would not have encountered obstacles from its side to the convening of an Orthodox Sobor at the very beginning of the restored Polish state's existence.

It is known that already in 1922, when synodal governance of the Orthodox Church in Poland had been established, Metropolitan Yuriy raised the question of convening a Local Sobor of the Orthodox Church in Poland, and the Synod entrusted Archbishop of Volyn Dionisiy with drafting the statute of this Sobor and the rules for its convocation. In 1923, this "Statute" and "Rules" for the Local Sobor, drafted on the basis of the statutes of the All-Russian and All-Ukrainian Church Sobors of 1917–1918, were sent by the Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland to the Minister of Education and Religious Denominations. However, the matter lay dormant in the Ministry, and the Ministry gave no response to the Metropolitan on the raised question of convening a Local

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Sobor, continuing the matter of the Church's autocephaly further without the conciliar voice of the Church itself, using only its — in principle — executive body, the Synod (The First Assembly of Representatives of the Clergy and Laity of the Holy Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Poland, January 10–12, 1927, in Warsaw. Warsaw, 1927, p. 3).

It seems that the reason for such a deeply erroneous course by the Polish government was, on one hand, the rampant nationalism of Polish society in restored Poland, manifestations of which we see also in the tendency to direct the fate of the Church of its Orthodox citizens without their own voice. About this nationalism, Marshal Piłsudski spoke to the Ukrainian delegation in Lutsk, Volyn, in the autumn of 1922, calling upon the Ukrainians to endure the heightening of national emotions among Poles in these first years of the intoxication from regaining the independence of the Commonwealth. But perhaps the greatest weight in this disregard by the Government for the ancient conciliar foundations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was borne by the influence of the Catholic clergy and of Rome, who even during the Pinsk Sobor of 1791, when true Polish patriots were doing everything to save their state, opposed the action of reviving and making independent the Orthodox church life on the lands under Poland (on this opposition, see Vol. III of this work, p. 222).

Without giving consent to the convening of a sobor of the Orthodox Church, the Polish government, already after the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland had been solemnly proclaimed on September 17, 1925, agreed to the convening of representatives from the dioceses for an assembly in Warsaw to acquaint them with the measures taken by the Supreme Church Authority in the matter of the position of the Orthodox Church in Poland. This Assembly took place on January 10–12, 1927, in Warsaw. Participating in it, under the leadership of Metropolitan Dionisiy and Bishop of Hrodna Oleksiy, were 32 clergy and 21 laymen. These were not elected representatives of the clergy and laity of the five dioceses (Warsaw-Kholm, Volyn, Vilna, Hrodna, and Polissia), but persons invited by the Metropolitan — from the clergy mostly rectors of urban cathedrals, from the laity mostly church wardens of those same cathedrals.

Among the clergy at the Assembly were prominent figures of the Ukrainian church movement: Archimandrite Polikarp, then rector of the Volodymyr cathedral in Volyn (later Metropolitan of the UAOC in emigration), Protopresbyter Pavlo Pashchevsky, rector of the Lutsk Holy Cross Brotherhood church, and Priest Petro Tabinsky, then rector of the Kremenets Theological Seminary. In general, however, the composition of the Assembly's participants, both clergy and lay urban church wardens, was distinctly "true Russian" (istinno-russkost) in character in the great majority.

Therefore, it is very interesting for the historian how such an Assembly reacted to Metropolitan Dionisiy's detailed report on "The Origin of the Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland," after which he announced the "Patriarchal and Synodal

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Tomos" of November 13, 1924, in Russian translation and displayed it in the Greek original.

There was not a single protest, nor even any kind of regret, regarding the "non-canonical act of autocephaly" of the Orthodox Church in Poland at this Assembly of representatives of clergy and laity on January 10–12, 1927. On the contrary. The assembled enthusiastically sang "Eternal Memory" (Vichnaia Pamiat) to Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory VII, during whose time the "Tomos" on autocephaly was issued, and then with inspiration the "Many Years" (Mnoholitstvia) to the then Most Holy Ecumenical Patriarch Basil III, who had sent a delegation to Warsaw in September 1925 for the celebration of the proclamation of the Church's autocephaly.

And in addition to all this, a member of the Assembly, Protopresbyter Terentiy Teodorovych, proposed that the Assembly sing "Many Years" to "the First Head of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland, Bishop Metropolitan Dionisiy," "through whose tireless labor the independent autocephalous existence" of this Church was created. The hearty and inspired hierarchical "Many Years" (Mnohaia Lita) of those present was the response to this proposal of Fr. Teodorovych (The First Assembly... Op. cit., p. 9).

Svitich, who himself in his work presents Protopresbyter Terentiy Teodorovych as a fighter against autocephaly (p. 61), having also led into error Prof. N. Arseniev (Preface, II), completely ignored this Assembly of January 10–12, 1927, and Fr. Teodorovych's speech at it. For such historical facts completely demolish his thesis about the "internal rupture of the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church in Poland with the clergy and believing people" through the "non-canonical act of autocephaly by which that Church was torn from the 'age-old union with the Russian Church.'"

One cannot but recognize as correct, from the Ukrainian national standpoint, the approach to the accomplished fact of the proclamation of autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland on September 17, 1925, which was then expressed in the pages of the Ukrainian Dukhovna Besida: "The analyzing and pondering of by what paths, under what conditions, through whose efforts, and with what possible ulterior aims autocephaly came to us — that is already a matter for history... It seems to us that to take this question as a question of the present day would be to make a great mistake... A historical event has occurred, with our participation or without it — that is another matter — but it has placed before us a new life, and we must live it and must work to master this life. We should not disregard autocephaly but use it to the fullest extent for the good of our people and Church. This is the only realistic path before us, begun by the event of September 17" (no. 19–20, October 20, 1925, pp. 4, 6).

As we stated above, the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland arose on the "state-territorial" principle: the existence of the Orthodox Church in a separate state. Even in such Autocephalous Churches, however, Orthodox church life takes on a national coloring and acquires a national character when it proceeds freely and

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is not coerced by authority, whether by an alien-national church authority or a secular state one. In the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland, with its approximately 70% Ukrainian flock, approximately 29% Belarusian, and the remainder Russian, Czech, and Polish, it is obvious that nationally this Church can only be Ukrainian-Belarusian, as it was in the old Poland — which, of course, did not mean that the entirely insignificant 2–3% minority of Orthodox Russians, Czechs, and Poles needed to be denationalized through the Church, since freedom of using their own language in the divine services was also provided for them in the cited Synodal resolution of September 3, 1924.

Thus, for Ukrainian church activists, the obtaining by the Orthodox Church in Poland of autocephaly pro foro externo (external) provided the opportunity and dictated the obligation to intensify the work toward obtaining and developing autocephaly pro foro interno (internal) in the church life of Orthodox Ukrainians in Poland. This meant — having freed themselves from the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate — to wage the struggle for the de-Russification of their Church and its development as a national Church, close to the pious soul of the Ukrainian people, as this Orthodox Church had been for centuries for Ukrainians in ages past, particularly during the period under old Poland. And such a struggle was indeed waged by Ukrainians.

In the light of such an understanding of the significance of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland for the national-ecclesiastical movement within it, we cannot regard as anything other than "a profound misunderstanding" the "Memorandum" on the matter of that autocephaly, sent by the VPCR in Kyiv (dated February 13, 1926) to Ecumenical Patriarch Basil III. In it, the VPCR expresses "to the Patriarch and the Constantinople Patriarchal Organization a resolute protest against the anti-canonical, anti-ecclesiastical, hostile, and very harmful to the Orthodox Ukrainian people actions" manifested "in the confirmation by the Constantinople Patriarchal See of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland."

We pass over such historical faux pas in the "Memorandum" as: "The Orthodox Church in Poland was never subject to the Constantinople Patriarch," or: "Patriarch Jeremiah in the 16th century bestowed gifts on the Ukrainian Orthodox Brotherhoods, granting them all rights to govern their Church"... We pass over such canonical faux pas as: "The canonical right to proclaim the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland should have belonged only to the Moscow Patriarch" (they themselves in Kyiv proclaimed the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church in 1920 and 1921 without asking the Moscow Patriarch — I. W.), or: "You (Constantinople) transferred the rights of autocephaly over the Ukrainian and Belarusian people not to the Church, but to the Muscovite Metropolitan Dionisiy and to a few bishops in Poland who share his views," as well as "to the Polish Catholic government" and "the unlimited rights of autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland — to the Roman Pope"...

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The main point is not in these lamentations but in this: what way forward for the Orthodox Church in Poland, in the formalization of its canonical position in the Universal Orthodox Church, does the VPCR indicate? Having proclaimed "before all the churches of the world the Tomos of Patriarch Gregory VII on the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland to be null and void," the VPCR did not recognize that autocephaly and points out to the Patriarch that the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church has already been proclaimed in the city of Kyiv "not by patriarchs and princes" but by the Ukrainian people themselves at the Sobor of 1921, and "under the banner of this autocephaly alone will the Ukrainian people unite, wherever harsh fate may carry them"...

From this it followed that the Orthodox Ukrainians in Poland would also have had to belong to the UAOC in Kyiv, and not to the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland.

It is unknown whether there was any response from the Constantinople Patriarchate to this "Memorandum" of the VPCR, which was also published in Ukrainian periodicals abroad (America). But its content testified that the authors of the "Memorandum," behind the iron curtain under communist authority, had not the slightest sense of the actual reality of the matter about which they were sending a "Memorandum." The Ukrainian church movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland proceeded independently of any influences from Kyiv or contacts with Kyiv. The assertion about "lively correspondence of Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky with Ukrainian church circles in Poland" (S. Ranevsky, p. 8) is entirely fabricated.

5. Slow progress in the de-Russification of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland; reasons for the slowness. The Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation from the 1922 elections and the church question. The Ukrainian Church Congress in Lutsk, Volyn, June 5–6, 1927; its resolutions. The assembly of district archpriests of the Volyn diocese and RNO activists, June 16–17, 1927; its counter-resolutions to the Lutsk Congress.

The resolution of the Volyn Diocesan Congress in Pochayiv in October 1921 regarding the introduction of the living Ukrainian vernacular into the divine services in parishes with a Ukrainian population, the resolutions, in historical connection with that resolution, of the Synod of the Orthodox Church of June 16 and December 14, 1922, and September 3, 1924, on permitting the use of living languages in the divine services in place of the dead Church Slavonic — were, as we have seen, imbued with moderation: nowhere was there talk of an immediate replacement of Church Slavonic in the churches. In the matter of the transition to divine services in the living language, "gradualism" and slowness were recommended; the introduction of the living language was conditioned by the requirement that it occur "where the parishioners desire it and where this is possible given local conditions" (Synodal resolution of September 3, 1924).

Objective history can only confirm the correspondence of reality with these resolutions.

From the Volyn Congress of representatives of clergy and laity in Pochayiv in 1921 to the Lutsk Church Congress of 1927, about which

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we shall speak in this subsection, almost six years passed, and how many churches in Volyn during this time began celebrating the divine services in the Ukrainian language? We have no basis to give an exact number, but recalling from memory, we fear that we would not count even two dozen. In Lutsk itself, the celebration of the divine services in Ukrainian in the small Holy Cross Brotherhood church began only in May 1926. Of the other district towns of Volyn, the celebration of the divine services in Ukrainian was then only in Kovel (Annunciation church) and Volodymyr (alternation of Ukrainian and Slavonic services) in the cathedral, and later in the St. Nicholas church — Ukrainian services only.

And it is not without reason that in the Ukrainian press of those times we encounter the characterization of the Holy Synod's resolution "on the introduction of the divine services in the Ukrainian language in those parishes where the parishioners demand it" as a paper resolution. And here is a characteristic appeal of the time in the press: "We remind you! The Paschal holidays are approaching, preceded by Holy Thursday, Great Friday, and Great Saturday. On these great days for every Orthodox Christian, solemn and soul-touching divine services are celebrated in the churches. It is essential that these divine services, if not entirely, then at least in part, be celebrated in the Ukrainian language — for example: all the Passion Gospels and the Epitaphios (Plashchanytsia) readings should be read in Ukrainian, the Paschal service should be sung entirely in Ukrainian. The appropriate liturgical books exist in the Ukrainian language, and the blessing for the use of our Ukrainian language in church services has been given both by Metropolitan Dionisiy and by the Holy Synod"... (Hromada, no. 16, 1926, Lutsk).

Thus, in the light of reality, the following writings of the RNO members are a caricature, not a "documented and stirring" history: "The Synodal resolutions (on the use of living languages in church services) were exploited by irresponsible elements who saw in the Church an instrument for political and national struggle (against whom?). The so-called 'de-Russification' of the Church began. A threatening danger hung over the Church. However, the clergy, in the overwhelming majority, and the faithful people, who were strangers to politics, condemned all innovations, condemned the Ukrainization of the divine services and demanded that services be celebrated in Church Slavonic" (A. Svitich, op. cit., p. 68). And S. Ranevsky, in such truly irresponsible writing, went so far as to attribute the "Ukrainization" of the Orthodox Church to the Poles: "To carry out the 'Ukrainization of the Orthodox,' the Poles decided to use the Orthodox Church, whose hierarchy was at the government's service from the moment of the proclamation of the independence of the Orthodox Church in Poland" (op. cit., p. 8).

What then were the reasons for such a truly very, very slow pace of de-Russification of the Orthodox Church in Poland, in which state there was absolutely no need for anyone to demand Church Slavonic in the divine services, but rather parishioners had to strive for Ukrainian services, often for years?

In the Ukrainian church-religious press of the time, we find the following answer to this question. In the article "For the Attention of the Reverend Fathers," the editor of Dukhovna Besida,

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V. Ostrovsky, having established that of the resolutions of the Holy Synod of September 3, 1924, on the use of the native language of the faithful in the divine services, sermons, extra-liturgical talks, in the teaching of the Law of God, and so on, the clergy had carried out "so little as if nothing at all," asks: what is this? Is it disobedience to the Supreme Church Authority? Is it disregard for the interests of the Church? Or perhaps hostility toward the just demands of life and of the Ukrainian flock?

And he answers: "From letters to the editors, from oral statements and all manner of local reports, we learn that all of the above — the first, the second, and the third — are taking place." And he further gives the following reasons for the clergy's ignoring of the Synodal resolution of September 3, 1924:

  1. Some denationalized priests' ignorance of the Ukrainian language and their unwillingness to take up a book.
  2. A failure to understand the great beauty and justice of the act of introducing the native language into church life, as well as the necessity of this act for the struggle against encroachments on the Orthodox Church from without.
  3. A groundless fear, instilled by who knows whom, that the use of the native language in church and school might cause unpleasantness from the civil administration.
  4. Open hostility from priests of non-Ukrainian origin and from denationalized Ukrainians who dream of "a united, indivisible Russia" and of the restoration of the old times with the obligatory "commonly understood Russian language."
  5. The hostility of a certain part of the Russian intelligentsia in the towns (the "RNO members"), who controlled church life.

"But the Ukrainian Orthodox flock," the author continues, "has awakened from the sleep of unconsciousness and presents its demands to the pastors resolutely and persistently: the Synodal resolution must be carried out without any delay... Whoever has forgotten the native language, let him quickly learn it if he does not wish to sever the spiritual bond with his flock; whoever does not wish or cannot do this, let him yield his place to those who are able to carry out the Synod's resolutions. As for fear of the administration, this fear is groundless... The matter of language is an internal matter of the Church, in which the administration has no right to interfere and does not interfere... Therefore, where parishioners demand that priests celebrate the divine services, preach, and generally communicate with the flock in the Ukrainian language, there the priests are obligated to fulfill this demand without any additional directives...

The time has come for our clergy to take the path indicated by the Supreme Church Authority and to abandon 'their own' policies in a Church threatened from all sides. If the clergy does not do this now, it will dig a deep chasm between itself and the flock and will further pave the way for various sects" (Dukhovna Besida, no. 2, 1925, p. 12).

The biweekly Dukhovna Besida, of which he was the editor-publisher,

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and before him Yevhen Sakovych, began publication on September 15, 1924, with the blessing of Metropolitan Dionisiy and was printed at the Synodal Printing House. Therefore, the views expressed in the article "For the Attention of the Reverend Fathers" could not have been at variance with the views of the supreme church leadership.

On the other hand, to the reasons given by V. P. Ostrovsky in explanation of why so very little of the Synod's resolution of September 3, 1924, was carried out by the clergy, we must add one more, about which it was not appropriate for V. Ostrovsky to write: the unfavorable attitude toward the Synod's language resolution of September 3, 1924 by the local church administration — the Spiritual Consistories and the majority of deans, who adhered to the orientation toward "one, indivisible" Russia.

But even among the local church administration and the clergy as a whole, as later events in the history of the Ukrainian church movement in Poland showed, there would not have been such obstacles to the de-Russification of the Orthodox Church in Poland if the Supreme Church Authority, the hierarchy, not yielding to RNO influences, had been consistent and firm in implementing its views that the Orthodox Church in Poland could not remain Muscovite in nationality when its flock consisted of Ukrainians (up to 70%) and Belarusians (up to 29%).

From the history of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Greater Ukraine, we have already seen what heavy damage that Church suffered from the fact that the church cause of the Ukrainian people during its tumultuous national revival with the revolution of 1917 was disregarded by its political representation and state government in 1917–18, which did not ensure the creation of a canonical national hierarchy for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

For the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland, there was no longer a Ukrainian government of its own; on the contrary, against it stood the nationalistic policy of Poland, in which the Catholic hierarchy and Catholic clergy, with their centuries-old hostility toward Orthodoxy in the Ukrainian lands under Poland, had such broad influence. In the old days, the defenders of the Orthodox faith and Church in these lands were the Ukrainian Cossacks, Ukrainian Orthodox magnates such as Prince K. K. Ostrozky, Orthodox Brotherhoods in the towns on definite charters, Orthodox gentry, and their representatives at the local assemblies (sejmiky) and in the Polish Sejm in Warsaw.

In the restored Poland, as a consequence of the First World War, this role fell solely upon the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation in the persons of its Orthodox members.

As already mentioned above, the Ukrainian population of Galicia did not participate in the elections to the Polish Sejm and Senate in the autumn of 1922, awaiting the decision on the political fate of Eastern Galicia at the Versailles peace conference. The Ukrainian population of Volyn, the Kholm region with Pidliashshia, and Polissia, however, went to the elections not so much in an organized fashion, one might say, as spontaneously, instinctively, voting for their own, for Ukrainians, against the Poles, who by that time had already managed, as they said,

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people, to "have a good feel of the terrain." Thus, from the 1922 elections there emerged a Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of 28 members, which, being national (all of them were elected as "Ukrainians"), was at the same time Orthodox, both by the personal confessional affiliation of its members and by virtue of their election from the Ukrainian Orthodox population.

Such a parliamentary group of 28 members could have played a significant role in the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in Poland; the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church in Poland, headed by Metropolitan Dionisiy, would also have had to reckon seriously with it, instead of yielding to the influences of the "RNO members," who were alien to the overwhelming majority of the faithful of the Orthodox Church.

However, this did not happen. The Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation from the 1922 elections, having failed to create a strong national-political organization with a definite national ideology and program on the Ukrainian lands that had elected it, also over five years of its existence played, one might say, no notable role whatsoever in the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church.

Ukrainian political life on the lands from which this Representation came (Volyn, the Kholm region, Pidliashshia, Polissia) was only just awakening. The spontaneous character of the elections to the Sejm and Senate on these lands necessarily affected the personal composition of the elected Representation; this composition was a mixture of intellectuals with higher education, semi-intellectuals, and barely literate persons, people with civic experience and little-known ones or those completely unknown beyond their immediate vicinity. The main thing was that beyond the general notion that Ukrainians were elected to the Sejm and Senate to defend the interests and rights of the Ukrainian people, there was complete lack of clarity regarding their political worldview, their understanding of the interests of the Ukrainian population that found itself under Poland, and regarding the tasks and tactics in political work toward achieving national ideals.

The way out of such a situation could have been the development, in the process of political work on the parliamentary terrain and beyond it, of a national thought common in its basic points, a national-political worldview, and a program and tactics under the circumstances of contemporary Ukrainian life in restored Poland. Instead of such an outcome, what arose in the process of the political "self-identification" of the deputies and senators (not without outside influences) was a great differentiation among the members of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation.

The consequences were sad: some deputies created the "Selsoiuz" (Peasant Union), cobbling together a program from the programs of the SRs, the Peasant Union, and the Trudoviks of the first years of the revolution in Greater Ukraine; another part joined the UNDO party (Ukrainian National-Democratic Union) in Galicia; a third fell in with the Communists; a fourth inclined toward accommodation and favored national-territorial autonomy for Ukrainians in Poland; the remainder continued without party affiliation. Already two years after the elections, the first chairman of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Club, Deputy Antin Vasylchuk from the Kholm region, departed from the Club, declaring in the press: "After deep reflection, I have come to the conviction that there, where there are so many factions among 21 deputies in the Ukrainian Club, a common tactics and a systematic political line are impossible"...

And among these "factions," both in the Sejm and outside it, there ensued "polemics" that devolved into bickering and squabbling in the press, from which the masses were first disoriented, and then sympathies toward the Soviet East began to spread among them. For, it seems, nearly a majority of the deputies inclined at that time toward that East, manifesting Muscophile sympathies (the "Selsoiuz," the Communists — Tryzub, September 19, 1926, pp. 10–12).

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Hence the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland could not, of course, derive benefit from the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of the 1922 elections as a whole body. For it was truly difficult to expect a common action in church affairs from a body among whose members there was a "vast distance" in the church-religious question for the people (from the deeply devout Deputy Semen Liubarsky to the Communists Khoma Prystupa, Yosyp Skrypa, and others).

A common action by the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of 1922 in the church matter took place only once, at the beginning, in the struggle against the introduction of the new calendar style into the life of the Orthodox Church in Poland, which had been adopted for church use by a resolution of the Sobor of Bishops of that Church on April 12, 1924. The Ukrainian Parliamentary Club issued an appeal to the population on this matter, distributed in thousands of copies, in which it sharply protested against the introduction of the new style and called upon the clergy and faithful to maintain the custom of their fathers in the celebration of church feasts. This appeal also corresponded to the wishes of the population, which is why the Sobor of Bishops of the Church was compelled by a new resolution of August 16, 1924, to "bless the celebration, in those localities where the faithful people demand it, of the major and locally venerated feasts according to the old style." These "localities" turned out to be virtually the entire Orthodox Church in Poland, so that essentially only in Warsaw, in the metropolitan cathedral of St. Mary Magdalene, was the new style introduced. At the same time, the Polish Government through the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education issued directives to the voivodes that the civil authorities in the localities should not interfere in the celebration of the divine services according to the old or new styles.

The actual initiative of the Polish government regarding the resolution of the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church to introduce the new style, as well as the interference of district heads (starosty) and police in the implementation of this resolution, were the reason for the common counter-action in this matter by the Ukrainian Parliamentary Club, which was in opposition to the Polish government, so that the background of this counter-action was in fact political, not church-religious.

Thus, in the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland, one can note the participation in 1923–27 not of the entire Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation, which was, as a body, rather indifferent to the church cause of its people, but only of certain individual members, such as Deputies Serhiy Khrutsky,

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Borys Kozubsky, Semen Liubarsky, and Senators Mykhailo Cherkavsky and Archpriest Damiian Hershtansky.

The leadership of the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement, which made itself heard so loudly in the sixth year after the Pochayiv Diocesan Congress of 1921, in the action of the Lutsk Church Congress of 1927, was in the hands of church-community and cultural-educational activists of Volyn, headed by Dr. Arsen Richynsky.

Dr. Arsen Vasylyovych Richynsky, born in 1892 in the family of Deacon Vasyl Richynsky in Volyn (later his father was a priest in the Kamian-Kashyrsky district), studied at the Matsiiv Theological School of the Volyn diocese and at the Volyn Theological Seminary in Zhytomyr; after completing four classes, he entered the Medical Faculty of Warsaw University, which he completed during the First World War in 1916 in Rostov-on-Don, where that university had been evacuated from Warsaw. After completing the university, he returned to Volyn, married, and had a medical practice in the 1920s and later in Volodymyr-Volynskyi.

In 1924, Richynsky began publishing in Volodymyr-Volynskyi at his own expense "an independent monthly of Ukrainian church revival" under the title Na Varti ("On Guard"). Under this same title Na Varti, a publishing house arose alongside the monthly, which published, among other things, in 1926, a study: "The Origin of the Episcopate in Connection with the Question of the Grace-Bearing Nature of the Hierarchy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church." This study, published by Na Varti without the author's name, was in its entirety reproduced in 1927 in issue no. 1 of the journal Tserkva i Zhyttia ("Church and Life"), the organ of the VPCR in Kyiv, with the surname "Volynsky" given as the author. We were informed at the time that the author of this study was Priest Petro Tabinsky, who in 1924–26 served as a supernumerary priest at the Volodymyr-Volynskyi cathedral. Thus, the orientation of the Na Varti publishing house was, evidently, sympathetic to the ideology of the UAOC.

Shortly after the "First Assembly of (appointed) representatives of the clergy and laity of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland" took place in Warsaw on January 10–12, 1927, at which, as we saw, the unity of the hierarchy with the clergy and laity was so manifestly demonstrated, Dr. A. Richynsky, on behalf of the editorial board of the journal Na Varti, addressed Metropolitan Dionisiy on February 7, 1927, with a request "to grant a blessing for the convening in the city of Lutsk of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church Congress of clergy and laity, with the participation in the congress of the Metropolitan or one of the bishops."

In response to this request, the Synod of the Orthodox Church, at its session of February 26, resolved that "the legitimate and lawful body for convening meetings or assemblies for the purpose of discussing and deciding church-religious matters in the Church is the Supreme Church Authority," which "at the assembly of clergy and laity on January 10–12, 1927, has already outlined the convening of a Local Sobor of the Orthodox Church in

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Poland," and therefore it was proper "to order the clergy not to dare to attend the Lutsk Congress under threat of canonical responsibility, and to call upon the faithful to refrain from attending it." (See note below.)

As a result of this Synodal resolution, as well as criticism in the Ukrainian press regarding the impropriety of convening a church congress through the editorial board of Na Varti, Dr. Richynsky traveled around the district towns of Volyn, conducted meetings with community leaders on the matter of "the vital spiritual-religious needs of the Ukrainian Orthodox population within the borders of present-day Poland," propagating the idea of convening a Ukrainian Church Congress. As a result, an Organizational Committee for the convening of the Congress was formed with representatives from various districts, centered in Lutsk.

The Organizational Committee, having somewhat modified the Congress's program and set as its ultimate aim "the identification of the church-religious needs of the Ukrainian Orthodox population in Poland" and its resolutions on this matter as desiderata "to direct onto the proper path," that is, to present to the appropriate authorities, addressed Metropolitan Dionisiy once more for a blessing to hold the Congress. The Committee's request was supported by Senator M. Cherkavsky and Sejm Deputy S. Khrutsky, who personally visited Metropolitan Dionisiy for this purpose, but the Metropolitan refused the request.

The Organizational Committee, having received permission for the Lutsk Congress on church matters from the civil authorities, resolved not to submit to the Synod's resolution and to convene and hold the Congress, excluding only the presence of clergy at it, in view of the reprisals that would have been applied by the Synod to clergy who participated in the Congress; clergy who nevertheless wished to take part in the Congress were informed by the Committee that they would not be admitted to the session hall.

Shortly before the Congress, scheduled for June 5–6, 1927, the first session (May 26–28) of the Metropolitan Rada took place in Warsaw, a new institution with an advisory voice under the Supreme Church Authority. This Rada was not elected, as the Ukrainians and Belarusians had demanded, but appointed personally, and therefore its composition was dominated by "RNO members." At the session of the Metropolitan Rada, the matter of the convening, with the permission of the civil authorities, of the Lutsk church congress by laymen was raised. By a majority of the Rada members, the convening of such a congress was, naturally, condemned; it was recognized that it could not be considered an Orthodox and church congress, and that the civil authorities "should not have given permission for this congress after the Supreme Church Authority had refused the organizers its blessing for the congress."

A discussion was then held at the Rada session on the question of the Ukrainization of the divine services. A passionate speaker in defense of the use

Note: As Bishop Oleksiy Hromadsky (then Bishop of Hrodna) told V. Soloviy (now Bishop Varlaam) and P. F. Artemiuk (the late Bishop Platon), at a meeting with them in Berest a month or two after the Lutsk Congress of June 5–6, 1927, Metropolitan Dionisiy had promised him to give permission for the Lutsk Congress and even to delegate Bishop Oleksiy himself to the Congress, but on the eve of the Synod session, he rescinded all of that.

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of the Ukrainian language in the divine services was Protopresbyter Pavlo Pashchevsky of Lutsk, who declared that many parishes with a Ukrainian population desired Ukrainian services in church, but as a result of the uncertainty of this question by the local church authority, priests were afraid to celebrate in Ukrainian. The protopresbyter added that when Ukrainian youth is encouraged to attend Church by a living language in the divine services, it is better to go out to meet them than to abandon them.

The Metropolitan declared that the question of Ukrainization should be resolved peacefully; Ukrainians should not demand the forced introduction of the Ukrainian liturgical language where this might lead to a schism, while supporters of Church Slavonic should renounce intransigence with regard to Ukrainian liturgical texts.

At the church congress in Lutsk on June 5–6, 1927, which took place in the premises of the city theater, 565 mandated delegates arrived from all the districts of Volyn and the Ukrainian districts of Polissia and the Kholm region with Pidliashshia; 8 Ukrainian deputies and senators also came; in addition, there were up to 200 guests.

The presidium of the congress was elected: I. Wlasowsky (chairman of the congress), Deputy B. Kozubsky (vice-chairman), and as members — A. Richynsky, V. Soloviy (now Bishop Varlaam of the UAOC abroad), M. Telizhynsky, D. Kovpanenko, A. Rochniak, I. Havryliuk, and Mrs. Tyshetska.

Noting at the opening of the congress the absence of both higher and lower clergy, the Lutsk Congress recognized itself, under such conditions, as "a Congress of Orthodox Ukrainian Laymen on Church Affairs."

At the congress, the following reports were heard: 1. "The Current State of the Church-Religious Life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Population in Poland" (report by A. Richynsky). — 2. Satisfaction of the religious needs of the Ukrainian Orthodox population in matters of: a) the divine services (A. Richynsky); b) religious instruction in church, school, and outside of school (report by Pavlo Artemiuk, later Bishop Platon of the UAOC abroad, died 1951); c) liturgical books and religious-moral press (I. Wlasowsky); d) the recruitment of priests, cantors, and choir directors (D. Kovpanenko). — 3. The matter of the canonical internal structure of the Orthodox Church in Poland (A. Richynsky). — 4. The matter of church economy (I. Wlasowsky). — 5. Reports from the localities.

On each of the reports in the congress's program, debates were held, during which two currents manifested themselves at the congress, both oppositional to the current state of the church life of the Ukrainian Orthodox people under Poland, but far divergent from one another as to the means of finding a way out of that state.

At the basis of this divergence lay a different understanding of and different relationship to the very essence of the ecclesiastical cause in the life of the people. The left current, numerically quite insignificant but led by some members of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation, placed the resolution of the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical question in the Orthodox Church in Poland on the plane that it was necessary to break with the Muscovite hierarchy of that Church and to invite bishops of the Ukrainian

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Autocephalous Church to come and consecrate bishops for the western Ukrainian lands.

In view of a number of decisive speeches against such a proposal, its authors introduced an amendment to it, namely: "The Executive Committee, which is to be elected by the Congress, shall enter into an understanding with the Supreme Church Authority of the Orthodox Church in Poland. If within two months the Executive Committee comes to the conviction that the church authority continues to take a hostile attitude toward the demands of the Ukrainian Orthodox people, then it has from the Congress the authorization to take appropriate steps for the creation and legalization of a Ukrainian Metropolia, independent of the present Russian one, and without delay to begin the first steps for separation."

But even in this formulation, the proposal to carry out "a surgical operation on the body of the Orthodox Church in Poland," as the Chairman of the Congress characterized it, was met by the second, numerically far predominating current at the Congress with such a pronounced protest that the Chairman simply did not put the proposal to a vote. He declared that the question of a break with the church authority of the Orthodox Church in Poland and of an appeal to the authority of another Orthodox Church outside the territory of present-day Poland was not at all part of the program presented by the Organizational Committee to the civil administration when requesting permission for the Lutsk church congress.

It should be underscored that this Ukrainian church congress did not at all call into question or condemn the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland, solemnly proclaimed, as we have recounted above, on September 17, 1925. The task of the congress was to direct the life of this Church along the path of obtaining internal autocephaly, for which it was necessary to wage the struggle for the de-Russification of this Church, which had been Russified over nearly 250 years of being part of the Russian Church, and at the same time for its development as a national Church — Ukrainian on Ukrainian lands, Belarusian on Belarusian ones.

The resolutions of the Lutsk Congress testify to the clarity of these tasks in the consciousness of the congress's leaders, who were followed by the vast majority of its participants, consisting predominantly of delegates from rural parishes and representatives from various Ukrainian cultural institutions.

The ideological principle regarding the place of the national factor in the life of Christ's Church the Lutsk church congress expressed in the following resolution: "The Ukrainian Orthodox Church Congress affirms that all peoples of the earth are called to the Kingdom of God, and that true Christianity knows no privileged nations; therefore, every people, in accordance with the principles of the Orthodox Eastern Church and its church-historical tradition, has the right to the expression of its religious life in distinctive national forms, which not only do not divide the community of Christ but even enrich the Universal Church with their variety and the distinctive fragrance of individual national cultures and national characters. This spirit

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of Universal Orthodoxy has made possible over the course of the 2,000 years of the Christian era the emergence of over a dozen Orthodox national sister-churches, which celebrate the divine services in more than 40 living languages of the peoples, in accordance with the apostolic precept and example."

In close connection with the recognition of the national factor in the life of the Orthodox Eastern Church, the Congress further sets forth in its resolutions the principle of conciliarity (sobornist) in the life of the Church. The Congress, "noting the decline in the church-community life of the Orthodox Church in Poland, sees the main reason for this threatening state in the ignoring of the principle of conciliarity and in the exclusion of the laity from participation in church affairs — a participation that has been from time immemorial a fundamental characteristic of the Eastern Church, and particularly of the Orthodox Church in our lands even before the partitions of Poland."

"Where the national character of the Church was suppressed by force," we read further in the resolutions, "there arose constantly a threat to the unity of the Church... Therefore, the Congress warns the present Orthodox hierarchy against repeating such historical mistakes and underscores that the multi-ethnic composition of the Orthodox flock in Poland demands an especially tactful and sympathetic satisfaction of the church-religious needs of each nationality, and in particular the Ukrainian, as the numerically predominant one."

The Congress demands "the issuance by the Holy Synod of a clear executive directive to the resolutions of September 3, 1924, on the language of divine worship, so as to remove once and for all from church life the constant state of fermentation and the struggle between the population and the clergy on this ground."

"The Congress announces to all Orthodox clergy of Volyn and Southern Polissia that henceforth, requests by parishioners for the celebration of divine services in the Ukrainian language must be satisfied without excuse, without delay, and without reference to the church authorities." "The Congress demands the restoration in our Church of the ancient Ukrainian church-folk customs and rites, abolished by the Russian ecclesiastical and Tsarist authorities." "The Congress demands the immediate Ukrainization of the internal official record-keeping of the Church, which is currently conducted in the Russian language."

"For the just implementation of these reforms and the general ordering of church-community relations, the Congress categorically demands the appointment to the three episcopal cathedras on lands with a predominantly Ukrainian population of Ukrainian bishops, with the rights of ruling hierarchs and members of the Holy Synod. At the same time, the Spiritual Consistories and district archpriesthoods must be reorganized, as they have until now been nurseries of Russification."

"In view of the decisive offensive of organized Russian circles — secular and clerical — against the Ukrainian church movement, the Congress obliges all delegates present, as well as all Ukrainian citizens in the localities regardless of party affiliation, to redouble the awareness-raising work among people in brotherhoods and other cultural-national organizations, to collect money for the Church Committee for the struggle for the rights of the Ukrainian people in the Church, and at the same time to

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expose the designs of the Russian Black Hundreds, which fight not for the Church but for the old influences among our people and strive to grow artificially at the expense of the less-aware segment of our population, dragging it into their fraticidal work" (Dukhovnyi Siiach, no. 31–32, 1927, "Toward the History of the Lutsk Church Congress," pp. 19–23; Pravoslavnyi Visnyk, Winnipeg, July 1927, "From the Life of the Orthodox Church in Poland").

Such were the main resolutions of the Lutsk Church Congress, which the "RNO" history of the Orthodox Church in Poland describes as follows, without giving their text: "At the Lutsk Ukrainian Congress, which took place with the permission of the state authorities, various resolutions were adopted, directed against the Supreme Hierarchy and against the traditions of the Orthodox Church. The Congress sanctioned all the subversive work that had until then been conducted in the localities and called for the Ukrainization of the Church at the fastest possible pace" (A. Svitich, op. cit., p. 69). The value of such "history" is obvious.

The Lutsk Church Congress concluded its two-day work with the election of a "Ukrainian Church Committee," which was charged with ensuring the implementation of the Congress's resolutions and with convening, if necessary, a new church congress. The chairman of the Congress, I. Wlasowsky, was charged with presenting the resolutions of the Congress personally to Metropolitan Dionisiy.

Ten days after the Ukrainian Church Congress in Lutsk, an Assembly of district archpriests of the Volyn diocese and "RNO" activists took place at the Pochayiv Lavra on June 16–17. Metropolitan Dionisiy participated. The Assembly adopted "counter-resolutions" to the Lutsk Church Congress.

This assembly resolved that "the liturgical language must be only the Church Slavonic language," that the publication of "liturgical books and the Word of God with parallel Church Slavonic and Ukrainian texts" could be only "for use in school and at home," that brotherhoods should be founded at parish churches for the defense of the Church Slavonic language, and that "in teaching the Law of God in schools and of prayers, instruction must be given obligatorily only in their Slavonic texts."

The Assembly recognized as necessary that Metropolitan Dionisiy "address all the people of Volyn with an appropriate Archpastoral appeal that would clearly express His Beatitude's wish for the cessation of the Ukrainization of the divine services." The Assembly learned "with a feeling of indignation" that at the Lutsk Congress "insults to the Head of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland were permitted, and that in the presence of government representatives," against which disrespect the Assembly expressed its protest; it also protested against the Government's having given permission for a Congress that was prohibited by the Supreme Church Authority. The Assembly resolved to petition the Government to ban the activity of the Committee elected by the Lutsk Congress, and to announce to all the population of Volyn through the priests that no one, under threat of ecclesiastical trial, should enter into any dealings with that Committee or carry out its directives (Ibid.).

Thus did the "old guard" of Russian clergy and "RNO" activists set things in order in the Orthodox Church among the Ukrainian people, telling that people in what language it was to pray.

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Shortly after this "RNO" assembly, the chairman of the Lutsk church congress, Ivan Wlasowsky, arrived in Pochayiv and was received by Metropolitan Dionisiy. In a lengthy audience, during the presentation and explanation of the Congress's resolutions and its true intentions — the disregard of which would be a danger for church life — the Chairman of the Congress decisively denied all slanders, both oral and in the press, that insults to the Metropolitan and to the Supreme Hierarchy of the Orthodox Church in Poland in general had supposedly taken place at the Congress. Metropolitan Dionisiy did not issue any Archpastoral appeal about the cessation of the Ukrainization of divine worship, and the resolution of the Holy Synod of September 3 on the permitting of national languages in the divine services at the wish of the faithful was not rescinded by the Synod, although later, too, "RNO" church activists more than once demanded its rescission.

6. The attitude of Polish governments toward the Ukrainian church movement in Poland. The activity of the Ukrainian Church Committee. District and regional church-national congresses. The plebiscite in the parishes of Volyn on the question of the liturgical language. Measures of the church authorities to halt the activity of the Church Committee and its closure by the Polish authorities.

Already one month after the Pochayiv RNO assembly, on July 13, 1927, Metropolitan Dionisiy invited to his residence in Warsaw some Ukrainian activists (headed by Deputy S. Khrutsky) for a meeting on church affairs, at which he declared that "rumors about an unfriendly attitude toward Ukrainians by the Supreme Church Authority do not correspond to reality." But the participants in the meeting drew the Metropolitan's attention to the fact that no one from the members of the Ukrainian Church Committee, elected by the Lutsk Church Congress, was present at the meeting; "peace and unity in the Church will only be achieved when the Supreme Church Authority finds a way to understanding and rapprochement with the Ukrainian population through the Ukrainian Church Committee."

Speaking, however, as private individuals and not as persons authorized by the Congress, the participants in the meeting presented to the Metropolitan, on matters of the Ukrainian church movement, views identical to those in the resolutions of the Lutsk Church Congress (Pravoslavnyi Visnyk, August 1927).

There, for the time being, the "understanding" between the church authority and Ukrainian activists stood. The Polish civil authority, meanwhile, was in no hurry to satisfy the request of the RNO Pochayiv assembly to ban the activity of the Ukrainian Church Committee.

Historians of the "RNO" orientation present this matter as follows: "The Polish government decided to liquidate the Muscophile spirit in the soul of the Orthodox population, which was initially considered Russian, and, following the example of the Habsburg court in Vienna, conceived first to 'Ukrainize' it and later to 'Polonize' it... For the implementation of the 'Ukrainization of the Orthodox,' the Poles decided to use the Orthodox Church, whose hierarchy was at the government's service from the moment of the proclamation of the independence of the Orthodox Church in Poland (from

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1925)" (S. Ranevsky, op. cit., pp. 7, 8). Why exactly the previously Russified Orthodox population of Volyn and other Ukrainian lands that now found themselves under Poland had to pass, on the road to Polonization, through a stage of Ukrainization via Poland — for this we find in this "historian" no explanations whatsoever.

In fact, Polish state officials adopted a favorable attitude toward the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement only after the coup carried out by Marshal Piłsudski on May 13, 1926. During the era of the "Endek" governments (led by the Polish National-Democratic Party), the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland had been carried out with an obvious political aim of making Poland's Orthodox population independent from contacts with and influences of the Moscow Patriarchate; but in the internal life of the Orthodox Church, the Endeks, that is, Poland's "National-Democracy," did not at all sympathize with the Ukrainization of the Church, its Ukrainian national character, even when such a character might have been combined with the conversion of Orthodox Ukrainians to the Union favored by Rome.

For this reason, the Polish government removed from Volyn the Uniate Bishop Yosyf Botsian, who, for the purposes of Uniate activity in Volyn, had been consecrated by Metropolitan Sheptytsky as Bishop of Lutsk and "shortly after his removal died in Lviv (1926) from grief at the injustice done to him" (E. Winter. Byzantium and Rome in the Struggle for Ukraine. Prague, 1944, p. 206).

The National-Democracy of Roman Dmowski, as Fr. Heyer writes, "did not recognize the existence of a Ukrainian nationality and knew only one goal: the Polonization of the Ukrainian masses in language, customs, and confession. It is thus understandable that the designs of the Polish Catholic clergy lay in the line of National-Democracy" (Die Orthodoxe Kirche in der Ukraine von 1917 bis 1945, p. 151).

With the coming to power of Marshal Piłsudski, whom the RNO members designated "a great Russophobe," the church policy of the Polish government in relation to the Orthodox Church took the path of supporting the Ukrainian church-Orthodox movement in its struggle for the liberation of Orthodoxy in Poland from the character and spirit of "Russianness" (rosiyskist), which continued to be maintained in the Orthodox Church in Poland in its church governance, structure, and influences on the religious life of the Ukrainian people, who now aspired to give their Church their own national character.

Supporting to a certain extent this aspiration of the Ukrainians was, evidently, considered beneficial in the interests of Polish statehood by the government of Marshal Piłsudski. After all, the matter of granting permission for the Ukrainian church congress in Lutsk, whose participants were to include Ukrainians not only from Volyn, was not a matter within the competence of the Volyn voivode alone — who was then the mild Mr. Mech (a former Polish Socialist) — but also of the Polish Ministries of Education and Religious

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Denominations and Internal Affairs. Warsaw had given certain instructions. The Organizational Committee before the Congress, and the Ukrainian Church Committee after the Congress, when they needed to deal with the authorities in their activity, dealt not with the voivode but with the then Vice-Voivode Gintovt-Dzevialtovsky, who was evidently entrusted with this matter. The voivode V. Mech himself, at one of the audiences granted to the author of this work, said that he too was beginning to study the affairs of the Orthodox Church, and showed a book he had obtained for that purpose. It was the Handbook for Clergymen by Sergiy Bulgakov, a lecturer at the Kharkiv Theological Seminary.

The Ukrainian Church Committee, comprising 37 persons, included representatives from Volyn, Polissia, and the Kholm region. To the Presidium of the Committee, which was based in Lutsk, the following were elected: from Volyn — A. Richynsky as chairman, I. Wlasowsky as vice-chairman, and I. Bondaruk as secretary of the Committee. Members of the Committee from Polissia were Pavlo Artemiuk (director of the Ukrainian school in Berest) and Viktor Soloviy (director of Ukrainbank in Berest); from the Kholm region, Sejm Deputy S. Khrutsky and Judge M. Rochniak. The Committee asked Prof. I. Ohienko, Senator M. Cherkavsky, and the Secretary of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Club V. Kosonotsky to serve as the Ukrainian Church Committee's representatives in Warsaw.

As the former member of the Church Committee from Polissia, V. Soloviy, now Bishop Varlaam of the UAOC, writes to the author of this work, "in the guiding tendencies of the Committee, a certain distinction was noticeable between the 'left,' radical-reformist line of Dr. A. Richynsky and the more moderate and more firmly grounded line of I. F. Wlasowsky; the latter had support both from the Polissia members and from the Kholm region representatives" (Letter dated October 24, 1960).

Carrying out the resolution of the Lutsk Church Congress on the intensification of awareness-raising work among the Ukrainian masses, the Ukrainian Church Committee conducted, with the permission of the Polish government, district and regional church-national congresses, in the organization of which a significant role was played — in view of the predominantly hostile attitude of the clergy toward the national movement in the Church — by the Ukrainian "Prosvita" societies and Ukrainian cooperatives in towns and villages.

Such a congress in the Volodymyr region took place in the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyi on November 6, 1927. And here are the main resolutions it adopted, characteristic in general of these congresses, on the basis of corresponding reports by mostly members of the Church Committee:

  1. The Congress demands the appointment to Volyn of Ukrainians — a ruling archbishop and two vicar bishops, one of whom would occupy the ancient Volodymyr cathedra; — 2. The Congress considers inappropriate and unjust the formation of the Metropolitan Rada by appointment; instead, it considers it advisable to organize the Metropolitan Rada through popular elections in the dioceses; — 3. The Congress resolutely protests against the imposition by the church authority upon the clergy of the distribution among the people of publications of Russian publishing houses, particularly those with an explicit coloring, such as the publications Dobro, Svet Istiny, and others; it protests in general against harnessing the clergy to such a Russification
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policy; — 4. The Congress considers fundamentally inadmissible any further ecclesiastical dependence on Moscow, but for the final resolution of this matter and the general ordering of church life demands the immediate convening of a Regional Church Sobor; — 5. The Congress resolves to designate in all villages trusted persons (muzhi doviria) who would maintain contact with the district representatives of the Ukrainian Church Committee and transmit to the villages all necessary instructions; — 6. The Congress demands the celebration of the divine services in the pure Ukrainian language everywhere where the people have come forward with such a demand; — 7. The Congress resolves to send a telegram of gratitude to the Holy Synod for its resolution of September 3, 1924, which blessed the Ukrainization of the divine services, and at the same time expresses the demand for the conscientious implementation of that resolution in practice in the localities; — 8. The Congress resolves to wage a decisive struggle in all parishes against deans and other clergy who oppose the demands of the people and contravene the Synodal resolution on the Ukrainization of the divine services, and appeals to the church authority to have such clergy punished and removed from their present parishes as unsuitable servants of the Church and sowers of discord; — 9. In view of the inexpedient and arbitrary management of church economy heretofore, parish representatives should be elected to control church income and expenditures; — 10. The Congress declares null and void and binding on no one all the resolutions of the Pochayiv assembly of district archpriests, deans, and members of Russian political organizations of June 16–17, 1927, all the more so since they were confirmed by neither the church nor the civil authority (Ridna Tserkva, no. 2, November 30, 1927, pp. 9–11).

On January 15, 1928, a Regional Church-National Congress took place, with the permission of the Polissia voivode, in Polissia for the districts of Berest, Kobryn, and Pruzhany, in the city of Berest. The resolutions of this congress, maintained in moderate demands for the partial Ukrainization of the divine services, were entrusted to be presented to Bishop of Polissia Oleksander through a special delegation consisting of: the Chairman of the Community Committee in Berest, M. K. Kryzhanivsky, V. S. Soloviy, and V. Pavensky. It deserves attention that, notwithstanding the negative attitude of the church center in Warsaw toward the action of the Ukrainian Church Committee, Bishop of Polissia Oleksander (Inozemtsev, a native of Siberia, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy under its then rector, Bishop Yuriy Yaroshevsky, who as Metropolitan of Warsaw was killed by the Russian fanatic Archimandrite Smaragd) took a careful approach to the delegation from the church-national congress, held a conversation of several hours with it, and, having become convinced of the moderation of the resolutions of the congress, which had been held without his blessing, promised his approbation for the congress's postulates and later indeed issued appropriate directives to the clergy.

In Volyn, even the Organizational Committee for the convening of the Church Congress had begun a kind of plebiscite in the parishes of the Volyn

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diocese on the matter of the liturgical language. The occasion for this was the resolution of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland of February 26, 1927, on ascertaining locally the attitude of the people toward Church Slavonic as the language of the divine services — in other words, whether the people really demanded Ukrainian services or whether only "politicians" were shouting on the people's behalf.

In response to this desire of the Synod to hear the voice of the people on this matter, the deans hastened to convene deanery meetings of parish rectors, at which the "reverend fathers" were to "express the will of the people" by signing a pre-prepared petition to the Metropolia against allowing Ukrainization in the church as a harmful "innovation." Understandably, deans who were conscious Ukrainians did not do this and did not coerce the clergy's will, but of such deans out of the 55 deaneries of the Volyn diocese there were scarcely 14–15. There were volunteers among the clergy, such as Fr. Bushma in the Kostopil area, who went around collecting signatures against Ukrainization, threatening clergy with dismissal for refusal to sign. Fr. Bushma's action in the deanery of Fr. Mykola Bukhovych, who had belonged to the Ukrainian Brotherhood of the Holy Savior in Zhytomyr, prompted a report from Dean Bukhovych to the Metropolia regarding Fr. Bushma's improper actions, but the result of that report was the swift removal of Archpriest Bukhovych from his position as dean.

Having learned from priests and cantors about the falsification of the people's voice at the deanery meetings in the direction of non-desire for the Ukrainian language in church use, the Organizational Committee of the Lutsk Church Congress resolved to mount a counter-action and provide the supreme church authority with materials that would testify to the real "voice of the people" on the matter of the liturgical language. For this purpose, a "declaration" of the following content was printed and distributed throughout the districts for signing by all who wished: "We, the undersigned citizens of the village of (such-and-such) in the district of (such-and-such), belonging to the Orthodox parish of the village of (such-and-such), in accordance with the teaching of Holy Scripture (Matt. XXVIII, 19; Mark XVI, 15; Acts II, 44–11; 1 Cor. XIV, 5–40), demand that in our church the celebration of all divine services be immediately introduced in our native Ukrainian language, in place of the Slavonic, which is incomprehensible to us and to our children. We declare this our will on the basis of the blessing of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland of September 3, 1924, and in the spirit of §113 of the Constitution of the Polish Commonwealth of March 17, 1921, and we entrust the Organizational Committee of the Ukrainian Church Congress to bring this to the attention of the Supreme Church Authority."

Declarations with the signatures of those desiring the Ukrainian language in the divine services began arriving at the Organizational Committee of the Lutsk Church Congress, and after the Congress, at the Ukrainian Church Committee, in great numbers. The results of this Ukrainian church plebiscite were made public by the Church Committee, with the names of all the rural communities in which signatures were collected in favor of introducing the Ukrainian liturgical language. Documents with demands for the Ukrainization of the divine services were received from 572 rural

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communities in the Volyn diocese; small villages sent 50 to 80 signatures of the adult population, while larger ones averaged about three hundred signatures each. This testified to the great growth of the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement; such a worthy answer did the Ukrainian people give to the Synod's attempt to ascertain the attitude of the Orthodox population to the question of the liturgical language (Ridna Tserkva, no. 2, 1927, pp. 17–21).

With the beginning of the Ukrainian Church Committee's activity, Dr. A. Richynsky discontinued the publication of the periodical Na Varti, and instead the Church Committee resolved to publish an independent monthly of Ukrainian church revival under the title Ridna Tserkva ("Our Native Church"), of which only two issues appeared. But already in November 1927, changes in the attitude of the Volyn administration toward the Ukrainian Church Committee became noticeable. Thus, the administration demanded that responsibility for the holding of church congresses be assumed by individual persons rather than the Church Committee, which already indicated a negative attitude toward the Ukrainian Church Committee as an institution that had earlier, however, been considered legal. Permission to hold a church-national congress on December 4, 1927, in Rivne was already refused by the Volyn government, and the Rivne starostvo (district office) wrote to the Church Committee on November 30, 1927, that the starostvo was aware only that "there exists a more closely unknown secular committee that occupies itself with church affairs"...

In December of that same 1927, Metropolitan Dionisiy, on the basis of a Synodal resolution on "admonishing" the members of the Church Committee, summoned to himself in Warsaw I. Wlasowsky, the vice-chairman of the Committee, and P. Artemiuk, a Committee member from Polissia, and held a lengthy conversation with them on the subject of halting the Church Committee's activity. The conversation, although during it there was a warning about the possibility of excommunication of Committee members from the Church, had the character of a calm discussion. Those summoned declared that they were conducting no anti-church or anti-canonical work, that they were fighting only for the just rights of their people in the Church, for their people's native language in the divine services — the right to which the Synod itself recognized — for the revival of conciliar traditions in the Church's structure, and against the dominance in the Church's administration of Russian elements with their political machinations, when Russians constituted barely 1% of the faithful of the Orthodox Church in Poland. The "admonition" lacked convincing arguments for the cessation of the Ukrainian Church Committee's work, but it was already based, evidently, on the inclination of the Polish authorities to close the Committee.

Having seen to the autocephaly of the Church for its Orthodox citizens, having ensured its independence from Moscow, the Polish government was not at all interested in further nurturing the Muscovite spirit in the internal life of the Orthodox Church in Poland. Therefore it supported the Ukrainians in their national-ecclesiastical movement, granting permission for the Church Congress in Lutsk contrary to the church authority's refusal to bless that congress, as well as permission for the activity of the Ukrainian Church

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Committee elected by the congress. But the existence and activity of the "Orthodox-Church Ukrainian Executive Committee in the Polish Commonwealth" (the Committee's full official name) had no basis in the "Temporary Rules on the Relationship of the Government of the Polish Commonwealth to the Orthodox Church in Poland of January 30, 1922." The Synod protested against the recognition by the authorities of the Church Committee, which had arisen and operated within the bosom of the Church without the consent of the church authority.

In April and May 1927, Metropolitan Dionisiy, at the wish of the Polish government and at state expense, undertook, accompanied by Bishop of Hrodna Oleksiy and government advisors, a journey to the East to the heads of the Orthodox autocephalous churches. The journey aimed at consolidating in the Orthodox world the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland, in view of Moscow's non-recognition of that autocephaly; and on the other hand, at enhancing the prestige of restored Poland as a state of "broad religious tolerance." At the wish of the Polish government and at state expense as well, Metropolitan Dionisiy undertook in the spring of 1928 a journey abroad to the West. The main purpose of this journey was the Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church in Poland's participation in the sessions of the "World Conference of Christian Churches on Questions of Faith and Church Order," which took place from August 3 to 21, 1927, in Lausanne, Switzerland. Before that, Metropolitan Dionisiy participated in the sessions of the Continuation Committee of the World Stockholm Conference of Christian Churches in Winchester, England, and in London was received by the Head of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

To these journeys of the Metropolitan, to the East and the West, patronized and funded by the government, the Polish authorities evidently attached significance for the restored state, while the Ukrainian Church Committee sent an extensive memorandum to the Presidium of the World Christian Conference in Lausanne. In it, the Committee depicted the internal life of the Orthodox Church in Poland as "chaotic," governed by "a small circle of oligarchs," and concluded by writing that "so long as the Supreme Authority of the Polish Orthodox Church does not recognize the just Ukrainian popular demands and does not fulfill them, its participation in the work of uniting Christ's Churches will be devoid of content — like a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal" (Ukrainska Nyva, no. 48, 1927).

It seems that this memorandum of the Church Committee to the World Christian Conference in Lausanne, which, it must be admitted, was far from being an act of diplomatic skill, most likely contributed to the closure of the Ukrainian Church Committee. After several months of work, the Committee was shut down by order from Warsaw by Volyn Voivode Mech, shortly before his departure in the second half of summer 1928, without any reasons given for the liquidation of this previously government-authorized institution.

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7. The establishment of relations between Ukrainian church activists and the supreme church authority through the mediation of Archbishop of Hrodna Oleksiy; the meeting with Metropolitan Dionisiy on July 1, 1927. The session of the Metropolitan Rada, August 22–24, 1928. The meeting of Ukrainians with the Metropolitan on August 24, 1928, and its sad ending — the rupture of relations. The work of the Organizational Commission for the Convening of the Sobor. The departure from membership of the Metropolitan Rada of Dr. Richynsky and P. Artemiuk. The excommunication by the Holy Synod on April 15, 1929, of A. Richynsky from the Church. The reaction to the act of Richynsky's anathema from the Ukrainian Orthodox citizenry; open letters to Metropolitan Dionisiy from Deputy I. Wlasowsky, and from members of the Metropolitan Rada — M. Cherkavsky, I. Wlasowsky, S. Khrutsky, and V. Soloviy; their departure from membership of the Metropolitan Rada.

The leaders of the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland, the center of which was Volyn, in expanding their activity after the Lutsk Church Congress in the localities, could not fail to see the great difficulties for the movement's better achievements if it were to be conducted in opposition to the church authority.

On March 4 and 11, 1928, new elections to the Sejm and Senate were held in Poland. Of the entire composition of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation from the 1922 elections, which had numbered 28 deputies and senators, only three entered the new Sejm: Serhiy Khrutsky, Pavlo Vasylchuk, and Maksym Chuchmay — the last from Volyn, but already from the left Selrob party. Of the Orthodox Ukrainians from Volyn, the following entered the new Sejm: S. Zhuk and I. Wlasowsky (from Ukrainian radical list no. 22), L. Servetnyk (from list no. 18, the "Bloc of National Minorities"), Ye. Bohuslavsky and V. Seheida (from list no. 1, the "Non-Party Bloc for Cooperation with the Government"). In the elections to the Sejm and Senate in the spring of 1928, Ukrainians from Galicia also participated, but a single Ukrainian parliamentary representation was not formed; the most numerous Ukrainian Parliamentary Club (over 20 deputies and senators) consisted by religious confession of Greek Catholics; Orthodox in it were S. Khrutsky and L. Servetnyk. To the club of Ukrainian radical deputies there belonged, while remaining non-partisan, the Orthodox deputy from Volyn, I. Wlasowsky. Having in its party program the "separation of Church from State," but attaching considerable significance to the church question in the national revival of the Ukrainian population under Poland, this club (it consisted of 9 deputies and senators, headed by Deputy L. Bachynsky and Senator I. Makukh) gave I. Wlasowsky, as a theologian by education and vice-chairman of the Ukrainian Church Committee, carte blanche in his management of the church cause in a direction beneficial to the Ukrainian Orthodox population, on the condition that he would from time to time inform the club about the state of this matter.

I. Wlasowsky, acting also in contact with the members of the Church Committee, visited during the Paschal holidays of 1928 in the city of Hrodna Bishop of Hrodna Oleksiy (Hromadsky), who had been a classmate of

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Wlasowsky at the Kyiv Theological Academy, class of 1908. During this visit, a range of questions was discussed about the position of the Orthodox Church in Poland, about the necessity for deeper unity between the hierarchy and the flock in a state where the authorities had traditions of church policy inspired in past centuries by Rome, about the Ukrainian church movement and its latest events connected with the Lutsk Church Congress.

After a series of clarifications regarding the aims of the movement and its significance for the younger generations of the Ukrainian Orthodox people, Bishop Oleksiy agreed to serve as a mediator between the Ukrainian church activists and Metropolitan Dionisiy in establishing cooperation. Being afterward in Warsaw, where he frequently traveled from Hrodna as secretary of the Holy Synod, Bishop Oleksiy spoke with Metropolitan Dionisiy, after which a meeting was arranged by these two hierarchs with Deputy I. Wlasowsky, as a result of which a broader meeting with representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox community was scheduled at the metropolitan's residence. The scheduling of the Metropolitan's meeting with Ukrainian representatives was also facilitated by a letter to the Minister of Religious Denominations and Education, Dobrutsky, which will be discussed below.

This meeting took place on July 1, 1928. Participating in it were former Senator M. Cherkavsky, Deputy I. Wlasowsky, and Dr. A. Richynsky from Volyn; Deputy S. Khrutsky, former Deputy S. Liubarsky, and Judge Rochniak from the Kholm region; Church Committee members V. Soloviy and P. Artemiuk from Polissia.

The Ukrainians at the meeting did not need to debate the subject of using the living Ukrainian language in the divine services, since this question had already been positively resolved by the Synod in its resolution of September 3, 1924. Instead, the Ukrainians' postulates were directed at how to ensure the implementation of this Synodal resolution by the clergy in the localities. And in view of the fact that the clergy's resistance to the expressed wishes of the population had its root in the support of such clergy by the church administration, the Ukrainians' demands were well-founded: that in the church governance, which was in the hands of Russians or Russified Ukrainians, Ukrainians should take their proper place, since the flock of the Orthodox Church in Poland consisted of 70% Ukrainian population.

Thus, the Ukrainians' primary demands at this meeting were, first and foremost, the consecration of Ukrainian bishops — three, or at least two — a vicar bishop for Volyn and a vicar bishop for Polissia. The second postulate was the participation of representatives of the Ukrainian population in the Metropolitan Rada, which was to draft the Statute of the Orthodox Church in Poland and prepare for the Sobor of the Church; at the present time, as we have already had occasion to discuss this institution above, the Metropolitan Rada had an appointed "RNO" majority of members, despite the negligible proportion of Russians in the Church's flock.

The Metropolitan agreed both to the consecration of Ukrainian vicar bishops, even discussing candidacies, and promised to invite more Ukrainians, as well as Belarusians, to participate in the next session of the Metropolitan Rada. It was also agreed at the meeting

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that the Metropolitan would issue to the clergy, on the matter of Ukrainian services in the churches, an Archpastoral message with "precise and binding instructions" regarding the implementation of the Synod's resolution of September 3, 1924, on the language of the divine services. The protocol of the meeting of July 1, 1928, at which the Metropolitan himself presided, he subsequently did not sign as chairman, but wrote above it: "Read" (Chital) and gave his signature.

When I. Wlasowsky later spoke with the Metropolitan on this subject, the Metropolitan said that he had only listened to what the representatives of the Ukrainian community were saying, but had not decided anything together with them.

The session of the Metropolitan Rada was scheduled by the Synod for August 22–24, 1928. In accordance with the decision at the Meeting of July 1, seven lay Ukrainians — representatives of the Ukrainian community — were to be invited by the Metropolitan to this session: Dr. A. Richynsky, M. Cherkavsky, I. Wlasowsky, S. Khrutsky, V. Soloviy, P. Artemiuk, and Ye. Yasinsky (chairman of the Rada of the Lutsk Holy Cross Brotherhood).

But at an audience on August 17, the Metropolitan informed I. Wlasowsky that he would not introduce A. Richynsky into the Metropolitan Rada for the reason that representatives of the RNO ("Russian National Union") were demanding the introduction to the Rada of Yevhen Komarevych from Volodymyr. "They are all practically dying," said the Metropolitan, "as if they were in love with Komarevych, insisting that he be included, and I do not want this, because the Metropolitan Rada will then turn into a circus, but by not inviting Komarevych, I cannot introduce Richynsky either, as his antipode, just as Khrutsky is the antipode of Serebrennikov."

Wlasowsky replied to the Metropolitan that most likely, in that case, the representatives of the Ukrainian community would not appear at the session of the Metropolitan Rada, since the conditions already agreed upon were not being honored.

But at a meeting of Ukrainian church activists, with Richynsky's participation, the activists decided that those representatives already invited to the session of the Metropolitan Rada should attend, in recognition of the great importance of the matter and in the hope — not yet finally lost — for a change of course by the Metropolia in its attitude toward the Ukrainian church movement.

The session of the Rada began in Warsaw on August 22, 1928. On the evening of that same day, Archbishop Oleksiy, on the Metropolitan's instructions, asked Wlasowsky to summon A. Richynsky to the Rada session by telegram. When Wlasowsky asked what explained such a sudden change, the answer was that Ye. Komarevych had already been introduced into the Rada. Komarevych did not need to be summoned to Warsaw, as he had already been there for three days, and on the morning of August 23 was already sitting at the Rada session. Wlasowsky refused to summon A. Richynsky over his own signature and demanded the signature of the Rada's Chairman, the Metropolitan. Richynsky was then summoned under the signature of Bishop Oleksiy, but managed to arrive only for the last session of the Rada.

Thus, Ye. Komarevych, the RNO's consultant on church affairs, dragged after himself into the Metropolitan Rada Dr. A. Richynsky. Besides Komarevych, the following were also selected for the Metropolitan

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Rada along with the Ukrainians and Belarusians (3 persons): the "true Russians" Serebrennikov, Leliavsky, and Korol, as well as Orthodox Muscophiles from Galicia — Bendasiuk and Hieromonk Panteleimon (Rudyk) — when the Rada already included more than 10 Russians or representatives of the same "RNO" ideology.

The principal question on which the Metropolitan Rada deliberated at this session was the convening of the Church Sobor, planned for the Nativity holidays of 1928–29. For the preparation of the election procedure for the Sobor, the Sobor's statute, and its program, there was elected an "Organizational Commission for the Convening of the Church Sobor" consisting, under the chairmanship of Archbishop Oleksiy, of six persons — two clergy and two laymen each — from the Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Russians. From the Ukrainians, Archpriest St. Hrushko and I. Wlasowsky were elected to this Organizational Commission.

The tactics of the Ukrainians in the Metropolitan Rada were so conciliatory that they won the sympathy of a significant portion of the Russian group, while the RNO activists were sharpening relations; particularly insistent were their demands to have a numerical majority of their group in the Organizational Commission for the Convening of the Sobor.

After the conclusion of the session, the Ukrainians were invited by Metropolitan Dionisiy for tea, during which, at the initiative of Deputy I. Wlasowsky, a compact discussion on Ukrainian church affairs was to take place. Present were all the lay Ukrainians — participants of the Metropolitan Rada session, Archbishop Oleksiy, and Protopresbyter Pavlo Pashchevsky.

This meeting ended sadly. The Synod's resolution of September 3, 1924, on the use of the Ukrainian language and other languages in the divine services at the wish of the faithful always required, so to speak, an executive directive or instruction governing how this resolution was to be implemented in parish life. In the conversation on this topic during the meeting, the question was posed: what majority of the faithful should be recognized as sufficient for the transition to the living Ukrainian language in the liturgical services? The Metropolitan answered this question by saying that one should be guided here not by the parliamentary principle of majority but by "unanimity" (yedinodushiye).

In other words, the transition from Church Slavonic in the divine services to living Ukrainian required the unanimous wish and decision of all parishioners, from a certain age entitled to full rights, in that parish. No reasonable explanations that under such an approach to the matter, especially when the priest in the parish opposed Ukrainization, there would always be found in the parish a handful of troublemakers or fanatics of Slavonic who would introduce turmoil into parish life, opposing the will of even an overwhelming majority of parishioners, were convincing to the Bishop Metropolitan. He continued to stand on the "unanimity" of parishioners in the question of the liturgical language.

This drove Dr. A. Richynsky out of equilibrium, and he was imprudent enough to say: "Now I understand that we made a mistake when we rejected the suggestion of the Poles, who told us: come with us and you will have everything, up to and including the deposition of Dionisiy." After these words by Richynsky, Metropolitan

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Dionisiy leaped up from his place in great agitation and, striking the table, exclaimed: "What? To frighten me? There is nothing to frighten me with! Let me have a small but faithful flock!" With these words, the Metropolitan withdrew from behind the table to a corner with an icon shrine. All those present also rose from their seats. At this scene, Archbishop Oleksiy, who had been absent during the incident, entered the hall. Metropolitan Dionisiy, pointing his finger toward the entering Archbishop Oleksiy, said with agitation: "There, take him, let him give you everything you want." At these words, Archbishop Oleksiy, running up to the Metropolitan and imploring him to calm down, assured him of his devotion: "What are You saying, Your Eminence? I am Your son in monasticism, I will never abandon You and will never go against You"...

Everyone after this unpleasant scene dispersed in a state of nervousness and disappointment.

The conversation of Ukrainian church activists with the Metropolitan on August 24, 1928, in spirit and content completely the opposite of the meeting of July 1 of that same year, was in essence already a rupture of the relations that had been established between the leadership of the Ukrainian church movement and the Metropolitan.

The Organizational Commission for the Convening of the Church Sobor did carry out the work entrusted to it by the Metropolitan Rada. In sessions from September 14 to 17, 1928, the Commission drafted, under the chairmanship of Archbishop Oleksiy, the election procedure for the Church Sobor, its regulations, and its program. These were to be submitted for discussion and approval to the Metropolitan Rada, the convening of which was planned for October 1928. The Sobor was not convened; however, the materials prepared by the Commission served as the basis for the Synod in its publication of the election rules, regulations, and program for the Sobor, when the Sobor, by a Synodal resolution of December 12, 1929, was definitely decided to be convened on February 12, 1930, in view of the mass lawsuits in the second half of 1929, directed by the Polish Catholic clergy to the courts, for the seizure from the Orthodox of their churches.

As for the Metropolitan Rada, the Metropolitan no longer convened it, because the new Minister of Religious Denominations, Svitalsky, took an unfavorable attitude toward this institution, which was not provided for in the "Temporary Rules on the Relationship of the Government to the Orthodox Church in Poland of January 30, 1922," and was particularly displeased, as the Metropolitan told I. Wlasowsky, with the supplementing of the Rada's membership with representatives of the nationalities. In the end, it was printed in Voskresnoye Chteniye, the Synod's organ (no. 17, 1929), that at the beginning of April 1929, the Ministry of Religious Denominations informed the Metropolitan that "the Metropolitan Rada is not recognized by the Ministry as an officially existing and functioning institution."

In the autumn of 1928, the members of the Metropolitan Rada received from the Metropolia a notification that the announced session of the Metropolitan Rada could not be convened "for reasons beyond our control." The leadership of the Ukrainian church movement was convinced that the impossibility of convening the next session of the Metropolitan Rada did not cause any particular distress to the supreme church administration.

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At the end of November 1928, member of the Metropolitan Rada P. Artemiuk, who was part of the Rada's secretariat, publicly announced his departure from the Rada; from his letter published in the press, it was evident that the official protocol of the August session of the Metropolitan Rada did not correspond in certain points to the protocol prepared by the Rada's secretariat. On December 4, 1928, Dr. A. Richynsky, the former chairman of the Ukrainian Church Committee, also published a declaration of his departure from membership in the Metropolitan Rada, after which he proceeded to resume publication, from January 1, 1929, of the journal Na Varti, in the same oppositional direction as before toward the church authority of the Orthodox Church in Poland.

Three and a half months later, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland, at its session of April 15, 1929, issued a decision on "the excommunication from the Church of physician Arsen Richynsky, residing in the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyi," and already on Sunday, April 21, this anathema of Arsen Richynsky was proclaimed in the princely Mstyslav cathedral of Volodymyr, and notice of it was printed for the knowledge of the entire Church in Voskresnoye Chteniye, no. 17, 1929.

The Synod's resolution on the excommunication of A. Richynsky from the Church for "hostile and harmful activity against the Orthodox Church in Poland" is composed in such general terms that it is impossible to establish precisely what transgressions A. Richynsky committed against the dogmas, the teaching of the Orthodox Church, and its fundamental canons, to warrant the proclamation of anathema against him. The canons cited in the Synod's resolution — Canon 55 of the Holy Apostles, Canon 18 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, and Canon 34 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council — speak about clergy and monastics who vex their bishop or "plot against" him, arranging among other things "gatherings of people," for which these canons prescribe that such clergy and monastics be stripped of their positions in the Church, not excommunicated from the Church. The Synod classified the layman A. Richynsky as a "cleric," his press articles in defense of the national-ecclesiastical rights and needs of the Ukrainian Orthodox population as "vexing" his bishop, and the Lutsk church congress, which had taken place almost two years earlier, as a "gathering of people" — and the initiator of the congress, A. Richynsky, who held no church position from which he could be removed, was simply excommunicated altogether from the Church.

In its act of excommunicating A. Richynsky, the Synod also presents the genesis of this act: it came to this, they say, after all the attempts of the Bishop-Metropolitan "to soften the hardened soul of Richynsky and to teach him to sing alleluia to God in the Orthodox manner." The main moments of these attempts, the Synod's resolution considers to be "the Metropolitan's invitation to A. Richynsky to Warsaw for the conference of July 1, 1928, together with other Ukrainian representatives, and the invitation of the same to membership in the Metropolitan Rada." But, says the resolution, "Richynsky displayed manifest obduracy and incorrigibility in his evil

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and harmful impulses and actions, and did not appreciate the gracious attitude of his archpastor toward him"...

To the Synod's act of anathematizing A. Richynsky, the Ukrainian community reacted freely and decisively. The Lviv daily Dilo (no. 111, May 22, 1929) published an "Open Letter of Deputy Ivan Wlasowsky to Metropolitan of Warsaw and Volyn Dionisiy," accompanying the printing of the letter with an editorial note that "Deputy Wlasowsky is competent to take the public floor in this matter (the excommunication of Richynsky) because he was the vice-chairman of the Ukrainian Church Committee, chairman of the Lutsk church congress of 1927, and had recently been making efforts to establish peaceful coexistence between the leaders of the Ukrainian Orthodox movement in Volyn and the Warsaw Metropolia."

In the "Open Letter to Metropolitan Dionisiy," Deputy Wlasowsky affirmed first of all that the full text of the Synod's resolution on excommunicating A. Richynsky from the Church left no doubt that Richynsky was excommunicated as the leader of the Ukrainian church movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland. For the "vexing of his bishop" by Dr. Richynsky, as of a number of other persons and over a number of years, arose solely "from highly idealistic motives to realize the right of the Ukrainian people — a right denied neither by the teaching of the Orthodox Church nor by its canons — to their own national church in the ranks of Orthodox churches of other peoples."

In the struggle against this idealistic national-ecclesiastical movement, its opponents had exploited the formal ability of the church authority to apply the "highest punishment" — excommunication from the Church. Having further stated that by this its essence — the struggle against the Ukrainian church movement — the Synod's resolution would find its answer "in the further life of Orthodox Ukrainians under Poland," the author of the letter presented to the broad public a number of facts to show how far the resolution of the hierarchs in the Synod departed from the factual and moral truth.

Having affirmed that the meeting of Ukrainian representatives with the Metropolitan on July 1, 1928, and the introduction of such representatives into the Metropolitan Rada should indeed have been "a turning point in the history of the Metropolia's relations with the Ukrainian church movement" but did not become such, the author of the letter calls it "specific seminary rhetoric" when the Synodal act of excommunicating Richynsky speaks of that potentially turning point as an attempt of "the gracious archpastor to soften the hardened soul of Richynsky and to teach him to sing alleluia to God in the Orthodox manner."

"Do You recall, Your Beatitude," the author of the letter asks, "that having turned to me with a request to provide a list of persons for invitation to the meeting of July 1, 1928, You expressed precisely regarding Dr. Richynsky Your unwillingness to have him at that meeting? And only my persistence and arguments that Dr. Richynsky's presence would be the best proof of the Metropolia's sincerity in changing its attitude toward the Ukrainian church movement led to Dr. Richynsky

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being included in the list"... The author of the letter further reminds the Metropolitan of the story, recounted by us above, of how Richynsky was introduced into the Metropolitan Rada — not at all in order "to soften his stony soul."

The author of the letter further demonstrates the untruth in the Synod's resolution when it says that the meeting of July 1, 1928, was a manifestation of "love and forgiveness toward the self-appointed leaders of the Ukrainian movement"...

"Why did this love, forgiveness, and solicitude for church peace come only a year after the Ukrainian Church Congress of June 5–6, 1927?" The author affirms that the Metropolitan's negotiations with him about convening a meeting with Ukrainian representatives for July 1, 1928, were initiated by the Metropolitan as a result of a letter to the Metropolitan from the Minister of Religious Denominations and Education, Dr. Dobrutsky, in which "the minister made the normalization of the legal relations between the Orthodox Church in Poland and the state contingent primarily on the church authority's development of such a Statute of the internal life of the Orthodox Church in Poland as would take into account the local traditions and customs destroyed by Moscow (in other words — Ukrainian, Belarusian), and the minister also advised that regarding this statute and the internal position in the Church generally, the Metropolitan consult serious persons and experts in local church tradition."

"I dare remind Your Beatitude," writes the author, "that to the meeting of July 1, 1928, You invited through me not 'self-appointed leaders of the Ukrainian church movement,' but precisely those serious persons about whom Minister Dobrutsky wrote to You in his letter, and in whom You sought support under those 'political circumstances'"...

Having recalled the peacefulness that the Ukrainians displayed at the session of the Metropolitan Rada of August 22–24, 1928, the author asks: "But did that peacefulness find a response, justification, and understanding in our further relations? No... And let anathema come upon me as well, but I shall not retreat from the assertion that the representatives of the Ukrainian people are not to blame for the fact that the attempt at peaceful settlement, in an evolutionary fashion, of national-ecclesiastical questions was abruptly broken off, and it is not they, and specifically not Dr. Richynsky, who are responsible for the disruption of 'church peace.'"

And further, the author, relying on the Metropolitan's own words, points out that what contributed most to this sad fact was the unfavorable attitude toward civic action in Orthodox church life of the new Minister of Religious Denominations, Svitalsky, who replaced Dr. Dobrutsky in the ministerial position, while the church authority yielded to the winds blowing from Svitalsky's ministry.

"In the light of the facts I have cited here," the author of the letter concludes, "how endlessly sad does that archpastoral act of excommunicating Dr. Richynsky from the Church appear! How impoverished and pitiful in the Synod's resolution is that 'lamentation' about the 'love and forgiveness' shown toward the 'self-appointed leaders of the Ukrainian church movement' headed by Dr. Richynsky, in response to which they supposedly displayed 'manifest obduracy and incorrigibility'!..

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By such acts the authority of the church leadership is neither elevated nor strengthened."

A month after the "Open Letter to Metropolitan Dionisiy" by Deputy Ivan Wlasowsky, the members of the Metropolitan Rada from the Ukrainians — M. Cherkavsky, I. Wlasowsky, V. Soloviy, and S. Khrutsky — addressed a letter to the Metropolitan dated June 24, 1929 (in the Lviv Dilo, this letter appeared in no. 156, July 17, 1929).

The authors of the letter, confirming all the facts cited in I. Wlasowsky's letter of May 15, 1929, underscore "the unheard-of insincerity and inconstancy in the attitude of the Archpastor toward his flock" that is so noticeable in the Metropolitan's attitude toward the Ukrainian church problem. They recall how they overcame the feelings of pain and sorrow that they brought away from the conference of August 24, 1928, during which they heard such an interpretation of Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical wishes that "can only be called mockery of an idea dear to us." But they did not withdraw from the Metropolitan Rada at that time, because they awaited further work in it, needed for our Ukrainian Orthodox people. They did not withdraw even later, "when the session of the Rada was already postponed for 'reasons beyond our control' for an indefinite time."

"But meanwhile," we read in the letter, "in accordance with a certain policy at the church summits, the work of Your (the Metropolitan's) trusted men was proceeding at the church grassroots. These trusted men, whose names are known to all, occupied all influential positions in the church administration in the localities and by their work deeply demoralized the rank-and-file clergy and people"... there was "the orchestration of various protests against demands in church life by Ukrainians, done not infrequently by command from above by the entire church-administrative apparatus; terror is applied toward clergy who sympathize with Ukrainian national aspirations."

The Synodal act on the excommunication from the Church of Dr. A. Richynsky, who together with those who signed the letter had worked on the healing of the church community, makes it impossible for these signatories to remain among the Metropolitan's "advisors" any longer. They declare that they are joining in this matter the protest that will be filed regarding the unjust anathema with the patriarchs and primates of other Orthodox autocephalous churches, and resign their title of members of the Metropolitan Rada. "Until such time," they write, "as justice is restored, until the spirit of Old Testament vengeance and derision reigns among the ranks of the church authority instead of the spirit of Evangelical love, we consider our presence among Your (the Metropolitan's) advisors superfluous. Our voice You will not heed, Your Eminence, as You have not heeded it until now"...

Thus, six representatives of the Ukrainian lay community who had been in the leadership of the Ukrainian church movement departed from the Metropolitan Rada, while the seventh Ukrainian layman, Yevhen Yasinsky, who had been introduced into the Metropolitan Rada by virtue of his position as chairman of the Lutsk Holy Cross Brotherhood, had already in

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February 1929 lost his membership in the Rada, having stepped down from the position of chairman of the Brotherhood.

Protests against the excommunication of Dr. A. Richynsky from the Church came to the Metropolia from individual persons, parishes, and Ukrainian organizations. Fifty representatives of the parish of the Volodymyr-Volynskyi cathedral, to which Richynsky belonged, in protesting against the Synodal act demanded that they too be anathematized. "Even the Russian community and press, which does not share the fundamental positions and aspirations of Dr. Richynsky," wrote the former members of the Metropolitan Rada in the above-mentioned letter to the Metropolitan, "expressed solidarity in their assessment both of the act of excommunication itself and of its motives and grounds with the opinion of the Ukrainians."

One of the most vivid expressions of the general indignation was the gathering of Ukrainian Orthodox intelligentsia in Warsaw, which took place on May 17, 1929, in the premises of the Ukrainian Club. At this well-attended gathering, after a presentation by Mr. Kyrkychenko, in which the Synod's resolution on the excommunication of A. Richynsky from the Church was analyzed in detail, those present unanimously resolved: 1. To recognize the resolution of the Holy Synod of April 15, 1929, no. 14, on the excommunication from the Church and anathematization of physician Arsen Richynsky as an act binding on no one, issued by the Synod in defense of old Muscovite traditions and in the heat of a national-political struggle against the Ukrainian church movement; — 2. To recognize that the Holy Synod, in issuing the said resolution, abused its high position in the Orthodox Church in Poland and improperly applied the canonical rules of the Holy Universal Orthodox Church; — 3. In the interest of Christian love, violated by this non-canonical act, to bring the unjust resolution of the Holy Synod to the attention of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and all the highest dignitaries of the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches of the entire world; — 4. To present copies of this resolution to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, the Minister of Religious Denominations and Education of the Polish Commonwealth, and to the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland, as well as to convey it to physician Arsen Richynsky with expressions of deep sympathy and highest esteem (Tryzub, no. 26, June 23, 1929, pp. 12–13).

8. Lawsuits by the Polish episcopate against the Orthodox Church for parish churches. The Neo-Uniate action of Rome and attempts through lawsuits for churches to conduct "conversions." The indignation of the Orthodox population and the aspiration toward unity in defense against the offensive of Rome. Dr. A. Richynsky's declaration to the Holy Synod; his return to the bosom of the Orthodox Church on March 22, 1930. The fundamental decision of the Supreme Court in Warsaw on November 20, 1933, on the matter of the revindication of churches by administrative order rather than by court.

In the summer of 1929, an event occurred in the life of the Orthodox Church in Poland that deeply shook the Church and evoked in its life the aspiration for the spirit of unity and concord against the offensive upon Orthodoxy by its ancient enemy in Poland — the Roman Catholic clergy. We mean

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the mass lawsuits by the Polish episcopate against the Orthodox Church, filed with the district courts in Lutsk, Rivne, Pinsk, Berest, Bilostok, Hrodna, Vilna, and Novohrudok, with demands for the mass (724 lawsuits in total) seizure from the Orthodox of their churches, as well as Orthodox monasteries (in Volyn), including the Pochayiv Dormition Lavra.

The basis for the lawsuits was that the churches and monasteries whose return to the Catholic Church the Latin-Polish episcopate demanded had been unlawfully seized by the Russian government and transferred to the Orthodox clergy from the Uniates, when the Union was forcibly liquidated by that government after the Polish November Uprising of 1831.

The emergence of these lawsuits, ten years into the existence of restored Poland, presents itself as follows. We already noted in the introduction to this section the particular conditions of the Orthodox Church's life in the restored Polish Commonwealth, burdened by a "traditional Catholic legacy," and raised the question of whether behind the Polish state authority the grim shadow of Rome would once again rise with its hunger to "convert" people by all means "ad majorem Dei gloriam."

It would have been logical to suppose that Rome would first of all exploit the fact that within the borders of its faithful daughter, restored Poland, there now found themselves together the Uniate (or Greek Catholic) Church of Galicia with Ukrainian faithful numbering up to 3.5 million and approximately 2.5 million Orthodox Ukrainians (1931) of Western Volyn, Polissia, the Kholm region, and Pidliashshia — who together constituted Western Ukraine, in whose historical past the church Union had played so significant a role.

The Union of Brest, that "act of unheard-of violence against the freedom of faith of the Ukrainian people, perpetrated by the Polish state authority in alliance with Rome at the end of the 16th century," by which "the religious unity of the Ukrainian people was destroyed" (see Vol. I of this work, p. 275) — now, it seemed to some, was to serve precisely the opposite purpose: the restoration of that unity, not in the name, it is true, of church-religious or dogmatic considerations, but in the name of "national unity," in the feeling of "the obligations of Ukrainian patriotism" (see "The Epistle of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky to the Ukrainian Believing Orthodox Intelligentsia" — St. Baran. Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. Munich, 1947, pp. 130–131).

For the Union in Galicia over its past historical centuries had become "nationally Ukrainian," and the Greek Catholic Church of Galicia was "the sole national Ukrainian church" (the Muscophilism in the ranks of Uniate clergy of Galicia was not mentioned), while in Greater Ukraine the former "Ukrainian Orthodoxy" had become "Muscovite," and with that same character it existed on the northwestern Ukrainian lands now under Poland. Thus, "breaking the religious Sokal border" between the Ukrainians of Galicia on one side and the Ukrainians of Volyn, Polissia, the Kholm region, and Pidliashshia on the other — this expression meant the conversion to the "Ukrainian Union" of the Orthodox Ukrainians under Poland. Obviously, the

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plans of Metropolitan Sheptytsky included this patriotic action when he consecrated Yosyf Botsian as Bishop of Lutsk for Volyn.

But Rome did not at all support Metropolitan Sheptytsky with his Union plans built on Ukrainian patriotic sentiments. Moreover, Rome entirely excluded both him and the entire Greek Catholic Church of Galicia from the new Union action in the state of restored Poland. The Uniate congress in Lviv still bitterly complained about this at the end of 1935, adopting the following resolution: "Those assembled consider that the Greek Catholic clergy of the Galician land, nationally and ritually connected with the non-united brethren residing in Poland, has above all others the right to labor for the union of their brethren. Therefore, expressing its deep regret that precisely this clergy has been obstructed in its Union work among their own brethren, the Congress appeals to the Apostolic See that, in the name of success among the non-united brethren, 1) Greek Catholic clergy be admitted to Union work in those lands of Poland where Orthodox reside, and 2) a separate hierarchy of the Byzantine-Slavonic rite be established with full jurisdiction in the territories of Union work" (K. N. Nikolaev. The Eastern Rite. Paris, 1950, p. 254).

Why then did the Apostolic See confine the old Union within the borders of Galicia and not admit Greek Catholic missionaries to Union work for the "conversion of the non-united" Ukrainian brethren in Volyn, Polissia, the Kholm region, and Pidliashshia under Poland? Perhaps the reason was the struggle in Ukrainian Greek Catholicism against Latinization, for the purity of its Eastern rite; or perhaps quite the opposite: the Latinisms had so corrupted the Orthodox rite in Uniatism over the centuries that to go to the Orthodox Ukrainian brethren with those Latinisms for their conversion was deemed hopeless. But the most important reason was, in our opinion, the opposition of the Polish government in this matter, for which it was desirable neither to spread the Union with its nationally Ukrainian character to territories with an Orthodox Ukrainian population, nor, potentially, to unite 6 million Ukrainians in the Polish Commonwealth in "Ukrainian Orthodoxy." For the time being, the "religious Sokal border" remained more politically advantageous, and the Vatican had to agree with this. Bishop Yosyf Botsian, consecrated for the Lutsk cathedra, was not permitted to go to Lutsk, and in Poland's Concordat with Rome, concluded in 1925 when the Endeks ("National-Democracy") were in power, there was Article 18, according to which "the clergy and faithful of all rites who find themselves outside their own diocese are subject to the authority of the local ruling bishop, in accordance with canonical rules." This meant that the canonical authority over Greek Catholics residing outside the three Uniate dioceses defined by the Concordat (Lviv, Stanyslaviv, and Peremyshl) belonged to the Polish Catholic hierarchy.

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Having excluded the adherents of the old Union from the Union action, Rome pursued in Poland a Neo-Uniate action, which at the time bore various names: "new Union," "government Union," "Union of the Eastern rite," "Union of the Eastern-Slavonic rite," "Union of the Byzantine-Slavonic rite." Of these, the name "Union of the Eastern rite," or simply "the Eastern Rite" (in Catholicism), became established in history.

The history in modern Poland of this "Eastern Rite" as a "new Union" is not the task of our work. A detailed monograph on this "Neo-Union," which, in our humble opinion, the "Neo-Union" did not even deserve given its meager results, was written by K. N. Nikolaev, former legal counsel to the Synod of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland, under the title The Eastern Rite (published by the YMCA in Paris, 1950, 335 pp.).

Such a history is not our task because the Neo-Uniate action of the "Eastern Rite" played, one can say, no role whatsoever in the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland; this movement came into contact with it essentially only in cases of the common offense against the entire Orthodox Church in Poland by the Polish Catholic clergy, as was the case with the above-mentioned lawsuits for churches in 1929.

The Neo-Uniate action of Rome did not have a nationally Ukrainian character and in this regard was not a competitor to the Ukrainian church movement in Orthodoxy. We know of not a single case where a parish in which the divine services had begun to be celebrated in the living Ukrainian language converted to the Union of the "Eastern Rite." The Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in Orthodoxy did not have to fight against the Union of the "Eastern Rite" as a supposedly "Polonizing" action either.

When one reads that "the Polonization of the Ukrainian population of Volyn through the government Union action was to proceed at a rapid pace," one can only wonder at the authors' unfamiliarity with the given matter or at their tendency to distort it. That the Neo-Uniate action of the Roman Catholic clergy was called in Poland at its inception "governmental" is true, but this was a misunderstanding, caused by the Polish administration in the localities, which considered it its duty to support its Catholic clergy in all undertakings.

When the first "defector" (perelyot), Fr. Yevheniy Sliozka, priest of the village of Ozero in the Lutsk district, appeared in Volyn in April 1925 — he, fearing accountability for the improper management of church property, went to the Lutsk Bishop Dubovsky and converted to Catholicism, having received from Dubovsky the assignment to organize in the village of Ozero a parish of the "Eastern Rite" — the Polish administration considered it its duty to support Sliozka in the action entrusted to him. But the peasants did not follow Sliozka when they learned the truth about his conversion to Catholicism and his being stripped of his rank by the Orthodox diocesan authority; the church remained with the Orthodox. Sliozka then received from the Catholic mission the means for the construction of a chapel for the "Eastern Rite," for the consecration of which by the Roman Catholic Vicar Bishop Godlewski a representative from the voivodeship government and the district head arrived.

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This "moral" support essentially exhausted the support by the Polish authorities for the first attempt to organize a parish of the "Eastern Rite" in Volyn. Soon Fr. Sliozka was no longer in the village of Ozero (he was put on trial, served a prison sentence, and then returned with penitence to Orthodoxy), and the chapel of the "Eastern Rite" that he had built on the church land of the Ozero parish, with a padlock on its door, continued to stand unused, as a symbol of the "successes" of the Neo-Uniate action in Volyn.

"Everything that arose in Rome in connection with the Eastern Rite (the Commission 'Pro Russia'), the Poles condemned and spoke out rather sharply," writes the expert on the "Eastern Rite" Union, K. N. Nikolaev (op. cit., p. 187). "The Neo-Uniate movement," he also writes, "recognizes the Eastern rite with the Church Slavonic language of divine worship and with preaching also in the Russian language. By an irony of fate and a coincidence of tragic circumstances, the Jesuits in Volyn defended those values of Orthodoxy that Metropolitan Dionisiy was unable to preserve. For these reasons, the Neo-Uniate movement met with opposition from Ukrainian politicians — admittedly, not so much from the standpoint of ecclesiastical interests as of political ones. On the same point of view stood the Polish government and Polish society. The Union is not a bad thing, but when this Union strengthens the Slavonic language of divine worship and preaching in local languages, including Russian, then this is not at all what the government desires" (p. 203; emphasis ours).

Can there be more authoritative testimony about the Union of the "Eastern Rite" — that it was not a "Polonizing" action — than the testimony of K. N. Nikolaev? On the basis of the Polish press and the polemical literature surrounding Rome's Neo-Uniate action, the author clearly shows (pp. 203–208) that the Union of the "Eastern Rite" found no support either in Polish society or in the Polish government, especially after Piłsudski's coup, because that Union, in the view of the Poles, did not at all serve Polonization but rather conducted Russification work in the "borderlands" (kresy), and as such "has dubious benefit for the Roman Catholic Church, and is extraordinarily harmful to the Polish state."

Thus the Union of the "Eastern Rite," with its Russian-Slavonic language of divine worship, naively calculated more for proselytism in post-Bolshevik Russia, had no basis for success in Poland, where the Orthodox Church still had enough of its own Russifiers among the clergy. In 1929, the Eastern Rite in Poland had under the jurisdiction of the Polish Catholic bishops a total of 26 parishes, 22 churches, 25 secular clergy and 7 monastic clergy, and 16,504 faithful (K. Nikolaev, p. 169). What kind of missionary success is this, compared to more than 1,400 parishes in the Orthodox Church in Poland? "In Volyn in 1928 there were 4 Uniate parishes. Honestly speaking, no results and no hope..." (K. Nikolaev, p. 169).

When the author of this work held the position of secretary of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory (1934–39), the Volyn diocese, with its 689 parishes, counted 9 parishes of the Eastern Rite; they had converted to it before the appointment to the Volyn cathedra of Archbishop Oleksiy Hromadsky in 1934, even though the Eastern

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Rite already from 1931 had its own Ukrainian bishop from Galicia, Mykolay Charnetsky, in the capacity of Apostolic Visitator of Eastern Rite parishes in Poland.

And even more pitiful than quantitatively, the action of the Eastern Rite Union in Poland appears qualitatively. "To the Union," says K. Nikolaev, "simply adventurers converted, who dragged behind them a morally weakened peasant mass which, by submitting a petition to the Catholic bishop, won the sympathies of the police and petty Polish officials in the localities, and sometimes certain material advantages as well... With the aid of the Union, scores were settled with unwanted rectors of parishes" (p. 132).

We can endorse this characterization of the Neo-Uniate movement in Poland with only the correction that one cannot, in our opinion, speak of a "peasant mass," since the adventurers from among the Orthodox clergy who became "apostles of unification" — and there were not even 10 of them known in the entire Orthodox Church in Poland, nomina sunt odiosa — gathered to their aid equally adventuristic elements in the parish, not "masses."

In cases where, in the words of K. N. Nikolaev, "scores were settled with the aid of the Union with unwanted rectors of parishes," the fault often lay with the Spiritual Consistory, which had not paid timely attention to the complaints of parishioners and had not resolved the aggravated relations that had arisen in the parish between priests and parishioners. This was the case in the parish of the village of Zhabche in Volyn, whose tragic Union history, ultimately resolved by the President of the Commonwealth himself (return of the church), could have been entirely avoided had the Consistory appointed a different priest to Zhabche in due time; "Ukrainianism" played no role whatsoever in that story.

The very, very feeble achievements of the Catholic propaganda of the new Union were moreover not even secure, for just as priests who had been Orthodox, dubbed "defectors" (perelyoty), returned from the Union back to Orthodoxy, so too parishes abandoned the Union, having been fraudulently led to it, for one can scarcely name even a single case in the Orthodox Church in Poland where a parish consciously, from religious-ideological convictions, left Orthodoxy and converted to the Union of the Eastern Rite.

The history of Christ's Church, like the history of religions in general, is rich in examples of how religious teachings were spread not only by preaching, through which they were accepted out of conviction of their truth, superiority, and salvific nature for the individual — which method of propagation would correspond to the very essence of religion — but also by means unworthy of a true faith in God, by various means of a coercive character, including violence against human life. Coercion was also applied in the propaganda of the Eastern Rite Union in Poland. "The failure of the broad propaganda of the Eastern Rite," writes K. Nikolaev, "was fully evident by the beginning of 1929; therefore, in order to compel the Orthodox population to take this propaganda more seriously, the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical authority filed claims for the transfer to the Catholic Church of that church property from which

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the population had benefited from being in union in past times. More than a century ago the population had returned to the faith of their fathers, and now it was supposed to hand over church property solely because there had once been a union here" (Op. cit., p. 170). Such was the genesis of the 724 lawsuits for the churches of the Orthodox Church, filed in Polish courts by the Polish episcopate in 1929. Who was the initiator of this "missionary" step — Rome itself or the Polish bishops — we cannot say, but Rome did not remain neutral in this matter, for the papal nuncio in Warsaw, Marmaggi, on the basis of instructions from the Apostolic See, issued certificates to Polish ordinaries for the courts, according to which they, the ordinaries, have the right to defend through civil proceedings the property that once belonged to Catholic clergy of all rites (Ibid., pp. 173-4). Obviously, the court lawsuits for churches — among which there were very few Roman Catholic churches, but rather these were formerly Uniate churches of the so-called Greek Catholic rite — were calculated so that, in fear of being left without their holy places, the Orthodox population would flock en masse to the "Eastern Rite," whose services would differ from Orthodox ones only in that, for the time being, the Roman Pope would be commemorated during them. But the initiators of the lawsuits forgot that it was already the twentieth century. The lawsuits caused no fear whatsoever among the population; not a single parish went over to the new union just to keep its church. On the contrary, there arose extraordinary indignation among the Orthodox population of Poland and its unification, as already mentioned above, in defense of its churches. These sentiments of the Orthodox were vividly conveyed in an interview of that time by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church with a correspondent of the periodical "Dzień Polski":

"I think," said the Metropolitan, "that one should not give the people even an outward sense that a new violence is being perpetrated against them. For, under Eastern law, these village churches belong to the people themselves. In them the people were baptized and prayed; beside them they buried their dead. Within their walls is concentrated that which is strongest in the people, and often the most salvific in the face of unbridled agitation — this is the 'faith of the fathers'... It will lead them onto paths better than any court lawsuits, in which the people will see only hostile attacks against them. I have already heard that the people are ready to react to them with hostility. Greek Catholic clerical circles take no part whatsoever in the revindications. And I am glad that I can say this. It seems to me that our position corresponds to Roman moderation"... (Ibid., pp. 175-6). The last phrase was added, obviously, only for Rome, which was conducting the Neo-Uniate action without the participation of the Greek Catholic clergy.

At the time of this offensive against Orthodoxy by the Polish Catholic clergy, a reconciliation also took place in the relations between the leadership of the Ukrainian ecclesiastical movement and the Supreme Church Authority of the Orthodox Church in Poland. The initiative to establish an "overall peace" within the Church

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in dire times of attack upon it came from the Ukrainian side, when Dr. Arsen Richynsky, excommunicated from the Church on April 15, 1929, submitted the following declaration to the Synod of the Church on February 20, 1930:

"The successful defense of the rights and property of the Orthodox Church — especially during the intensified pressure upon it from the Polish clergy — is possible only through the joint efforts of our citizenry and the church authorities. However, in many cases among the Ukrainian citizenry, the matter of my anathema stands as an obstacle to such a unification of our defensive church-national forces; without doubt, this matter will also be raised at the Church Sobor, although this may inflame passions at an inappropriate moment. Therefore, so as not to stand in the way at such a threatening time, and in view of Premier Bartel's statement of January 11, 1930, that the normalization of the legal position of the Orthodox Church in Poland the Government makes contingent upon the stabilization of internal church relations — wishing to contribute to the extent of my abilities and knowledge to the strengthening of the Church, which in the history of the Ukrainian people under Poland has been a bastion against their denationalization — I ask the Holy Synod, in a fatherly manner, setting aside previous disagreements, to annul its resolution of April 15, 1929, No. 14, and to re-admit me to the community of the faithful. So that this declaration of mine may once more demonstrate to the Polish clergy how the Ukrainian population in Poland regards their encroachments, I agree to its publication. The Holy Synod may be pleased to send me a response through the intermediary of the Parliamentary Commission for the Defense of the Church only, or alternatively through its secretariat."

Dr. A. Richynsky's declaration was heard at a session of the Synod on March 22, 1930, and was granted by the resolution: "To instruct Metropolitan Dionisiy to receive physician Arsen Richynsky into the bosom of the Holy Orthodox Church, in accordance with his request."

Richynsky's declaration mentions a Church Sobor of the Orthodox Church in Poland, for following the court proceedings initiated by the Polish Catholic episcopate for Orthodox churches, in the Orthodox church life agitated by these proceedings, the question was raised of the urgent convocation of a National Church Sobor; we shall tell about this further. The court lawsuits of the Polish Catholic clergy, initiated for the success of the Neo-Uniate action but in reality only contributing to the failure of this action, had no further significance in the history of the conciliar question in the Orthodox Church in Poland, and therefore we can conclude with these lawsuits by citing the final ruling on the fundamental issue by the Polish Supreme Court of November 20, 1933. According to this ruling of the Supreme Court of the Republic, the Decree of the General Commissar of the Eastern Lands of October 22, 1919, was recognized as valid, on the basis of which the transfer of holy places from Orthodox clergy to Roman Catholic clergy may take place in each individual case on the basis of an administrative order of the Head of the District (these heads of districts were now the voivodes

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in Poland). The Supreme Court rejected the pursuit of ownership rights to these holy places through the courts. The decree of the General Commissar of the Eastern Lands of October 22, 1919, related to the transfer of former Roman Catholic churches that under Russia had become Orthodox churches, and did not affect formerly Uniate churches. "Thus," writes K. Nikolaev, "having washed its hands in this litigation, the Supreme Court liquidated the threat that had hung over the Orthodox Church in Poland since 1929" (Op. cit., p. 177).

The ruling of the Supreme Court of November 20, 1933, was entirely political in character, dictated by the Government of Poland, which sought a way out of the difficult situation that the Catholic clergy had created in the country had it succeeded in taking away half the churches from the Orthodox population through the courts. Government policy, given the persistence of Rome, had to be "from Anna to Caiaphas." After all, only recently the Government had viewed the matter of the revindication of holy places differently. The Catholic Bishop of Lutsk had turned on May 14, 1930, to the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education with a request to transfer the Orthodox church in the village of Kraska, Kovel district in Volyn, to Uniates of the "Eastern Rite." The Ministry, by rescript of May 31, 1930, No. VI. S. 365-27, instructed the Volyn Voivode to inform the Bishop of Lutsk that "the law currently in force does not give the administrative authorities the ability to dispose of churches and the buildings belonging to them, nor to issue any, even temporary, orders regarding their use. The resolution of the question of ownership rights, which is here the decisive factor, falls under the competence of the judicial authorities" ("Dukhovnyi Siiach," No. 20, 1930, p. 247). This competence in the given matter was renounced by the highest judicial authority in its ruling of the Supreme Court of November 20, 1933, recognizing as "currently binding law" a decree issued during the transitional period of state formation by the now-nonexistent office of the General Commissar of the Eastern Lands. And on the basis of this ruling, "from 1933 until the day of the Polish catastrophe, as K. N. Nikolaev writes, the administration was able to take away only one church, in Vyshhorodok in Volyn, which in its time had been a Catholic church. In everything else, all the actions of the administration in the dismantling and closing of churches bore the character of arbitrary rule, and the Uniate action could not benefit from the consequences of this arbitrary rule" (Op. cit., p. 178).

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9. "Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn" and its great role in the history of the national-ecclesiastical movement in Poland. Volyn Voivode H. Yuzevsky (1928-1938) in cooperation with the Ukrainian church movement. The opening of the Society named after Metropolitan Petro Mohyla; the participation of Metropolitan Dionisiy and Archbishop Oleksiy in the opening. The idea of conciliarity at the foundation of the activity of the Petro Mohyla Society. The Charter of the President of Poland of May 30, 1930, on the convocation of a Sobor of the Orthodox Church in Poland. The Pre-Conciliar Assembly, its composition and opposition to the Ukrainization of the Church. The consecration of Archimandrite Polikarp Sikorsky as bishop; the significance of this act in the history of the Ukrainian church movement. The de-Russification of the Lutsk Holy Cross Brotherhood. The activity of Bishop Polikarp in his position as vicar bishop of Lutsk.

As could already be seen more than once from the preceding depiction of the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland, this movement could not be purely ecclesiastical, or a movement in the purely religious sphere; it was closely bound up with questions of a political character. The Polish government had its own political goals in one or another attitude toward this movement; the hierarchical authority of the Church accommodated itself to a great extent to one or another church policy of the government; the political grouping RNO, with 1% of the Russian Orthodox population in Poland, considered itself the representative of all the "Orthodox-believing people" in Poland and influenced the hierarchy, warring against the Ukrainian church movement in the name of a bond tied "by indissoluble historical ties to the Mother Church of Moscow" (A. Svitich). Hence, to all the accusations against Ukrainian church activists that they were bringing politics into the Church, one should respond: "Physician, heal thyself." Life itself, circumstances and conditions, bind together in history the ecclesiastical life with the political, and perhaps no autocephalous Orthodox Church has been so permeated with politics, even to this day, as the Russian Church, now under godless rule.

Above we told how the Lutsk Church Congress took place in June 1927 with the permission of the Polish administration and contrary to the strict prohibition of the Holy Synod of the Church; likewise, the Ukrainian Church Committee, elected by the Congress, operated for more than a year with the permission of the civil authorities. But in those times, the leading figures of the Ukrainian church movement were predominantly opponents of the Polish government in Western Ukraine, and at the Lutsk Church Congress, deputies and senators of the Ukrainian Sejm Club from the elections of 1922, also oppositional to the government, played a prominent role. It is possible that the closure by the authorities of the Ukrainian Church Committee had among its reasons the composition of its members, which was unaccommodating toward the government. The words of Dr. Richynsky cited above (subsection 7) at the meeting with the Metropolitan on August 24, 1928: "Now I understand that we made a mistake when we rejected the suggestion of the Poles, who told us: go with us and you will have everything, even the deposition of Dionisiy" — these words evidently had their basis in conversations with representatives of the government, which gave permission for the Lutsk Church Congress.

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In the periodical "Ukrainska Nyva," of an accommodationist character, which began to appear in late 1926 in Warsaw under the editorship of Petro Pevnyi, and was then transferred in publication to Lutsk, from the very first issues there began the printing of an article by Dr. A. V. Richynsky, "The Contemporary Ukrainian Church Movement," and in issue No. 1 of that new periodical there was published a photograph of Archimandrite Polikarp Sikorsky, then rector of the Volodymyr-Volynskyi cathedral. This pointed to a particular interest in church affairs by the organ of the newly forming political Ukrainian accommodationist current in Poland.

During the elections to the Sejm and Senate in March 1928, from this current, from list No. 1 of the "Non-Partisan Bloc of Cooperation with the Government," two deputies passed from Volyn — Ye. S. Bohuslavsky and V. Ya. Seheida; they, already because of their such small number, and mainly because of the unpopularity of the current itself, played, one may say, no role in the Ukrainian church movement as Sejm deputies in 1928-30. The situation changed after the premature dissolution of the Sejm and Senate and the calling of new elections for November 1930. The "Non-Partisan Bloc of Cooperation with the Government of Marshal Piłsudski" at all costs needed to obtain a majority in the legislative institutions of Poland, and in the November 1930 elections it obtained it, at the expense especially of the so-called "kresy" (borderlands), where elections could be managed in various ways, more so than in core Poland. Ukrainians, regardless of party, agreed in these elections to have a single electoral list in the Ukrainian lands under Poland, the number of which was 11. But in the lands with Ukrainian population (Volyn, Polissia, Kholmshchyna), from this list only one deputy passed to the Sejm, and not a single senator to the Senate. The Ukrainian Orthodox population of these lands so immediately desired "cooperation" that it gave all the mandates to list No. 1 of the "Non-Partisan Bloc," in which there were candidates of various nationalities, including Ukrainians who had agreed to accommodation, predominantly from emigres of the Ukrainian National Republic. This group of Ukrainian deputies and senators, belonging to the "Non-Partisan Bloc," numbering 8 persons elected from the Volyn voivodeship, formed the "Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn," whose organ became "Ukrainska Nyva."

In the history of the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland, the "Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn" played, without doubt, the greatest role, and for the greatest achievements that the movement attained under Poland, it is indebted to that UPRepresentation of Volyn, from whose establishment Ukrainian church activists in it, and in cooperation with it, were able to conduct great work. The main thing here was, of course, the support of the Ukrainian church movement from the side of the Polish government, in cooperation with which, and not in opposition to which, the Ukrainian deputies and senators of Volyn from the "Non-Partisan Bloc" found themselves. For without this support, the church movement for Ukrainization would never have achieved significant gains. Not without significance was also the circumstance that

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at the head of the Polish administration in Volyn, in the position of voivode, after the leapfrog when in 9 years of Polish rule in Volyn 14 voivodes had changed, this position was occupied from the end of summer 1928 until Pascha 1938, for nearly 10 years minus 3-4 months, by Voivode, former Minister of Internal Affairs, Henryk Yuzevsky. He was, as they said, in the affairs of the Orthodox Church in Poland a "man of trust" of Marshal Piłsudski, and therefore was appointed (in March 1931) as the government's representative in the so-called Mixed Pre-Conciliar Commission consisting of representatives of the Orthodox hierarchy and the Government; besides him, the government's representatives in that Commission were the Director of the Department of Religious Denominations, Count F. Pototsky, and the head of the Division for National Minorities' Affairs at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, H. Sukhenek-Sukhetsky. But Voivode H. Yuzevsky, according to the testimony of Commission member Archbishop Oleksiy, was the chief government representative among them.

K. Nikolaev says: "The Polish government understood just as well as the Soviet one that the key to victory over Orthodoxy was the internal weakening of the Church. The national question was the surest means to that end. By surrendering the Orthodox Church to Ukrainian chauvinists in Volyn, the government achieved several goals at once. It satisfied national demands where the interests of the government were least affected, tore Volyn away from Galicia, which was anti-Polish in sentiment, and, moreover, split the unity of the Church" (Op. cit., p. 244). We see here an original understanding of "chauvinism": when Ukrainians demand their native language in worship and preaching, a native national hierarchy and clergy, that is chauvinism; but when they are Russified or Polonized through the Church, what should that be called? The creation of "unity" of the Church? Galicia should only have rejoiced at the de-Russification of the Orthodox Church among the Ukrainian people, and not felt a deepening of the rift with Volyn because of it; for Poland, as we have said more than once above, it was not at all in the state interest to support the Muscovite spirit in the Orthodox Church, having won independence for it from the Moscow Patriarchate.

Thus, in a retrospective review of the policy of Volyn Voivode H. Yuzevsky with regard to the Orthodox Church, we cannot but acknowledge that this policy, being positive for Ukrainians, was at the same time also Polish-statist in character — a character that the policy toward the Orthodox confession in the state did not have either from the "endek" (National Democracy), being a "confessionally Catholic" policy, or in the last years before the Second World War from the "sanation" government, which, already after Piłsudski's death, thought up the idea of Polonizing the Ukrainian and Belarusian Orthodox through "Polish Orthodoxy."

The change of situation, when the leadership of the Ukrainian church movement passed from the hands of opponents of the Polish government to the hands of newly elected Ukrainian parliamentarians of the pro-government party — was immediately felt and well understood by the higher church authority of the Orthodox Church. In spring 1931, the UPRepresentation of Volyn came to the idea of creating

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a separate church-religious society that would deal more closely with the affairs of the national-ecclesiastical movement, would defend the interests of the Orthodox Church, and would conduct church-religious publishing. As general secretary of this society, former director of the Lutsk Ukrainian gymnasium and Sejm deputy Ivan Wlasowsky was invited, on whose initiative the society was given the name: "Society named after Metropolitan Petro Mohyla." According to the statute of this Society, registered by the Volyn Voivodeship Administration on June 16, 1931, its members could be not only Ukrainian Orthodox, but also Orthodox of other nationalities — members of the Orthodox Church in Poland.

They turned to Metropolitan Dionisiy, sending the statute of the Society and asking for a blessing to begin the Society's activities. The Metropolitan expressed his wish to personally attend the opening of the Petro Mohyla Society. The opening of the Society took place solemnly, at its constituent meeting, on November 19, 1931, in Lutsk, with the participation of the First Hierarch of the Church, Metropolitan Dionisiy, and the Chancellor of the Holy Synod, Archbishop Oleksiy of Hrodna. History has recorded that among the series of speeches delivered at the meeting, already in the absence of the hierarchs, there was a speech by one of the members of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory, who called for great caution in introducing the Ukrainian language into worship, since in the village girls might say: "I can hear that sort of thing even in the beet fields"... From here to the earlier qualification of the Ukrainian language by Metropolitan Antoniy Khrapovitsky as "bazaar language," and therefore unworthy of prayer, came — from the lips of a member of the Spiritual Consistory — a similar qualification, as a "beet" language. Despite this, one needs no great intelligence to understand what an enormous impression on Volyn and beyond Volyn, among the deans and ordinary clergy, was made by the appearance of Metropolitan Dionisiy with Archbishop Oleksiy at the opening of the Petro Mohyla Society and the Metropolitan's blessing of that Society for its work.

This event evidently had its echo abroad as well, in the "Russian Church Abroad," whose head, Metropolitan Antoniy, in a letter to Metropolitan Dionisiy, reproached his former vicar for having blessed the work of a Ukrainian society that had chosen as its patron the "Uniate" Metropolitan Petro Mohyla. The response to this reproach was a brochure written by Archbishop Oleksiy, under the title: "The Attitude of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla to the Question of Union with Rome," in which Archbishop Oleksiy demonstrated the untruthfulness of Metropolitan Antoniy in his slander of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla.

The Petro Mohyla Society, whose chairman was elected Senator S. P. Tymoshenko, began its activity with public lectures by invited professors from the Orthodox Theological Faculty at the University of Warsaw. Prof. V. O. Bidnov gave a lecture on the topic "Kyiv Metropolitan Petro Mohyla," Prof. O. H. Lototsky on the topic "Church Conciliarity." The full name of the Society in Article 1 of its statute was "Society of Supporters of Orthodox Education and the Preservation of the Traditions of the Orthodox Faith." Thus

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the first lectures organized by the Society in Lutsk pointed to the foundations of its ideology in the cultural-educational activity among the Ukrainian people of the famous seventeenth-century Metropolitan Petro Mohyla (see Vol. II of this work, pp. 196-207) and in the principles of conciliarity in the character and structure of the Orthodox Church, so characteristic precisely of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the ancient times of the Kyiv Metropolia, de jure subject to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, and de facto autocephalous. And it is simply laughable to read in A. K. Svitich that "the idea of conciliarity [in the Orthodox Church in Poland] was advanced in opposition to autocephaly by the best church-public figures and representatives of the capital and urban clergy — Archpriest Terentiy Teodorovych, Archpriest from Rivne N. Rohalsky, Fr. V. Zheleznyakovych, Senator Bohdanovych, editor of 'Za Svobodu' D. Filosofov and contributor to that newspaper A. Svitich (pseudonym Tuberozov)" (Op. cit., p. 61). In the Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical movement of the Orthodox Church in Poland, the idea of conciliarity as one of the main principles of that movement was certainly not taken from the Russian newspaper "Za Svobodu," but from the history of the ancient Ukrainian Church, at whose revival in Kyiv in the twentieth century, with the revolution in 1917, we see immediately the demand for an All-Ukrainian Church Sobor, following these Ukrainian church-conciliar traditions, and the non-periodical organ of the Petro Mohyla Society was also named "Za Sobornist" ("For Conciliarity"); 9 issues were published, under the editorship of the general secretary of the Society.

At that time, the conciliar question in the life of the Orthodox Church in Poland had been intensified, as mentioned above (subsection 8), by the court proceedings initiated in 1929 by the Polish Catholic episcopate for Orthodox holy places. The Orthodox hierarchy felt, as never before, the need to rely upon the people, as had also been the case in the Ukrainian past under Poland, when the Ukrainian townspeople in brotherhoods, the Ukrainian Cossacks, and the common people defended Orthodoxy against the offensive of Rome. And therefore the Synod of the Orthodox Church, at its session of December 12, 1929, resolved to convoke a Local Sobor of the Church on February 12, 1930, the electoral procedures for which, the statute of the Sobor, and its program had been essentially prepared by the Organizational Commission of the Metropolitan Rada in September 1928. But on the basis of the "Temporary" rules — already in force for 8 years — on the relationship of the Government to the Orthodox Church in Poland of January 30, 1922, the consent of the Minister of Religious Confessions and Education was required for the convocation of a Local Sobor (Article 14). Such consent was not given by Minister of Religious Denominations S. Czerwiński. The government decided to stage the conciliar action of the Orthodox Church in Poland as an act of high religious tolerance in the Republic of Poland. The electoral process for the Sobor was suspended. Instead, on May 30, 1930, a Charter was issued in the name of Metropolitan Dionisiy from the President of the Republic of Poland, in which it was solemnly proclaimed that "the time has come for the wishes of the highest leaders of the Orthodox Church in Poland, as well as of all citizens of the Polish Republic of the Orthodox faith, to be fulfilled, and for a Local Sobor to take place in Poland in accordance with the holy canons." This planned act was placed in a historical connection with the past of the Orthodox Church in old Poland. The Charter stated: "On June 15, 1791, through the care and efforts of the Government of the Most Serene Republic of Poland, in the city of Pinsk, the last Sobor of the Orthodox Church in Poland took place. Now, by the will of Providence, the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland can renew its connection with the historical past"...

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The President's Charter of May 30, 1930, also mentions the conciliar tradition of the Orthodox Church in old Poland, thereby as if underscoring the deprivation of this tradition during the time of the Orthodox Church's presence on these lands under Russia. But, of course, it was also passed over in silence that the "historical past" of our Church in old Poland contained far more of such things that "renewing the connection" with would have meant returning the Church to the martyrdoms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (see Vol. II of this work, Chapters VIII, IX, XI; Vol. III, Chapter IV, especially pp. 222-223), and that the conciliar tradition itself of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was not created "through the care and efforts" of the Government of the Republic of Poland, nor were its sobors in antiquity held thanks to them.

Why precisely now, in the twelfth year after the revival of Polish statehood, "the time had come" for the convocation of a Local Sobor of the Orthodox Church — the Charter of May 30, 1930, provides no explanation, but there is an immediate postponement of the Sobor for an indefinite time, since the Sobor, notwithstanding the fact that preparations for it had been going on for years in the Church, had to be preceded, by order of the President's Charter, by the work of a "Pre-Conciliar Assembly of representatives of the clergy and educated and pious laypeople." And Metropolitan Dionisiy, in his Epistle to the clergy and faithful on the occasion of the President's Charter of May 30, 1930, by which, in the words of the Epistle, "a new and bright page in the life of our Holy Church was opened," called upon the members of the Pre-Conciliar Assembly so that they, "through diligent preparatory work, would pave the way for the earliest possible convocation of the Local Sobor."

This call of the Metropolitan remained without consequences, for the Local Sobor of the Orthodox Church in Poland was never convoked until the very fall of Versailles Poland, nine years and several months after the President's Charter of May 30, 1930, and the solemn opening of the Pre-Conciliar Assembly on June 29 of that same year. The Pre-Conciliar Assembly was not to blame for this; it held its first, organizational, session on June 30 — July 4, 1930, and then its second session five years later, on May 13-14, 1935 — and that was the end. During those five years, several commissions of the Assembly held sessions — on religious, educational, parish life, and clergy affairs — while two commissions, for the development of the Internal Statute of the Church and for the consideration of its External Position in relation to state governments, held no sessions at all. The matters of the External and Internal Statutes of the Orthodox

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Church were taken up by the so-called Mixed Pre-Conciliar Commission, composed of Metropolitan Dionisiy and Archbishop Oleksiy, and significantly later also Archbishop Oleksander, and government representatives, who were: the Director of the Department of Religious Denominations, Count F. Pototsky, the Volyn Voivode H. Yuzevsky, and the official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, H. Sukhenek-Sukhetsky; This commission had no representatives of the clergy or "educated and pious laypeople" of the Orthodox Church at all.

Ukrainian church activists had no great cause to grieve over such a sidelining of the Pre-Conciliar Assembly — not due to any opposition, of course, to the conciliarist ideology in church life (the Ukrainian Orthodox press warmly welcomed the President's Charter of May 30, 1930) — but because of the tendentiously selected composition of the Assembly's members. Of 27 members of this Assembly — representatives of clergy and laity — there were 20, and then 21, Russians, and only 7, and then 6, Ukrainians; 10 were clergy, and 17 were laypersons. The Ukrainians among the clergy were Archpriest Pavlo Pashchevsky and Mitred Archpriest Stepan Hrushko; the Ukrainians among the laity were Prof. I. Ohienko, Prof. O. Lototsky, Prof. M. Kobryn, Sejm Deputy S. Khrutsky, and Dr. M. Pyrohiv; when Prof. I. Ohienko, who, like Prof. O. Lototsky, had been delegated to the Pre-Conciliar Assembly by the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at the University of Warsaw, left the Assembly's membership (because his contract with the Ministry of Education for lectures at the University was not renewed in 1932), his place was taken by Prof. M. Zyzykin of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at the University of Warsaw, a Russian.

The Pre-Conciliar Assembly of such an "istinno-russky" (truly Russian) composition in the majority of its members immediately showed its true face, when already at its first session it launched an offensive against the Ukrainization of the Church. Former Russian officials, Russian large landowners, and the like who had entered this Assembly imagined that they had the right not only to prepare materials for the future Sobor, but also to issue directives for implementation in current church life. Thus, at the first session, the Russian majority resolved to halt the Ukrainization of the Orthodox Church in Volyn (A. Svitich. Op. cit., p. 107), that is, to halt the effective force of the Synod's resolutions of June 16 and December 14, 1922, and September 3, 1924, on the use of the native language in church-religious life where parishioners so desired. At the second session of the Assembly, five years later, the representative of Ukrainian Volyn, former Russian judge Meletiy Bondarenko, delivered a speech about the violence of Ukrainization by Ukrainians of the Church in Volyn and proposed to affirm the previously adopted resolution and halt the Ukrainization action in the Church in Volyn until the convocation of the Sobor, which would definitively decide this question. The "istinno-russky" M. Bondarenko was supported by "conciliarists" Boris Leliavsky, Prince Lyshchynsky-Troiekurov, H. Moller, and others. Archbishop Oleksiy of Volyn, in response to Bondarenko's speech, declared that Volyn in matters of liturgical language had not deviated one iota

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did not violate the Synod's resolutions, and the "facts" cited by Bondarenko were at variance with the truth. In response to the proposal of Bondarenko and other "conciliar law advocates," a counter-proposal was submitted by the Ukrainian group, signed by Archbishop Oleksander of Polissia, Archbishop Oleksiy, Archpriest Pashchevsky, Prof. Lototsky, Prof. M. Kobryn, and others. The heated discussion was cut short by Metropolitan Dionisiy's statement that in matters of the Ukrainization of the Church, the Government also has a voice, and therefore these questions cannot be decided at present.

Ultimately, from the work of the Pre-Conciliar Assembly, perhaps the most valuable contribution that remained was an extensive scholarly-theological report in the Assembly's Commission by Prof. of the Volyn Theological Seminary, Master of Theology M. P. Kobryn, which, under the title "On the Language of Worship," was published in "Ukrainska Nyva" and issued as a separate book by its publishing house.

At the beginning of 1932, the Volyn Voivode H. Yuzevsky came forward with a proposal to the Minister of Religious Confessions and Education that the Government should raise in the Synod of the Orthodox Church the question of the consecration of a vicar bishop for the Lutsk cathedra, which had remained unfilled for already 9 years after the appointment of Bishop Oleksiy of Lutsk to the cathedra of the ruling bishop of Hrodna. The candidate desired by the Government for the Lutsk cathedra was named as Archimandrite Polikarp Sikorsky of the Zhyrovytsi Monastery (in the Hrodna diocese), who had been named, five years earlier, at the Lutsk Church Congress of 1927 as well, as the first Ukrainian candidate for the episcopate. Obviously, the Synod went to meet the government's proposal, but even in this fulfillment of Ukrainians' dreams to have a Ukrainian bishop, there was not without bargaining and concessions to the Russians. The government agreed to the consecration as vicar bishop of Lublin of Archimandrite Sava Sovietov, a Russian, with the consecration of Sovietov taking place a week before the consecration of Archimandrite Polikarp, which gave him seniority in the hierarchy over the Ukrainian candidate.

Archimandrite Polikarp, in the world Petro Dmytrovych Sikorsky, was born on June 20, 1875, in the family of the priest Fr. Dmytrii Sikorsky, in the village of Zelenky, Kaniv district, in the Kyiv region. He received his spiritual education at the Uman Bursa (lower theological school) and at the Kyiv Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1898. Petro Dmytrovych had already attained national consciousness on the seminary bench, belonging to an illegal Ukrainian youth circle, which was led by Oleksander Hnatovych Lototsky, then a student at the Kyiv Theological Academy. Until mid-1922, remaining a layman after completing the Theological Seminary, P. D. was constantly, one may say, at the church, for he served as a cantor at the Resurrection Church on the Pechersk in Kyiv and held various positions in church-administrative institutions; before the revolution of 1917, he was a desk chief of the Kyiv Spiritual Consistory, and with the revolution he entered the service of the Ukrainian government, being in the Ministry of Religious Denominations the head of the economic department, and then vice-director of the Department of General Affairs, already during the emigration of the Government of the Ukrainian National Republic. From Tarnów, the place of residence of the UNR Government, P. D.

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moved in 1922 to Kremenets in Volyn, to Archbishop Dionisiy of Volyn, who employed him in the service of the Spiritual Consistory. On July 27, 1922, Petro Sikorsky, in his 48th year of life, received the monastic tonsure from the hands of Archimandrite Oleksiy Hromadsky, rector of the Kremenets Theological Seminary and head of the Spiritual Consistory, with the monastic name Polikarp (heavenly patron — Venerable Polikarp of the Caves, feast day August 6 n.s.). On July 28, he was ordained hierodeacon, and on July 30 — hieromonk, after which he was appointed hegumen-vicar of the Derman Monastery in Volyn. He subsequently organized monastic life, as abbot, at the Melets Monastery, was vicar of the Zahaitsi Monastery and dean, already in the rank of archimandrite, of the monasteries of the Volyn diocese. Subsequently, at his own request, he was transferred to the Viden Holy Spirit Monastery, of which he was vicar, and simultaneously a member of the Viden Spiritual Consistory. At the end of December 1925, he was appointed rector of the cathedral in the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyi, where he was also dean of the Volodymyr deanery; on February 25, 1927, he was appointed abbot of the Zhyrovytsi Monastery in the Hrodna region, where for 5 years he was also dean of the Byten deanery. Such was the long-standing spiritual and church-administrative practice, preparatory for the episcopate in the Church of God, of Bishop Polikarp.

The solemn consecration of Archimandrite Polikarp as Bishop of Lutsk was performed, after his nomination as bishop on April 9, during the Divine Liturgy on April 10, 1932, in the Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Mary Magdalene in Warsaw, by Metropolitan Dionisiy, Archbishops Feodosiy of Viden and Oleksiy of Hrodna, and Bishops Simon of Ostroh and Sava of Lublin. Upon Bishop Polikarp was laid in those times a great mission — to be the representative of the Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchy, the bearer of the idea of the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Such was the understanding of the historical event of the consecration of Archimandrite Polikarp to the episcopate among us who were present at this sacred act in the cathedral and at the receptions on this occasion in the Metropolitan's palace of Metropolitan Dionisiy and at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute, whose director was Prof. O. H. Lototsky, who had once nurtured the seminarian Petro Sikorsky nationally in the Ukrainian circle. There was joy, there was spiritual uplift, there was a sense of victory after years of struggle in Poland for a Ukrainian bishop in the hierarchy of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland.

There is no question that the consecration of a Ukrainian bishop significantly promoted the spread of the Ukrainian church movement in Volyn, although, of course, not to the extent that A. Svitich writes, that "under Bishop Polikarp in Volyn, about 30% of Orthodox parishes were Ukrainized" (p. 70). Bishop Polikarp of Lutsk in the times of Poland was a vicar bishop who was not in charge of any sector of diocesan church administration; even the idea of entrusting him with the appointment and transfer of parish cantors was not realized. In the very first two years of his episcopal service, the vicar bishop had against him the Spiritual Consistory in Kremenets, hostile to the Ukrainian idea, hostile

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to the de-Russification of the Church in Poland. In such a position, Bishop Polikarp could have only a moral influence, awakening national consciousness in the clergy and the people where it had been dormant, and encouraging those among the clergy and the nationally conscious who looked over their shoulders at the Russified Consistory or at a Moscophile dean. In this regard, the archpastoral visitations by Bishop Polikarp to rural parishes were very important — though arranging these visitations did not depend on him either, but only on the instruction of the ruling Volyn hierarch. These visitations had a national-ecclesiastical character and particularly captivated the Ukrainian Volyn youth, who in national costumes always solemnly greeted their Bishop. Young men greeted the Bishop as the Cossacks of old, on horseback, escorting him upon entry to and departure from the village; young women greeted him with flowers in the churchyard. The solemn hierarchical Divine Liturgy in the Ukrainian language made a powerful impression. There is no doubt that in the struggle against "selrobivstvo" (pro-Soviet rural activism), which in the 1920s had gained considerable hold over the rural youth of Volyn, the national movement in the Church and, in particular, the archpastoral visitations to villages by their own Ukrainian Bishop played no small role.

The shortsighted organs of "security," not taking this significance into account but being frightened by the growth of national consciousness in Volyn, took steps to halt the national-ecclesiastical manifestations evoked by the parish visitations of the Bishop of Lutsk. The formal reason for this was a false denunciation by a certain Fr. F. H-k, known for such "activities," alleging that Bishop Polikarp, upon being greeted near the green arch erected in the parish of this priest, had asked, pointing to the white eagle (the coat of arms of Poland) at the top of the arch: "And what is that rooster?" On this basis, the voivodeship administration, without pursuing the matter through the courts, asked the ruling Volyn hierarch not to entrust any further parish visitations to Bishop Polikarp.

People came to Lutsk, to the small Holy Cross Church, where the hierarchical Divine Liturgy was served in the Ukrainian language, as on a pilgrimage, while in his own cathedral, the Lutsk Holy Trinity Cathedral, Bishop Polikarp served under Polish rule in Church Slavonic, since the cathedral parishioners did not agree to services in the Ukrainian language. The small Holy Cross Church in Lutsk was a historical landmark surviving from the magnificent cathedral of the Lutsk Orthodox Holy Cross Brotherhood; this stone cathedral had burned in 1803; from the most intact part of its ruins, the eastern part that had been the altar in the cathedral, a small church was later rebuilt, which became the Brotherhood church also in the Russian times, upon the renewal in 1871 of the Lutsk Holy Cross Brotherhood.

The Ukrainian church movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland could not but turn its attention to the fate of the Lutsk Holy Cross Brotherhood

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, which, under its Russian statute of 1871, had as its purpose "to clear the ground of the harmful influence of Catholicism and Jewry and to strengthen the spirit of Orthodoxy and Russian nationality in the region," while at the same time tracing its origin to the Holy Cross Brotherhood in Lutsk of the seventeenth century, which had existed on the basis of a charter from Polish King Sigismund III, 1619, and a statute from 1623, confirmed by Ecumenical Patriarch Cyril Lukaris. Asserting this historical connection was absolutely necessary in view of the properties of the ancient Lutsk Brotherhood in numerous land parcels in the center of the city of Lutsk. On these parcels, which were under long-term lease, residential buildings and shops had been built; the annual lease payments constituted considerable sums in the Brotherhood's revenue. With the change of state authority, the tenants had for the most part ceased paying rent; to substantiate the Brotherhood's property rights, the need arose for its legalization by the Polish authorities. The Polish authorities took the position that the "Lutsk Krestovozdvizhenskoe Bratstvo" (Holy Cross Brotherhood) under the 1871 statute was not at all the historical Brotherhood to which Sigismund III had granted a charter in 1619, but a new Brotherhood, with honorary members consisting of governors-general and chief procurators of the Synod, founded for political purposes.

Then the Brotherhood's leaders saw that without the participation of Ukrainians they could not save the property of the ancient Brotherhood, and the then chairman of the Brotherhood's Rada, Yevhen Yasinsky, in May 1926, invited representatives of the Ukrainian community in Lutsk to a meeting. Obviously, at the meeting the Ukrainians put forward the demand for the de-Russification of the Brotherhood and the introduction of the living Ukrainian language in the services at its church; simultaneously, representatives of the Ukrainian community were to join the Brotherhood's Rada. These conditions were accepted. The chairman of the Brotherhood remained Yevhen Yasinsky; the Council's composition was supplemented by representatives from the Lutsk Ukrainian Gymnasium, the Lutsk Prosvita, and the Ukrainian cooperatives in Lutsk, after which the members of the Brotherhood's Rada who remained from the Russian times effectively departed from the Brotherhood. The rector of the Holy Cross Brotherhood Church was then Fr. Ananiy Sahaidakivsky (who shared the surname of the well-known Archpriest Ananiy Sahaidakivsky), who a year later transferred to the parish of Berezhtsi, Kremenets district, and as rector of the Lutsk Holy Cross Church and simultaneously religion teacher at the Lutsk Ukrainian Gymnasium, Archpriest Pavlo Pashchevsky was appointed in May 1927 — the chief military chaplain (archpriest) of the UNR forces and participant in the Winter Campaign to Ukraine, who remained in Lutsk in these positions until the fall of Versailles Poland.

With the de-Russification of the Lutsk Holy Cross Brotherhood, the legalization and recognition of its property rights as an ancient Ukrainian Brotherhood by the Polish state authorities did not follow so quickly, however. This happened only in 1935.

But in matters of church services in the Ukrainian language, the Lutsk Holy Cross Brotherhood with its church became from 1926 a center for the Lutsk area, especially with the arrival in Lutsk of Bishop

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Polikarp. The Ukrainian choir of the Lutsk Holy Cross Church, under the direction of distinguished conductors (in chronological order): Petro Kurylenko, Mykhailo Telezhynsky, Oleksander Kolesnychenko, was a model for Ukrainian church choirs in villages of the Lutsk area and beyond. The care of arranging the episcopal quarters for the Bishop of Lutsk was taken on by the Petro Mohyla Society. The Society's board initially rented a building for the episcopal quarters, and after several months, at the suggestion of Volyn Voivode H. Yuzevsky, a building was acquired by the Society, with a significant subsidy from the Voivodeship Administration, from the notary Martynovych, designated as the residence of the Bishop of Lutsk. For the summer residence of Bishop Polikarp, the Lutsk Sejmik (county council) provided a building with grounds and a garden in the village of Zhydychyn near Lutsk, formerly the property of the ancient Zhydychyn archimandry.

Isolated from meeting with the people in the villages after the cessation of his archpastoral parish visitations, Bishop Polikarp devoted his work primarily to translations into the Ukrainian language of Holy Scripture and liturgical rites, and to their publication. To this end, Bishop Polikarp organized subcommissions for translations under the "Commission for the Translation of Holy Scripture and Liturgical Books at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw" — one subcommission was in Lutsk, the other in Kremenets. For publishing work, he organized a "Theological Section" under the Petro Mohyla Society. More details about the activity of the Lutsk and Kremenets subcommissions and the "Theological Section" will be given further.

With the consecration of Bishop Polikarp, the thought began to grow stronger among Ukrainian church activists as to whether the time had not already come to decisively seek a ruling Ukrainian bishop for Volyn, since Metropolitan Dionisiy, occupying two cathedras — the Warsaw-Kholm and the Volyn — continued all the while, as the Volyn hierarch, to keep the church-administrative apparatus in Volyn, especially the Consistory, Russian — which weighed upon the clergy, who had already become nationally far more conscious and understood the full importance of the national Orthodox Church for the younger generations of the Ukrainian people. From these thoughts arose the Pochayiv Ukrainian manifestation of September 10, 1933, on the feast day of the "Discovery of the Relics of Venerable Iov of Pochayiv."

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10. The Ukrainian manifestation in Pochayiv on September 10, 1933. Deputies' assemblies in Volyn demanding a separate ruling Ukrainian bishop for Volyn. The raising of this matter with the Metropolitan by the Minister of Religious Confessions; the appointment by the Holy Synod of Archbishop Oleksiy of Hrodna (Hromadsky) to the Volyn cathedra. Biographical information about Archbishop Oleksiy. The solemn reception of Archbishop Oleksiy in the diocese. Changes in the administrative apparatus of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory. The Volyn Diocesan Assembly of representatives of clergy and laity, January 29-30, 1935, its principal resolutions and significance for the further life of the Volyn diocese.

A. Svitich writes: "The Orthodox Church in Poland, artificially torn from the Russian Church, and through that from the Universal Church as such, became an object for all manner of experiments not only from the side of the state authorities, but even from separate national minority (?) groupings. The main role here belonged to the Ukrainians, who lived predominantly in Volyn and tried to make the Church an instrument of national-political struggle... A great role in this Ukrainization (of the Church) was played by deputies and senators who belonged to the government camp of the so-called 'Non-Partisan Bloc of Cooperation with the Government.' With the help of this 'Bloc,' or more precisely — of the Ukrainian Sejm deputies and senators belonging to it — a demonstration of Ukrainians against the 'Muscovite' hierarchy headed by Metropolitan Dionisiy was organized in autumn 1933 at the Pochayiv Lavra. Indeed, sad events took place at the Pochayiv Lavra on September 10, 1933, which painfully affected the hearts of Orthodox-believing people"... (Op. cit., pp. 67, 71).

K. N. Nikolaev sees, on unknown grounds, the hand of government Warsaw in the organization of the Ukrainian manifestation in Pochayiv on September 10, 1933: "Word was given to the Ukrainian chauvinists, and on August 28 / September 10, 1933, on the day of the Venerable Iov, a demonstration against Metropolitan Dionisiy was organized at the Pochayiv Lavra" (Op. cit., p. 245).

Metropolitan Ilarion, in the Ukrainian manifestation at the Pochayiv Lavra on September 10, 1933, "skillfully prepared by the Polonophile deputies ('bebebists')," sees "the return of the Pochayiv Lavra to its age-old path," for "the Pochayiv Monastery wanted to unite with the people, but its Leadership would not allow it"... ("The Holy Pochayiv Lavra." Winnipeg. 1961, pp. 358-364).

In reality, the Pochayiv Lavra itself, or the Pochayiv Monastery, notwithstanding that within its walls on October 3-10, 1921, the Ukrainian congress of representatives of the clergy and laity of Volyn took place, and on September 10, 1933, the magnificent Ukrainian anti-Russian manifestation, was the entire time under modern Poland a fortress of Russianness: no Ukrainization of it took place.

The Ukrainian Pochayiv manifestation of September 10, 1933, was a further step forward in the development of the Ukrainian church movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland, in the demand that the largest Ukrainian diocese of that Church — the Volyn diocese —

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should have a ruling Ukrainian Bishop. The initiative for this manifestation came entirely from the leadership of the Ukrainian church movement. It became known that the Volyn Spiritual Consistory had issued instructions to the clergy to organize for this year's pilgrimage on the feast of the Venerable Iov of Pochayiv, September 10, numerous cross processions and pilgrimages to the Pochayiv Lavra, on the occasion that on this day the Volyn diocese would mark the 20th anniversary of the episcopate of Metropolitan Dionisiy, consecrated as Bishop of Kremenets on Thomas Sunday 1913 at the Pochayiv Lavra; on the second day, there was to be a solemn ceremonial meeting at the Lavra in honor of the Jubilarian. It was obvious that such an imposing celebration would be exploited by the opponents of the de-Russification of the Church in Volyn as a trump card against the Ukrainian "troublemakers," when "the people of Orthodox Volyn" so exalt their Archpastor and are faithful to him... The leaders therefore decided to carry out a manifestation in the Lavra itself, in the presence of the hierarchy and the masses of people. The main slogan was the demand: "For Volyn, a ruling Ukrainian Bishop!"

The Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn, whose members had to organize this manifestation, could not, being in cooperation with the Government, fail to inform the Volyn Voivode of their intention; they received his consent, guaranteeing at the same time complete order of the manifestation, so that it would in no way disrupt the liturgical services at the Lavra and would not be an offense to the religious feelings of the people. Hence, not only was there no agitation by Ukrainians or the Ukrainian press for people not to go to the Lavra on September 10 (A. Svitich), but on the contrary: to those pilgrims who went at the clergy's call, there were added ranks of youth, nationally conscious, who, at the call of the Ukrainian deputies and senators, arrived in Pochayiv for September 10 — youth whom A. Svitich, not knowing them and not having seen them, characterizes as "indifferent to the Church and to matters of faith"... (p. 72).

Both A. Svitich (p. 72) and Metropolitan Ilarion (Op. cit., p. 362) relate that the Ukrainian manifestation began and took place at the time when, after the Divine Liturgy in the Dormition Cathedral of the Lavra, a procession with the relics of the Venerable Iov came out of the cathedral and carried them in a cross procession around the cathedral. "Here came the procession with the relics of the Venerable Iov," writes Metropolitan Ilarion: "All the young men with banners stood in two rows along the entire road. All the bishops, all the clergy, all the people fixed their eyes on the inscriptions and read them... Silence, order, piety." "The cross procession moved," writes A. Svitich, "with the relics of the Venerable Iov, the Ukrainians hoisted on the Lavra bell tower their national yellow-and-blue flag, unfurled previously prepared banners and placards, and with loud shouts began to demand the removal from Volyn of 'Muscovites,' the Muscovite hierarchy and clergy"...

The untruth in these accounts is that the manifestation allegedly took place already during the religious procession of carrying the holy relics of the Venerable Iov of Pochayiv around the Dormition Cathedral. The manifestation

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took place after the conclusion of the services, at the time when the Metropolitan and all the bishops, accompanied by the clergy, were proceeding "with the doxology" from the Dormition Cathedral through the monastery courtyard downhill to the episcopal house — a road that is not at all "long." The large courtyard was full of people; the Ukrainian youth had taken up positions along the route of the bishops' and clergy's procession, and upon their appearance from the stairs of the cathedral gallery, unfurled the concealed banners with the slogans of the manifestation. These slogans, also chanted by the young men, are accurately conveyed in A. Svitich's account as: "For Volyn — a ruling Ukrainian bishop," "For the Ukrainian people, a Ukrainian episcopate," "Demand the Ukrainization of the Church," "For the Ukrainian liturgical language," "Away with the Russifiers in the Church," and so forth.

That "thousands of the people, as soon as Metropolitan Dionisiy appeared, shouted: 'Dionisiy, off to Moscow!'" (Metropolitan Ilarion, p. 362) — such things one had to read only now, in emigration. That "Metropolitan Dionisiy lost consciousness, and the clergy carried him on their arms to the episcopal house, while the youth did not cease shouting at the top of their voices"... (Ibid.) — this too is a later legend. The Metropolitan, the bishops, and the clergy entered the episcopal house, while the people from the monastery courtyard moved to the square of the town of Novyi Pochayiv, for a deputies' assembly that had been announced earlier and duly reported, as was proper, to the administration.

That during the manifestation within the walls of the Lavra "the police guarded the episcopate" (Ibid.) — this was not the case, as K. Nikolaev also writes: "The police were absent, and the demonstrators felt free" (Op. cit., p. 245) — the manifestation proceeded with the knowledge of the authorities.

At the deputies' assembly, where there were several thousand people, the speakers were Sejm Deputies M. I. Bura, S. I. Skrypnyk, M. F. Telezhynsky, and Senator In. Hlovatsky. All of them spoke on the theme of de-Russification of the Church in Volyn, told the history of the Ukrainians' struggle so far for a Native Church, for the living Ukrainian language in worship, for a Ukrainian episcopate for the Ukrainian people, and called for the demand that Volyn should have a ruling Ukrainian bishop. At the assembly, corresponding resolutions were adopted, the main desideratum of which was — the appointment to the Volyn cathedra of a separate ruling Ukrainian Bishop. On behalf of the people's gathering, the resolution adopted at the assembly was delivered by the deputies to the episcopal house; Metropolitan Dionisiy did not come out to them, but sent Archbishop Oleksiy of Hrodna and Bishop Polikarp, as Ukrainians; neither Archbishop Oleksiy nor Bishop Polikarp addressed the people.

News of the Ukrainian Pochayiv manifestation spread throughout Volyn and Ukrainian Polissia, raising the spirits of conscious Ukrainians and spreading national consciousness among the masses. The deputies were invited to hold assemblies and explain events in church life, and a series of assemblies were held in the cities and larger villages of Volyn. The resolutions of these assemblies — demanding a ruling Ukrainian bishop for Volyn — were sent to the church and civil authorities. On

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the basis of these resolutions of the people's assemblies, beginning from the assembly during the Pochayiv manifestation of September 10, 1933, the Volyn Voivode H. Yuzevsky raised before the central authorities in Warsaw the matter of the necessity of having in Volyn a resident Orthodox hierarch for the administration of the diocese, who would attend to and promptly satisfy the legitimate needs of the Orthodox population of Volyn. The consequence of this representation by the Volyn Voivode was an appeal to the Metropolitan from the Minister of Education and Religious Confessions, Jędrzejewicz, that the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church should deliberate and decide the question of appointing a separate ruling bishop to the Volyn cathedra.

Half a year passed from those events in the church life of Volyn, when finally by the resolution of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland of March 2, 1934, the renunciation by Metropolitan Dionisiy of the cathedra of the Volyn Archpastor was accepted and the appointment to the cathedra of the Volyn diocesan hierarch of Archbishop Oleksiy of Hrodna and Novohrudok was made, effective April 15, 1934. The candidacy of Archbishop Oleksiy was coordinated, of course, with the Polish government, for which, in its support of the Ukrainian church movement, it was necessary to have at the cathedra of the Volyn hierarch a Ukrainian who was sufficiently "restrained" in his Ukrainianness; Bishop Polikarp, the other Ukrainian in the episcopate, was not suitable in this regard. Moreover, his mere two years in the episcopal rank would certainly have provoked decisive opposition from the Synod itself to the appointment of Bishop Polikarp as Archpastor to the largest Volyn diocese.

Archbishop Oleksiy, in the world Oleksander Yakovlevych Hromadsky, was born on November 1, 1882, into a patriarchal cantor's family in the village of Dokudovo in the northern part of the Kholm region, in Pidliashia. He completed the Kholm Theological School and the Kholm Theological Seminary, from which he was sent to the Kyiv Theological Academy. The seminary course in Kholm in 1898-1904 Hromadsky completed under the rectorship of Archimandrite Evlogiy Georgievsky and the inspectorship of Hieromonk Dionisiy Valedinsky, later distinguished Russian hierarchs; Evlogiy, Archbishop of Kholm, then of Volyn, member of the 2nd and 3rd State Dumas, ended his life as a metropolitan in emigration in Paris; Dionisiy later became Metropolitan of Warsaw, Head of the Orthodox Church in Poland. In Metropolitan Evlogiy's memoirs "The Path of My Life" (Paris, 1947), we read about the Kholm clergy and the Kholm Theological Seminary:

"In the 1860s, all the clergy of this region (Kholm) still spoke Polish. The Russian language was still considered 'khlop' (peasant); the language of educated society, the 'lordly' language, was Polish. To me, a Russian, this seemed offensive, and I began to correct this line, tried to explain to the youth in the seminary the destiny of Russia, of Orthodoxy, to give them an idea of 'Holy Rus'; in a word, I took a line not only of ecclesiastical but also of national

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education. Sometimes I felt resistance to myself as a 'katsap' (derogatory term for a Russian), but — nothing... I firmly took my position" (p. 97). With this ideology of "Holy Rus," Oleksander Hromadsky graduated from the Kholm Seminary, entered the Kyiv Theological Academy in 1904, and graduated as a master's candidate of the Academy. The revolutionary years of 1905-06, the times of our studies at the Academy, did not change his views, and he remained throughout all four years of the Academy among the "kholmshchaky," as we called in our class the "truly Russian" students, who were predominantly graduates of the Kholm Seminary.

And already 30 years later, in the times of the propaganda in Poland of "Polish Orthodoxy" and the offensive of Catholicism for the "revindication of souls," Bishop Oleksiy, in conversations with me, recalled our student days and said: "You, the liberals, did not know life and made a revolution; but we, the Black Hundredists, as you called us, in the Kholm region were being cooked in the Polish cauldron and saw what it all smelled of... Now you see that the truth was on our side."

Upon completing the Academy in 1908, Oleksander Hromadsky, having married, accepted the priesthood and in his native Kholm was the second priest at the Kholm Cathedral and a member of the Spiritual Consistory, and then also the religion teacher at the Kholm men's gymnasium. During the First World War in 1914, he was appointed to the position of Kholm diocesan inspector of parish-church schools and took part in the missionary action of Archbishop Evlogiy, by then already of Volyn, in Galicia for the conversion of Greek Catholics to Orthodoxy. In 1916, he was appointed diocesan inspector of parish-church schools of the Chișinău diocese, to whose cathedra Bishop Anastasiy of Kholm had been transferred at the end of 1915 (now Metropolitan of the Russian Church Abroad). With the revolution of 1917, when Bessarabia, with the Chișinău diocese, was occupied by the Romanians, he departed for Kyiv, and then to Kremenets in Volyn, where the Kholm Theological Seminary had been re-evacuated from Moscow. Then vicar Bishop Dionisiy of Kremenets, having returned from Kyiv in January 1919 to Kremenets, proceeded to organize church life and administration in Western Volyn, and in this work his right hand was Fr. Hromadsky, in the position of Head of the Volyn Diocesan Administration (Spiritual Consistory), and then also rector of the Kremenets Theological Seminary.

On February 11, 1922, Archpriest Oleksander Hromadsky received the monastic tonsure from the hands of Bishop Dionisiy (his unfortunate marriage in his Kholm life with his wife Raisa had been dissolved), with the monastic name Oleksiy (name day February 25), and on February 12, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite. Fulfilling the wish of the Diocesan Congress that took place in Pochayiv on October 3-10, 1921, for the restoration of the ancient episcopal cathedra of Lutsk, the sobor of bishops in January 1922 resolved to open this cathedra; Archimandrite Oleksiy was elected as vicar Bishop of Lutsk. On September 2, 1922, at the Pochayiv Lavra, the nomination took place, and on September 3

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— the consecration as Bishop of Lutsk of Archimandrite Oleksiy Hromadsky. The notable speech to Bishop Oleksiy at the presentation of the archpastoral staff by Metropolitan Yuriy Yaroshevsky was cited by us above (subsection 3). As vicar Bishop of Lutsk, residing in Kremenets, Bishop Oleksiy remained in Volyn for only 4 months. In January 1923, he was delegated by the Synod to Hrodna for the temporary direction of the Hrodna diocese, and then remained there at the cathedra of ruling bishop for more than 11 years, from June 3, 1928, in the rank of archbishop.

The residence of the ruling Volyn hierarch far from Volyn, in Warsaw, for more than 10 years already, was very harmful to the church life of Volyn, regardless even of the fact that he was not of the same nationality as his Ukrainian flock in Volyn. Therefore, when Bishop Oleksiy traveled from Hrodna to Kremenets, already at the border of the Volyn diocese he was solemnly met by the clergy and the flock; a mass reception was held at the railway station in the city of Rivne, from where Archbishop Oleksiy traveled to Kremenets by automobile through Dubno, where there was also a mass reception at the Elijah Cathedral. Thus, such accounts as: "The countryside met Archbishop Oleksiy with indifference, and the cities with hostility; during his sermon in Ukrainian in Lutsk, worshippers began leaving the cathedral" (K. Nikolaev. Op. cit., p. 247) — were the product of the imagination of the RNO members.

Archbishop Oleksiy took a firm position from the outset regarding his addresses to the people. At the reception of the Bishop at the Elijah Cathedral in Dubno, its rector, Archpriest I. Karvovsky, greeted the Bishop in Russian; the Archbishop responded in Ukrainian. At the reception at the Epiphany Monastery in Kremenets, vicar Bishop Simon greeted the Archbishop of Volyn in Russian, vicar Bishop Polikarp — in Ukrainian; in response, Archbishop Oleksiy addressed his new flock in the Ukrainian language. Obviously, the news of such a stance by Archbishop Oleksiy immediately spread throughout the entire diocese, creating a turning point among many of the clergy regarding the language of their sermons in churches.

When, with the appointment of Archbishop Oleksiy to the Volyn cathedra, a new course was to begin in the administration of a diocese whose population was almost entirely Ukrainian, it was first necessary to change the administrative apparatus of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory. Archbishop Oleksiy liked to do everything, as he put it, "gradually." When the Consistory expected that "dismissals" would immediately pour down, this did not happen. Among the officials of the Consistory, there were more Ukrainians who had been merely executors of the decisions of the hitherto pro-Russian leadership; the small number of Russians immediately became loyal. Changes had to come at the top — at the position of secretary of the Consistory, which was held by the jurist V. Pokrovsky, a Russian firm in his convictions, and at the positions of the priest-members of the Consistory. Archbishop Oleksiy took care of providing for V. Pokrovsky as well, offering him to accept the priesthood and become a supernumerary member of the Consistory, managing the Diocesan Candle Depot. V. Pokrovsky agreed, was ordained a priest, received the rank of archpriest, and was released,

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at his own request, from membership in the Consistory (from February 1, 1935), and then also left the management of the candle depot, having a rectorship at a church in the suburb of Kremenets and his earned pension. As secretary of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory, Archbishop Oleksiy appointed, at the beginning of September 1934, the general secretary of the Petro Mohyla Society, I. F. Wlasowsky. As for the changes in the composition of the priest-members of the Consistory, that matter dragged on for the first 9 months of Archbishop Oleksiy's administration of the diocese. The church center in Warsaw, interfering in this matter, wanted to surround Bishop Oleksiy with such a collegium of priest-members of the Consistory from among Ukrainians who were odious to the Ukrainian community, and whose appointment would immediately undermine the authority of the Ukrainian Bishop. In the resolution of this matter, the state administration helped, to which, in accordance with the "Temporary Rules of January 30, 1922," the candidates foisted by the church center had already been presented by the Archbishop; the voivodeship administration rejected them. By February 1, 1935, the Volyn Spiritual Consistory, in the composition of its clerical members as well, had been appropriately selected and became Ukrainian.

The legal norms of the internal life of the Orthodox Church in Poland, pending the eventual convocation of a Local Sobor of the Church to establish them, continued to be the "Temporary Rules of January 30, 1922" of Minister of Religious Denominations A. Ponikovsky. Regarding diocesan assemblies as a conciliar organ of diocesan governance, they stated only that they "may take place upon prior notification to the voivode" (Article 14). Such assemblies in Volyn had not been held since the October Diocesan Assembly of 1921. The leadership decided to convene such an Assembly for January 29-30, 1935. Taking part in it, under the chairmanship of Archbishop Oleksiy, were vicar Bishops Simon and Polikarp, the members and secretary of the Spiritual Consistory, representatives of the clergy elected at clergy meetings — one representative from each of the 55 deaneries of the diocese; 9 district archpriests, the dean of monasteries; Orthodox deputies and senators from Volyn, members of the Pre-Conciliar Commission from Volyn, the chairman and members of the board of the Petro Mohyla Society, representatives of the Volyn Theological Seminary and the Lutsk Holy Cross Brotherhood.

In his opening remarks at the opening of the Diocesan Assembly on January 29, 1935, Archbishop Oleksiy said: "We have all long awaited this Assembly, for we possess the consciousness that there is no better way to organize diocesan life than for the entire diocesan-church body to gather conciliarly, together and unanimously, in peace and harmony, to decide the questions of that life"... Having cited from the history of Orthodoxy in Volyn the ancient conciliar traditions, in which was "the strength and endurance of Orthodoxy," the Bishop said: "Our Assembly is, after 14 years, the successor of the Volyn Diocesan Assembly of 1921, and

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it need only recall the testaments of that last one and continue its work in the new conditions of life"... ("Tserkva i Narid," No. 1 for 1935, pp. 6-10).

The Volyn Diocesan Assembly of January 29-30, 1935, having organized from its members 5 commissions whose resolutions were heard, debated, and voted upon at the plenary sessions of the Assembly, truly accomplished great work, giving direction to the life of the Volyn Orthodox diocese for a number of years in the spirit of the fundamental ideas of the Ukrainian church movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland.

The Diocesan Assembly affirmed that "various currents hostile to the Orthodox Church draw their strength to a great degree from the fact that the clergy neglect the national characteristics of the Orthodox masses in Volyn and arise on the ground of divergence between the pastors and the people," and therefore recognized it as necessary that the clergy of the diocese: a) preach the Word of God to the people in the living Ukrainian language; b) teach children the Law of God in the native language of the pupils; c) in the matter of celebrating the Divine Services, follow the counsel of His Beatitude in the Archpastoral appeal of August 1, 1928, based on the resolutions of the Holy Synod of June 16, 1922, and the Sobor of Bishops of September 3, 1924, that "everywhere where, in accordance with the conditions of local life and at the desire of the parishioners, the Divine Liturgy is to be celebrated in Ukrainian, the rector priests must meet the wish of their parishioners, but one must not carelessly carry out the Ukrainization of the Divine Liturgy where there is no agreement among the faithful"; d) missionary-popular courses, or such gatherings or days, as well as the catechization of children — must be conducted only in the native language of the people.

The Diocesan Assembly welcomed the proposal of the Spiritual Consistory regarding the publication of its own diocesan organ, which began to appear under the name "Tserkva i Narid" ("Church and People"), and expressed the wish that the missionary fund, for which the Assembly allocated 15 thousand zlotys in the budget, be widely used for the publication in the Ukrainian language of literature necessary for the missionary-homiletical and religious instruction work of the clergy, and popular literature for the people.

The Assembly noted with satisfaction "the significance and weight of the circular issued by the Volyn Spiritual Consistory on October 23, 1934, on the use of the Ukrainian language in internal administration and church life in Volyn, and called upon the clergy to adhere to the instructions of this circular." The matter was that even in the internal administration of the Consistory and in correspondence with it by the deans and the clergy, the use of the Russian language was still frequent — something that the previous leadership of the Consistory had not fought against at all. There were, however, priests who continued to write to the Consistory in Russian, and when such letters began to be returned to them without resolution, there were some who then switched to the Polish language in correspondence, but did not write in Ukrainian.

In its concern for the preparation of cadres of national clergy for the diocese, the Diocesan Assembly, joining the requests of the Ukrainian

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Parliamentary Representation of Volyn and the Petro Mohyla Society, appealed to the Synod with the request that the Holy Synod advocate before the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education, at the wish of the clergy and faithful of the diocese, for the opening of an Orthodox Theological Lyceum in the city of Kremenets in Volyn. (The Theological Seminary in Kremenets was already at that time in the stage of gradual liquidation.) On the matter of preparing cantors for the diocese, the Assembly recognized it necessary to ask the Diocesan authority that "the subjects in the current cantors' school in Kremenets be taught not in a language foreign to its students, but in Ukrainian, and that the staff of teachers at the school be composed of appropriately qualified personnel, so that the school would graduate more educated candidates who are closer to their people."

The Diocesan Assembly adopted a series of resolutions on the matter of enlivening missionary work locally, in the district missionary committees and in the parishes. In its understanding of the significance of the conciliar structure as "a force acting in the life of the Church," the Assembly resolved that "the time has come to reform our deaneries in the direction of appointing deans not by appointment, but by election by the clergy, for the purpose of unity among the pastors and the strengthening of law and order in the church-communal life of the parishes."

In adopting the diocesan budget for 1935 (in the total sum of 218,338 zlotys), the Assembly allocated 3,500 zlotys in aid to private Ukrainian gymnasia in Lutsk, Rivne, and Kremenets — assistance that continued until the fall of Poland in 1939.

The Diocesan Assembly found it necessary to adopt the following resolution: "The Volyn Diocesan Assembly considers it its duty to express to the Holy Synod of the Holy Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Poland its filial gratitude for the fact that, in profound understanding of the extraordinarily complex conditions of the contemporary church-communal life of the Volyn diocese, under which it was difficult for His Beatitude to attend to the affairs of the diocese, having the great duties of First Hierarch of the entire Orthodox Church in Poland and Archpastor of the Warsaw-Kholm diocese — the Holy Synod appointed to the Volyn cathedra a separate ruling Archbishop, Oleksiy of Hrodna, now of Volyn and Kremenets. The Volyn Diocesan Assembly expresses its conviction that this wise act of the Holy Synod, headed by His Beatitude, the Most Blessed Metropolitan Dionisiy, as Chairman, will lead to the normalization of the life of the diocese, which urgently requires the presence of the Archpastor among his flock."

At the proposal of the Missionary-Educational Commission, the Assembly adopted the following expression of thanks to Bishop Oleksiy: "The Volyn Diocesan Assembly, with a feeling of great satisfaction, notes that from the moment Professor Ivan Wlasowsky assumed the post of Secretary of the Consistory, those good relations between the clergy and the Consistory have been restored that have their origin in the traditions of our Orthodox Church, and therefore expresses to His Eminence, the Most Eminent Oleksiy, the Ruling Bishop of Volyn, its filial gratitude for such a beneficial and wise act for the good of the legal

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order in our diocese" ("Tserkva i Narid," 1935, Nos. 1-2, pp. 22-28; 52-57).

The Volyn Diocesan Assembly of January 29-30, 1935, found wide resonance in the press of that time, both Ukrainian and Polish, in Poland. The significance of this Assembly of elected representatives of the clergy, with the participation of laypeople from institutions, was underscored in several respects. First, a) the diocesan authority of Volyn had set out on the path of reviving the traditions of conciliarity, characteristic of the Orthodox Church in old Poland; b) this was the first Diocesan Assembly after the Assembly in Pochayiv in 1921 in the struggle of the Ukrainian population for the reform of the structure of our Orthodox Church. Additionally, c) the resolutions of the Assembly attest to the victory of the new direction in diocesan life in the struggle that the forces of dark reaction had launched following the appointment of Archbishop Oleksiy to the Volyn cathedra. Furthermore: d) the Assembly and its resolutions attest to the consolidation of Orthodox Ukrainians in Poland, in which there is no need for the Ukrainian party UNDO, thoroughly Catholic, to "try to conduct Orthodox-Ukrainian policy through its sole Orthodox deputy" (S. Khrutsky); e) "the Russian ecclesiastical direction in Volyn, after 15 years of bitter struggle between two currents, has broken"; f) the significance of the Volyn Diocesan Assembly "extends beyond the borders of the Volyn diocese," for "in the territory of other dioceses too, changes will come that life itself demands, and the Kremenets resolutions will serve as encouragement for that."

11. The strengthening of the Ukrainian church movement by the younger generation of clergy in the Orthodox Church in Poland. The Kremenets Theological Seminary; its origins and Russian character in its first years of existence. The influence on its students of the national Ukrainian environment in its revival; Shevchenko celebrations in it. The nationalization of the Kremenets Seminary by the Polish authorities in 1927; utraquism in the instruction of subjects. The struggle of Russian circles for the rectorship of the Seminary; the appointment of Fr. P. Tabinsky as rector. The victory of the Ukrainian course in the education of seminary youth; its continuation in the Seminary even after the dismissal of Rector Fr. P. Tabinsky. The designs of the Polish authorities regarding the Polonization of candidates for the Orthodox priesthood and the gradual, in connection with this, liquidation of the Kremenets Theological Seminary. The Ukrainians' struggle against these designs. The opening of the Orthodox Theological Faculty at the University of Warsaw on February 8, 1925. The appearance of Ukrainian professors at the Faculty from 1926. Their influence on the national consciousness and education of the Faculty's students. The dormitory for Orthodox theology students. Did residence in it Polonize the students? The opening from 1935-36 of the Orthodox Metropolitan Dormitory in Warsaw for gymnasium students with the aim of Polonizing candidates for the Orthodox priesthood from childhood.

The Ukrainian church movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland, in its strengthening and expansion, depended on several factors: the growth of national consciousness of the Orthodox

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Ukrainian population itself, the attitude of church and secular authorities toward the movement, the attitude of the clergy toward it, the activism in the sphere of church life of the national leadership — all of this positively influenced, and in the case of negation — weakened the movement. Regarding the clergy, one can observe how in many of them the attitude toward the Ukrainian church movement depended on the attitude of the church and secular authorities toward it, but to generalize such a phenomenon would be a great injustice to the clergy. Just as there were priests who held to "Russianness" in worship and in church life generally, not from fear but from conviction, so too there were Ukrainian priests who ideologically joined and carried out de-Russification in the church. Moreover, the progress of national consciousness with the passage of time went forward among the clergy as well — that even from the old Russian cadres they were becoming Ukrainian not only by origin. The most important thing, however, was the appearance among the Ukrainian clergy of its younger generation, which came from the Kremenets Theological Seminary and the Orthodox Theological Faculty at the University of Warsaw.

The pre-revolutionary Volyn Theological Seminary was located in the city of Zhytomyr, where this diocesan seminary had been transferred in 1902 from Kremenets, but the Theological Seminary in Kremenets in the times of restored Poland after the First World War and the revolution does not descend from that pre-revolutionary Volyn Seminary. Its organization is connected with the return from Kyiv to Kremenets at the beginning of 1919 of Bishop Dionisiy of Kremenets, vicar of the Volyn diocese. When Bishop Dionisiy began to organize church administration in Western Volyn, cut off from Eastern Volyn by revolutionary-political events, he also took care that the Orthodox diocese in Western Volyn should have a school for the preparation of candidates for the priesthood. The realization of this plan was extraordinarily facilitated by the fact that in Kremenets at that same time the Kholm Theological Seminary was located, with its teaching staff. This Seminary during the First World War had been evacuated in 1916 to Moscow, and upon re-evacuation during the war and the revolution, could no longer reach Kholm, which was occupied by the Poles, who had no desire for the further functioning in Kholm of an Orthodox seminary, and likewise did not return to the church authorities the seminary's large library, which had been stored in Kholm (the Synod complained about this in its memorial to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Ol. Skrzyński, of December 19, 1925 — "Nasha Besida," No. 3, 1926, p. 7).

Some evidence suggests that initially, as it were, two theological seminaries were opened in Kremenets in 1919 — one was called the Volyn, the other the Kholm — but if such an abnormality did take place, it obviously did not last long: the seminaries were merged by the diocesan authority into one. The above-mentioned Memorial of the Holy Synod to Premier Skrzyński speaks of one seminary, which arose in 1919, was recognized by a decree of the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education of July 1, 1921, and, "despite repeated submissions by both the Volyn diocesan

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hierarch and the Head of the Orthodox Church in Poland, has not received and does not receive a single zloty from the state treasury" ("Nasha Besida," No. 2, 1926, p. 9).

The students at the Kremenets Theological Seminary were first of all those who had studied at the Seminary in Zhytomyr, children of the clergy of Western Volyn; those who had completed the theological schools (4-year) in Volyn — such a theological school, which existed before the revolution in Kremenets, survived until September 1925 in Derman, when it was closed by the Polish Ministry of Education, and its buildings were taken over by the state. No small number of children of peasants and townspeople also entered the Seminary. The composition of students by nationality was almost exclusively Ukrainian, but Ukrainian schooling, as is known, in Greater Ukraine had only begun to emerge from the 1917/18 school year.

The Theological Seminary in Kremenets, with its staff of old teachers, moreover from the former Kholm Theological Seminary, known for its Russifying role in the Kholm region, could in no way have opened as Ukrainian. The language of instruction was Russian; the Ukrainian language, as a separate subject, was introduced only in 1921. In the struggle that the Ukrainian church movement encountered from Russian circles and Russified Little Russians, the Kremenets Theological Seminary, as a school for future pastors, inevitably became one of the important objects of this struggle. The "Russian Charitable Society" in Kremenets, the RNO, Russian circles in Warsaw, together with the then Spiritual Consistory of the Volyn diocese, considered the Kremenets Theological Seminary their bastion and defended its status quo.

But even in those times of the first half of the 1920s, the life of Volyn in the growth of its national consciousness was stronger than the Moscophile dreams of the Russians; Ukrainian consciousness had already manifested its force in November 1922, when in the elections to the Polish Sejm and Senate all mandates in Volyn were won only by Ukrainians. Thus, within the walls of the Seminary as well, among its Ukrainian youth, national consciousness was spreading and Ukrainian national feelings were awakening. The Prosvita Society, the Ukrainian gymnasium, Ukrainian theatrical performances, the Ukrainian bookstore, books, periodicals, the Ukrainian "Plast" (scouts), Ukrainian cooperatives, and so forth had upon this youth, in the age of national revival, certainly more educational influence than the seminary lectures in Russian.

This influence is attested by the fact that the Theological Seminary, even at that time when the Russians considered it theirs, organized commemorative events in memory of Shevchenko. One may think that the Shevchenko celebration was observed on the initiative of the seminarians themselves, but in the recollections of Seminary students of that time we find testimony that even among the pedagogues, on whom, as it were, the "Muscovite spirit" of the Kremenets Seminary depended, this celebration evoked a noble uplift. Here, for example, from the recollections of one Seminary student who entered it in 1923 (now an archpriest of the UOC in the USA), we present the following fact. The Seminary organized a commemorative event in memory of Shevchenko. At its conclusion, the inspector of the Seminary, M. Strukov, ascended the stage and, with emotion, addressed the seminarians and guests (approximately): "Pushkin is the pride of Russia. Not to know Pushkin means not to know world literature. And here is what he wrote in his self-glorification:

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'I have erected a monument to myself not made by human hands! The people's path to it shall never be overgrown'... And here is another poet, with the divine fire of love for his neighbor, for his dear Ukraine. He does not seek glory, he does not call upon people to make a path to a monument made by human hands, but only bequeaths: 'When I die, then bury me'... Where? Under a monument with a path? No. In dear Ukraine! Why? So that one can hear how 'the mighty Dnipro roars.' Here is the pure, sacred love of a poet for his homeland. He does not demand that a path be made to his grave. He asks to be remembered someday. And here we create a memorial to him. I know that all of you are now in spirit beside that dear grave and are singing to him his sacred words: 'The wide Dnipro roars and moans'... Gentlemen! One must believe and hope!"... The entire hall, the narrator concludes, roared with applause; there was weeping in the hall among the seminarians. And this poured even more love into our young, passionate hearts — love for our people and for that sacred grave."

Thus, even in the years when the Kremenets Theological Seminary was considered, because of the language of instruction in the majority of its subjects, a Muscovite school, the Ukrainian element of national revival that surrounded that school did its work: Moscophilism, insofar as it existed among the seminarians, in the struggle against it by nationally conscious Ukrainian students, had to disappear. It is understood that the Moscophilism of "Little Russians" could have not only ideological grounds, but also feed on considerations of a better career under the Muscovite church leadership. In this regard, the rectors of the Seminary could play the greatest role; these, prior to the nationalization of the Kremenets Seminary, were — Archpriest Oleksander Hromadsky (later Archimandrite and Bishop Oleksiy), briefly Archbishop Dionisiy himself, Bishop Antoniy Martsenko, Bishop Simon Ivanovsky. Of these, according to the testimony of former Seminary students, only Bishop Simon (a native of Tula, from Muscovy) intervened in the struggle between Ukrainians and Moscophiles, on the side, of course, of the Moscophiles. In general, however, pressure from the administration upon Ukrainian seminarians was not felt. There existed a Plast Scout Troop at the Seminary; there was in the Seminary a literary-educational organization called "Promin" (Ray), for the study of predominantly Ukrainian writers.

In 1925, the "Orthodox Church Bulletin" in No. 65 reported: "For two years already, negotiations have been conducted between the Supreme Church Authority and the Ministry of Religious Denominations regarding the further fate of the Kremenets Theological Seminary. As a result of these negotiations, the Ministry has put forward a proposal to close the Seminary and partially transfer it to Warsaw in connection with the opening there of the Orthodox Theological Faculty at the University. The Metropolitan firmly protests, pointing to the infeasibility at the present moment of the plan to transfer the Seminary and the necessity of the Seminary's existence in Kremenets, the center of the Volyn diocese. At the same time, Metropolitan Dionisiy points out that the Orthodox Church in Poland has full right even to three seminaries, and therefore the proposal to open a seminary in Warsaw

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can be realized, but at the same time the Kremenets Seminary must continue to exist in Kremenets."

At the end of 1925, in the above-mentioned Memorial addressed to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Ol. Skrzyński, of December 19, 1925, the Holy Synod continued to complain that "the Ministry of Religious Denominations is openly moving toward the liquidation of the Kremenets Seminary, proposing to create a Seminary in Warsaw in its place." Obviously, the church authority was seeking from the Polish government assistance from the state treasury for the maintenance of seminaries (the second was in Vilna), or their complete assumption by the state. The government was not opposed to having the schools for the preparation of priesthood candidates in the Orthodox Church taken over by the state, but for the purposes of Polonizing the future candidates for the priesthood, it wanted to isolate the theological school of the pastorate for the Ukrainian Volyn and Polissia from the Ukrainian national environment and transfer it from Kremenets to Warsaw.

The coup in Poland, accomplished by Marshal Piłsudski in mid-May 1926, contributed to certain changes in the policy of the new sanation government, after the endek governments, regarding the position of the so-called national "minorities" in the Poland of that time. This can also explain the retention of the Theological Seminary in Kremenets, and at the same time its nationalization: its complete assumption by the state for maintenance and endowment with full rights of state secondary schools, under the name "State Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kremenets." This took place at the beginning of 1927.

The Seminary, as a state institution, was subordinated to the Ministry of Religious Denominations, and directly it was under the Volyn School Curatorate, which appointed pedagogues to the Seminary only in agreement with the Metropolitan. The Seminary was 9-year, of the classical gymnasium type, with theological subjects occupying the predominant number of hours in the upper classes, beginning with the 7th. As for the language of instruction, the Seminary became utraquistic — instruction was conducted in Ukrainian and Polish. All theological subjects, logic, psychology, mathematics, physics, Church Slavonic, of course also the Ukrainian language and literature, and singing — were conducted in the Ukrainian language; the remaining subjects — in Polish. Later, at the Curatorate's demand, changes were made in the instruction of mathematics and physics, to the detriment of the Ukrainian language. Thus A. Svitich wrote untruthfully that in the Seminary "instead of the native language of instruction, the Polish language was introduced, and for all subjects at that" (Op. cit., p. 128). He also wrote untruthfully further that "the seminarians and students (at the Theological Faculty in Warsaw) were required to speak in Polish in their dealings with the pedagogical staff and among themselves" (Ibid.).

Up to 40% of the students of the Kremenets Seminary (in total, upon nationalization, there were up to 180 students) received ministerial stipends, and their studies and life in the seminary dormitory cost them nothing, which attracted parents to send their children to the Seminary. Students were not required to give any commitments to accept the priesthood, and upon completing the Seminary, having obtained the matura (graduation certificate), they could enter

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higher schools or immediately become priests.

The reform that accompanied the transition of the Kremenets Seminary to the position of a state school immediately stripped it of its Russian character in the instruction of academic subjects. This struck a heavy blow to Russian circles, and they threw themselves into a struggle for their "possessory status." For the position of Rector of the Kremenets Theological Seminary, upon its nationalization, the Ministry put forward the candidacy of Fr. Petro Tabinsky, a master's candidate of the Petrograd Theological Academy (class of 1914), who was at that time a religion teacher at the Polish state gymnasium in Volodymyr-Volynskyi and the second priest at the Volodymyr cathedral; he took very active part in the Ukrainian church movement and was a contributor to the journal "Na Varti" (On Guard), which was published by A. Richynsky. In Russian circles, consternation arose. Denunciations against Fr. Tabinsky poured in to the Curatorate, the Ministry, and the Metropolia. Metropolitan Dionisiy was also against this candidacy, supporting Russian candidacies — Fr. Venedikt Turkevych or Fr. Georgiy Boryshkevych, also graduates of Russian theological academies, of Ukrainian origin from Volyn, only Russified; Fr. V. Turkevych died as rector of the Ostroh cathedral; Fr. Boryshkevych (in monasticism Hryhoriy) died as Archbishop of Chicago of the Russian Church Abroad in the USA. After prolonged contestation, the Ukrainian candidacy prevailed, and Fr. Petro Tabinsky was appointed Rector of the State Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kremenets effective January 1, 1927.

The Russians achieved only that the inspector of the Seminary was appointed as Mr. Kvashenko, a teacher at the Polish state gymnasium in Rivne, who by nationality was a Polonized Little Russian with pronounced Russian sympathies and a hostile attitude toward everything Ukrainian. The role of inspector in the Seminary was very important, for he was actually responsible to the Curatorate for the proper teaching of secular subjects, while for theological subjects the rector was responsible; from a political standpoint, this inspector was the "eye and ear" of the Curatorate. The organization of the Seminary was handled on behalf of the Curatorate by the visitator Mr. Artsemonovych, a Polonized Belarusian, who in those years caused no little harm to Ukrainian secondary education in Volyn in its development. Thus the Russians had at least the satisfaction that in the persons of the Seminary's inspector and visitator, they had "their own" people, with whom they jointly endeavored to ensure that there would be as few Ukrainian influences as possible in the new Theological Seminary in Kremenets.

On June 15-17, 1927, in Pochayiv, as a counterweight to the Ukrainian Church Congress in Lutsk, a Volyn Diocesan Assembly was held consisting of district archpriests, RNO activists, and some church elders appointed by the Consistory. This assembly was led by Bishop Simon and Archpriest N. Rohalsky from Rivne. Much attention was devoted to the Seminary, although neither the Rector of the Seminary nor a representative from its pedagogical staff had been invited to the Assembly.

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The Assembly took a very hostile position toward the Seminary, attacked Fr. Tabinsky and the Ukrainian professors at the Seminary, accusing them of "converting the Seminary to the union"; the Assembly demanded that the Metropolitan arrange for the dismissal of Fr. Tabinsky and ensure that theological subjects in the Seminary be taught in the Russian language. But the only thing this Assembly managed to achieve was the introduction in the Seminary of the Russian language as a non-obligatory subject for those who wished to study it, with the payment of the Russian language teacher (M. Strukov) assumed by the Spiritual Consistory.

The "istinno-russky" (truly Russian) attacks on the Seminary and the Ukrainian spirit in it, however, did not cease, and through the visitator Artsemonovych and the inspector Kvashenko, they continued to conduct a "campaign" at the Curatorate in Rivne and in Warsaw at the Metropolia against the Rector of the Seminary. Again they had no success; moreover, Fr. Tabinsky managed to achieve that Kvashenko, for his destructive work, was dismissed by the Curatorate from the Seminary at the end of 1928, and to the position of inspector of the Seminary, the Ukrainian pedagogue Vasyl Bohatsky was appointed. This was a complete victory of the Ukrainian course in the leadership of the Seminary.

The Kremenets Seminary did not lose its healthy national Ukrainian spirit even afterward, when changes came in its leadership. This occurred in the second half of 1931, when Rector Fr. P. Tabinsky, and with him V. Bohatsky, were dismissed from their positions. According to the testimony of colleagues at the Seminary, Fr. P. Tabinsky, though highly educated theologically, lacked organizational-administrative skill and very often displayed tactlessness in his relations both with the Metropolitan and with the School Curator. He never enjoyed the sympathies of the Metropolitan, spoiled his reputation with the Curator as well, with the result that the enemies of Fr. Tabinsky were satisfied.

The rectorship of the Seminary was entrusted to Bishop Simon, and to the position of inspector of the Seminary was appointed S. Yu. Miliashkevych, formerly the Director of the private Ukrainian Gymnasium in Kremenets. In reality, vicar Bishop Simon was rector of the Seminary, so to speak, "honoris causa" — he taught no subject, rarely showed himself in the Seminary building, and when in 1934 Archbishop Oleksiy arrived at the Volyn cathedra, the Seminary came under his archpastoral care; Bishop Simon settled outside Kremenets at the Derman Monastery, and the full-fledged head of the Seminary, with the rights of a school director, became the inspector S. Miliashkevych.

S. Yu. Miliashkevych, an experienced pedagogue with a university philological education, was a diplomat of the highest order, maintained a good reputation throughout his directorship at the Ukrainian gymnasium with the Curatorate, and knew how to get along with the Metropolitan, with Ukrainian circles, with the "Russian Charitable Society," and with both Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian professors. Under such a disposition of the Seminary's leader, its Ukrainian professors could continue the great work of educating future pastors among their own people in a national spirit, even in the times when

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the Polish government had already begun the gradual liquidation of the Theological Seminary in Kremenets.

There were considerable difficulties at the outset with textbooks for theological subjects in the Ukrainian language, but over a certain period such textbooks were prepared, especially by the late Prof. M. P. Kobryn, and were printed on a hectograph. The Ministry allocated 6,000 zlotys for a library at the Seminary, and this sum was used mostly for the purchase of Ukrainian books — the Ukrainian library in the Kremenets Seminary became at that time the largest in all of Volyn. The services in the seminary church of the Epiphany Monastery were conducted only in Church Slavonic; petitions from the students, demands from the professorial staff (Ukrainians) that at least the memorial service for Shevchenko be conducted in the Ukrainian language, met with no success from the church authorities. The sermons, however, which were delivered in church by students of the senior 9th class, were only in the Ukrainian language. Each student of this class was obliged to deliver at least one sermon in church, and before that, the sermon, reviewed by the professor of homiletics — who was also the professor of the Ukrainian language and literature, and at the time of this writing is the protopresbyter-administrator of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Brazil, Fr. Filimon Kulchynsky — was delivered by the student in class and submitted for the archbishop's blessing. Each class of the Seminary had its patron saint, predominantly from among Ukrainian saints, and on the day of his commemoration the class was released from the last two lectures, a prayer service was held in the church, after which a modest commemorative event was held in honor of the patron.

Among the study circles that existed in the Seminary beyond the classroom lectures, the most numerous and active was the Ukrainoznavstvo (Ukrainian Studies) circle, which operated until the very end of the Seminary's existence, under the leadership of Prof. F. Kulchynsky. The meetings of this circle took place weekly and were devoted to papers with discussions following them, on topics predominantly from the literature and history of Ukraine. The national Ukrainian holiday of Shevchenko was celebrated by the entire Seminary with a memorial service and a commemorative event in memory of the poet. The organization of such gatherings as those on the occasion of the death of Supreme Commander Simon Petliura, the heroes of Kruty, Bazar, was always conducted by the Ukrainoznavstvo circle. Ukrainian theatrical performances were also the work of that circle; "Natalka Poltavka" was even staged in the theatrical hall of the Kremenets Lyceum through the combined efforts of the seminary circle and the male and female students of the Kremenets Ukrainian Gymnasium.

Thus, the younger generation of Ukrainian clergy that was educated at the Kremenets Theological Seminary — no small number of whom later also completed the Orthodox Theological Faculty at the University of Warsaw — already within the walls of the Seminary received the foundations of a Ukrainian national worldview and experienced in their youthful age the national emotions that leave a mark on the soul, often for an entire lifetime. In this way, the Seminary in Kremenets prepared candidates who were far from what the Polish government desired in nationalizing the Seminary. The candidates for future priests

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of the Orthodox Church, graduates of the Kremenets Seminary, did not submit to Polonization — on the contrary, in the overwhelming majority, by the upper classes they were already fully conscious Ukrainian patriots, did not stray from the path, and were irreconcilably opposed to the idea and the measures for its realization — "Polish Orthodoxy" — an idea with which, after the death of Poland's first Marshal Józef Piłsudski, the ill-fated "Ozonists" ("Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego") popped up, headed by Marshal Rydz-Śmigły.

The liquidation of the State Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kremenets, begun by the Polish authorities around 1934-35 by the suspension of entrance examinations to the first class and the closure, consequently, of one class each year — was linked to the general reform of secondary education in the Polish state on the basis of the law of March 11, 1932 ("Voskresnoye Chteniye," No. 7, 1935). But this reform would not have been in the least hindered if the "Orthodox Theological Lyceum," to which those wishing to enter would apply after completing their general education in 4-class gymnasia, had been located in Volyn, in the same Kremenets. But the Polish authorities' aim was that, under this "reform" of secondary education, they should take entirely into their own hands the preparation of the Orthodox pastorate for the "Polish Orthodox Church," isolating these "candidates of 11-12 years of age for the priesthood" from their national environment.

And so the "Ozonists" outdo even the "endeks" (National Democrats), who had intended, as we saw, already in 1925 to transfer the Theological Seminary from Kremenets to Warsaw. Now, from the 1935-36 school year, an "Orthodox Metropolitan Dormitory" was opened in Warsaw at state expense, the purpose of which was "to facilitate the acquisition of secondary education for that Orthodox youth from among whom will come the candidates for the Orthodox Theological Lyceum in Warsaw, which is to arise in the future." These "candidates" were to, already from the 1st class, while living in the Metropolitan Dormitory, acquire their general education at Polish state gymnasia in Warsaw.

Against these designs for the Polonization of candidates for the Orthodox priesthood from their boyhood years, a struggle was begun by Volyn. The Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn repeatedly raised the matter of opening an Orthodox Theological Lyceum in Kremenets, both on the floor of the Sejm and at audiences with the Ministers of Religious Denominations and Education. The Volyn Diocesan Assembly of January 1935 adopted specific resolutions on this subject, and Archbishop Oleksiy of Volyn addressed a memorial to the Minister of Religious Denominations on this matter (text of the memorial — "Tserkva i Narid," No. 2, 1935, pp. 57-58). The pedagogical council of the Kremenets Seminary appealed on this matter both to the school authorities and to the Metropolia. The Ukrainian press raised it many times, and even "ORENB" (the organ of the Eastern Mission of the Jesuit Fathers in Poland, Nos. 5-6, 1935, pp. 86-88) shed tears over Orthodoxy on account of such arbitrariness of state bureaucracy in its reorganization of the education of priesthood candidates for the Orthodox Church in Poland

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. "For Volyn," we read there, "this reorganization will be a great loss. Into the Orthodox priesthood, instead of autochthons, more of the incoming Russian element will force its way"... All these efforts and endeavors had no success with the authorities, and the nearest school bureaucracy, under the infamous Curator Firevych, as if responding to all those demands, began to ravage the Kremenets Theological Seminary, not admitting its graduating students to the matura examinations and "cutting" them through its visitators at the examinations themselves, as a result of which some 50% of the graduating 9th class would fail. The beginning of the Second World War in September 1939, when the Seminary ceased to exist along with the fall of Poland, put an end to this bacchanalia...

The initiative to create a higher Orthodox theological school in Poland came from Metropolitan Yuriy himself, as Metropolitan Dionisiy attested in his speech at the opening of the Orthodox Theological Faculty at the University of Warsaw. Metropolitan Yuriy had addressed a corresponding proposal to the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education; however, he was not destined to see the results of his initiative. Only two years after his death, on the very second anniversary of the tragic death of Metropolitan Yuriy, on Sunday February 8, 1925, the solemn opening of the said Faculty at the University of Warsaw took place. "The spirit of the people, our traditions, and finally our culture," declared the Rector of the University, Prof. F. Krzyształowicz, in his opening remarks at this ceremony, "have made it so that Poland has never known religious oppression; here, people have always known how to regulate relations with other confessions. And now, no one thinks of denying the rights of other confessions, for these are the principles of Polish ideology"... ("Dukhovna Besida," No. 4, 1925, p. 2).

"The opening of Orthodox Theology in Poland," they wrote in the Ukrainian church press of that time, "particularly concerns us, Ukrainians, for we constitute the vast majority in our Orthodox Church. Obviously, the greatest part of the students of the new Theological Faculty will in the future serve among us. Therefore, it is not a matter of indifference to us whom the new higher theological school will provide us"... And this will depend both on the professorial composition and on the composition of candidates for students. Therefore it is necessary and inevitable that Ukrainian professors be appointed to a portion of the chairs, in which would be manifested the desire of the new higher theological school to provide genuine pastors useful for the Ukrainian portion of the faithful"... (Ibid., p. 1).

But, nearly a year after the solemn opening of the Orthodox Theological Faculty at the University of Warsaw, in the Memorial to Premier Skrzyński of December 19, 1925, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church wrote: "The present situation of the Orthodox Church in Poland gives wide scope for imposing upon the church authorities the will of the administrative authorities in one question or another and facilitates all manner of experiments, which the representatives of the administration carry out on the living body of the

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Orthodox Church. The most striking proof is the present state of the theological school. From top to bottom, the Ministry of Religious Denominations carries out some experiments, which proceed without any visible plan, often without agreement with the spiritual authorities, even contrary to their will. Thus, the higher theological school, that is, the Orthodox Theological Courses at the University of Warsaw, were opened, as is known, thanks to the efforts of the University Council, entirely unsupported by the Ministry of Religious Denominations. At the present time, the Ministry is working in such a direction that it is difficult to conclude that it has a friendly attitude toward the said Courses... Thus, the benefit from the Courses, which have in two years only one theological chair ('Pastoral Theology' — Metropolitan Dionisiy. I. V.), becomes unrealistic"... ("Nasha Besida," No. 2, 1926, p. 9).

Indeed, the "Plan of Lectures in the Winter and Spring Trimesters of 1925" for students of the Orthodox Theological Faculty at the University of Warsaw shows they were to attend the following subjects: Old Slavonic Grammar (Prof. S. Smolensky), History of Polish Literature of the 17th Century (Prof. B. Gubrynovich), Hellenism and Judaism (Prof. F. Zelinsky), Greek Historical Grammar (Prof. A. Krokevych), Introduction to the History of Polish Literature (Prof. B. Gubrynovich), Religious Relations in New Poland (Prof. V. Smolensky), Pastoral Theology of the Orthodox Church (Metropolitan Dionisiy). Seminars were to be in Pastoral Theology, in exercises in the Latin language (Prof. M. Handelsman), in Slavistics (Prof. S. Slonsky), in Philosophy (Prof. V. Tatarkevych) (Dukh. Besida, No. 4, 1925, p. 5). With such disciplines in the first two years, taught by the Polish professoriate, the preparation of the Orthodox pastorate for the Orthodox Church in Poland was to begin. The course of Pastoral Theology, taught by Metropolitan Dionisiy, was the only reminder that this was an "Orthodox Theological Faculty at the University of Warsaw."

With time, the organization of studies at this Orthodox Theological Faculty of the University of Warsaw was regularized. The four-year studies of theology students encompassed the following subjects: in the first year — General History of the Church (to 1054), Biblical Archaeology, Fundamental Theology, Christian Philosophy, Patrology Part 1, Old Slavonic Language and Paleography, Old Hebrew Language, and elective lectures from philosophy or pedagogy; in the second year — Holy Scripture of the Old Testament, Holy Scripture of the New Testament Part 1, Dogmatic Theology, Patrology Part 2, General History of the Church (from 1054), with special emphasis on the history of the Slavic Orthodox Churches, Church Archaeology and Art, elective lectures from the field of law; in the third year — Holy Scripture of the New Testament Part 2, History of the Orthodox Church in Poland, Canon Law, Liturgics, Christian Sociology or Social and Charitable Sciences (student's choice), elective lectures from the humanities; in the fourth year —

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Moral Theology, Pastoral Theology, Comparative Theology, Sectology, Homiletics.

In 1926, the first Ukrainian professor was invited to teach at the Orthodox Theological Faculty of the University of Warsaw — the former rector of the Kamianets State Ukrainian University, I. I. Ohienko (now Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Canada [UGOC]), who took the chair of Old Slavonic Language and Paleography. In 1928, a second Ukrainian professor was invited (from Prague), O. H. Lototsky, who became the director of the "Ukrainian Scientific Institute" organized in Warsaw (1929); at the Theological Faculty of the University, he held the chair of the History of the Orthodox Slavic and Romanian Churches. In January 1929, the Ukrainian scholar Prof. V. O. Bidnov, Master of Theology of the Kyiv Theological Academy for his work "The Orthodox Church in Poland and Lithuania according to 'Volumina Legum,'" began teaching at the Theological Faculty; Prof. Bidnov was an extraordinary professor in the chairs of the General History of the Christian Church and Liturgics.

Among the lecturers who conducted so-called "entrusted lectures" at the Orthodox Theological Faculty of the University of Warsaw were Ukrainians — Master of Theology O. Lapinsky (Sectarianism), Prof. P. Zaitsev (Ukrainian Language, Paleography), Master of Theology I. Korovytsky (Old Church Slavonic Language). At the beginning of the 1932-33 academic year, Prof. Dr. I. Ohienko had to leave the chair of Church Slavonic Language and Paleography because the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education did not renew his service contract for that year. That chair was never filled, was closed, and in its place, a chair of Patrology was established at the Theological Faculty. ("Report on the Activity of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology of the University of Warsaw for the Academic Year 1933-34," supplement to the journal "ELPIS," 1934, No. 2.) On April 1, 1935, Prof. V. O. Bidnov passed away in Warsaw. To the chair of the History of the Christian Church, after his death, the Ukrainian historian Prof. D. I. Doroshenko was invited, and he occupied that chair in 1935-39.

We have already introduced above a correction to A. Svitich's untruthful assertion about Polish being the language of instruction for all subjects at the Kremenets Theological Seminary after its nationalization. The assertion of the same historian that "the Polish language was the language of instruction at the Theological Faculty of the University of Warsaw as well" (p. 128) also requires correction. Certainly, the requirement to conduct lectures at a state higher school in the state language was the norm, but a transitional period, so to speak, was still ongoing, when deviations from the norm were tolerated by the academic authorities. Former graduates of the Orthodox Theological Faculty of the University of Warsaw, whom I have asked on this subject, testify that the languages of instruction were Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. One, for example, of the most distinguished scholars at the Theological Faculty, Prof. Dr. N. Arsenyev, not knowing the Polish language, delivered his profound lectures on Holy Scripture of the New Testament and on Comparative Theology in the Russian language; it was difficult for

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Prof. V. O. Bidnov to lecture in Polish, and he would switch to Ukrainian. In general, the Ukrainian professors, according to the testimony of students from the Faculty's early graduating classes, widely used the Ukrainian language in their lectures, "coloring it with Polish for form's sake." Ukrainian students of the Theological Faculty also attended, outside the Faculty, the lectures on the Ukrainian language and literature by Prof. Roman Smal-Stotsky and on the early History of Ukraine by Prof. Myron Korduba.

"If one speaks of the influence of the Ukrainian professoriate on the national education and national development of the Ukrainian students of the Theological Faculty, the very lectures in the Ukrainian language at a Polish university obviously awakened feelings of Ukrainian consciousness and of equal worth," writes one of the graduates of the Theological Faculty, class of 1933. The Ukrainian language was also used by Ukrainian students in seminar work; papers were written and discussions on them took place with the use of the Ukrainian language as well; semester papers and master's theses, although according to the rules they were supposed to be written in Polish, were also submitted by Ukrainian students to Ukrainian professors in the Ukrainian language, and by Russians in the Russian language; a paper was not rejected because of the language, one or another, and its value, because of not being written in Polish, was not diminished in the professor's eyes.

Noteworthy is the subject matter of master's theses written by students for Professors O. Lototsky and V. Bidnov in the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church: "The Church in Ukraine in the First Half of the 18th Century" (student P. Dubytsky), "Wooden Churches in Ukraine" (student A. Selepyna), "Prince Konstantyn Ostrozky as an Orthodox Activist" (student V. Lopukhovych), "The Church in Ukraine in the Second Half of the 18th Century" (student P. Romaniuk), "Negotiations Preparatory to the Union of Brest" (student O. Ulovych), "The Lutsk Holy Cross Brotherhood" (student I. Bulbeniuk), "The Viden Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit from 1597 to 1633" (student M. Horynovych), "Marriage according to the Trebnik of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla" (student Fr. M. Maliuzhynskyi), "The Life and Activity of Archimandrite Inokentiy Gizel" (student Fr. M. Koretsky), "Venerable Makariy Tokarevsky, His Life and Activity" (student Y. Karpetsky), "Archbishop Yuriy Konysky" (student Fr. M. Neslukhovsky), "Mazepa as a Patron of Orthodox Theological Science and a Builder of God's Churches in Ukraine" (student V. Hrytsiuk), "The Trebnik of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla: Its Origin, Content and Significance" (student H. Pituruk), and others.

We do not think that these master's thesis topics in the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as well as its history under Poland in general, were developed and taught by the Ukrainian professors "exclusively from the standpoint of the Polish understanding," or that "the era connected with the church union, that is, the 16th and 17th centuries, was studied from a purely Polish point of view," as A. Svitich asserts (Op. cit., p. 128). "The lectures of such professors as Bidnov, Lototsky, Ohienko,

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Doroshenko," writes to us a graduate of the Theological Faculty, "poured into us a feeling of Ukrainian consciousness, not to mention the lectures of Prof. Smal-Stotsky, who operated with such slogans of Shevchenko as 'Fight — and you shall conquer!'" But the influence and the contacts of professors with students were not limited to university lectures. Leading seminars, taking part in the meetings of the "Koło teologów prawosławnych" (Circle of Orthodox Theologians) in its various sections or study groups, such as "homiletical," "scholarly," "literary," "abstinence," and others, taking an interest in the life of students in the Dormitory for theology students, as well as in the general Ukrainian student dormitory in Warsaw, where those theology students also lived who did not get into the Dormitory for theology students or had been expelled from it — the Ukrainian professors, with their sensitivity to the development of national consciousness, to the scholarly pursuits of students, and often to their personal fortunes — left behind deeply grateful memories in the hearts of their students.

In general, attempts at the Polonization of future Orthodox pastors — students of the Orthodox Theological Faculty of the University of Warsaw who had come to study at this Faculty from the Kremenets Theological Seminary or from the Ukrainian gymnasia of Volyn — proved futile. For these were already older young people who had received the foundations of their national worldview and the complex of national emotions already before their years of study at the Theological Faculty. During their studies in Warsaw, the Ukrainian theology students were not isolated from the Ukrainian student body at the higher schools of the capital of Poland and belonged to the "Ukrainian Student Community," in which they formed a compact group and played a significant role. Hence their close participation in the life of the Ukrainian community in Warsaw, their affiliation with one or another political group, their active participation — in particular in the Ukrainian choir — in all national events, such as Statehood Day, Shevchenko Commemorations, the Anniversary of the tragic death of Simon Petliura, the memory of the heroes of Bazar and Kruty, and other jubilee celebrations organized by the Ukrainian Committee of Warsaw. The student choir of Orthodox theology students toured Volyn with concerts, singing exclusively Ukrainian songs.

Obviously, the national-Ukrainian solidarity of Ukrainian theology students had, so to speak, its nest in their communal life in the Dormitory for students of the Orthodox Theological Faculty, which (the Dormitory) was initially located at 9 Bielańska Street, and then, from the 1929/30 school year, moved to a new building in Praga, where the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education was the full master of the Dormitory. The concerns of the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education about providing the future pastors of the Orthodox Church in Poland with better material-cultural conditions in their preparation for pastoral service, for which purpose the Dormitory for students of the Orthodox Theological Faculty was also arranged, were combined — increasingly clearly — with the designs of having "our own," as representatives of the Polish government expressed it, Orthodox clergy,

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that is, cadres of Polonized Orthodox priests who would engage, alongside their pastoral duties, in the Polonization of the Orthodox population of Poland. But Polonophilism among the students of the Dormitory, whether feigned or sincere, did not come so quickly.

In the Dormitory, from the beginning, there were a Ukrainian group and a Russian group, which were not at peace with each other, for the Russian group both in its composition and even in its leadership consisted mostly of the same Ukrainians by origin, including some from Volyn and partly from Galicia (Orthodox Moscophiles), whom the Ukrainian group considered turncoats. The Russian group in the Dormitory in its first years was dominant, for it had support from Zygmuntowska 23 (the Metropolitan House), which caused great dissatisfaction among the Ukrainian students, who submitted, on account of the favoritism shown to the Russian direction, a memorandum-protest to Metropolitan Dionisiy. The memorandum had sad consequences: several of the senior students were expelled from the Dormitory, and newer, younger students were forced to withdraw their signatures from the memorandum. But in further dormitory life, this led to a greater consolidation of Ukrainian students, for "when someone presses," writes to us in his recollections of the Dormitory one of its former residents, "then our brothers seek one another, unite, fraternize, and obediently carry out all the orders and instructions of their leadership." In the student organization within the Dormitory itself, the "Circle of Orthodox Theologians," which included students regardless of nationality (Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians), the Ukrainians then took the leadership into their own hands.

Within the walls of the Dormitory, students spoke among themselves in whatever language they knew; the Polish language was not obligatory in dealings with the dormitory administration and tutors either. In the student rooms in the Dormitory, there hung portraits of Shevchenko, Franko, Petliura, Hetman Skoropadsky, and others; no one forbade this. Ukrainian periodicals and journals were also subscribed to for the Dormitory's library. Polish books from the Dormitory library were rarely read by students, which was noticed by the representative from the Ministry (Mr. Zahurovsky), who told the students: "If you don't read them, then at least take them out, otherwise the books are collecting dust, which is very conspicuous to everyone." There were also no volunteers to write and read papers in the Polish language in the "Kółko Literackie" (Literary Circle); so the Ministry representative paid each such "volunteer" a reward of 15 zlotys per paper. But the students mercilessly criticized such papers in Polish after hearing them and discouraged anyone from writing them. Later, they did the following: they took turns sending their own people for those papers and wrote them only on Ukrainian-popular domestic-customary themes; then the criticism was mild, everyone was satisfied, and the 15 zlotys received went to communal needs...

A. K. Svitich writes: "The Government's hopes for the cooperation of the new Orthodox clergy educated in the Polish spirit were fully justified. While still on the school bench, the new Polonizers of Orthodoxy

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were supported in every way by the Polish government: students who made presentations and papers about Polish culture, its significance, about the victories of Polish troops over the 'Muscovites,' were given one-time assistance and even stipends; many of them were maintained free of charge in the state Dormitory. After completing the Theological Faculty of the University, such students immediately received responsible positions as deans, members of Spiritual Consistories, with precise, of course, assignments to Polonize the Orthodox Church" (Op. cit., p. 129). The author does not indicate when exactly this "new Orthodox clergy educated in the Polish spirit" appeared. To give and receive assistance and stipends does not yet mean to educate and be educated in the Polish spirit. "The pressure from the administration on Ukrainians and Belarusians in the Dormitory was not strong. Of course, the compliant, quiet, and spineless ones had priority in receiving the Metropolitan or ministerial stipend, or a long-term loan. But that it would be refused because the student was a Ukrainian or Belarusian — that did not happen," testifies a graduate of the Theological Faculty.

Being in the position of secretary of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory from September 3, 1934, until September 9, 1939, when the Second World War began — that is, throughout the last five years of pre-war Poland's existence — I can testify that in the Volyn diocese, the largest of all the dioceses of the Orthodox Church in Poland, there was not a single case of a priest of the younger generation being appointed Dean or Member of the Spiritual Consistory immediately upon completing the Theological Faculty of the University; nor are such cases known to me in other dioceses. Thus, such an assertion is either a fable or the generalization of some exceptional case.

Moreover: in the Volyn diocese, during my five years of service in it, I cannot name a single priest educated in "the Polish spirit" at the Dormitory for theology students and at the Theological Faculty of the University of Warsaw who could be called a "Polonizer of Orthodoxy" in his pastoral work in the parish. On the other hand, I can name not a few of those graduates of the Orthodox Theological Faculty of the younger generation with the title of "Master of Theology" who in the parishes joined the ranks of the nationally conscious Ukrainian pastorate.

I would say that the pastors who were Polonizers in the Orthodox Church in Poland in the second half of the 1930s were not so much those "educated in the Polish spirit" from the younger generation, who were still being cultivated, but rather from the older clergy, from which the Polonizing hierarchy also emerged, such as Bishops Sava Sovietov, Tymofiy Shreter, and Matviy Semashko. Who and when re-educated them in "the Polish spirit" is unknown; joining them was also a group of Orthodox military chaplains headed by Fr. Fedoronko, in whose ranks among the younger theologians there was perhaps only one Fr. V. Lopukhovych. We do not undertake to judge whether any of those representatives and activists of "Polish Orthodoxy" acted out of conviction...

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Above, we have already told how, from the 1935-36 school year, the Polish government, despite the requests and protests of Orthodox Ukrainians, opened in Warsaw, under a separate "Statute," an Orthodox Metropolitan Dormitory for Orthodox boys starting from the 1st gymnasium class; these boys began to study at the Polish state gymnasia in Warsaw, being educated there and in the Dormitory in "the Polish spirit" as future pastors of the Orthodox Church. In the Metropolitan Dormitory, they had in the evenings additional lectures in Church Slavonic, Greek, Typikon, and church singing, preparing after completing the 4 general-education classes of the Polish gymnasium to enter the Orthodox Theological Lyceum in Warsaw, and then the Orthodox Theological Faculty of the University of Warsaw, although completion of the said Lyceum already gave the right to be ordained a priest.

Obviously, the Polish government, from the experience of preparing priesthood candidates in local, "regional," as they then said, theological seminaries, and also at the Theological Faculty of the University in the Dormitory for its students, had become convinced of the futility of its efforts to produce from such candidates truly "our own" Orthodox pastors who would be "good Poles" and sincerely, "not from fear but from conscience," not for the sake of comfortable positions and subsidies, but out of conviction, would serve the Polonization of the Orthodox population of Poland through its Orthodox Church. In order to obtain such people, and not mercenary renegades in cassocks, the authorities decided to close the Orthodox theological seminaries in Kremenets and Vilna, to tear future candidates for the Orthodox priesthood from their native soil, and already from childhood to cultivate in them Polish patriotism, to create "citizens of Polish culture," for which purpose they were to study from ages 10-11 at state gymnasia in Warsaw and be educated during that time in the special Warsaw Metropolitan Dormitory.

This was taking place already at the twilight of the restored Republic of Poland. Whether the plan to transform the Orthodox clergy in Poland into Polish clergy of the Orthodox faith would have succeeded over several generations is hard to say. One priest of the Polissia diocese told me how even our Polishchuk people expressed to him their grief and fear for the Orthodox Faith, saying that "now the Poles will serve in our churches when our priests die." For these Polishchuk people had been on a pilgrimage to Pochayiv when, precisely in the last years before the fall of Poland, an excursion to the Lavra arrived of students of the Theological Lyceum and students of the Theological Faculty from Warsaw, accompanied by their "educators." These candidates for the priesthood spoke among themselves and with the people only in Polish, and not only in the Lavra's courtyard, but also in the choir loft in the cathedral. Both monks and other people pointed at them with their fingers and said tearfully: "Look! These are the future pastors of the Orthodox Church"...

A. Svitich writes: "The Polonization of the Orthodox Church in Poland was planned on the most grandiose scale and, of course, would have been

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accomplished very soon, had the Polish-German war not begun on September 1, 1939, which put an end to this Polonization" (Op. cit., p. 183. Emphasis ours.). Such an assertion, expressed with extraordinary "lightness of pen," is confirmed by nothing. It is still unknown to what extent the Polish government would have succeeded in creating entire cadres of such "Polish Orthodox clergy" from among the Ukrainian and Belarusian citizenry, and most importantly — the author does not take into account the degree of national consciousness of the Orthodox masses themselves, who would have found ways to react to the designs of such priests in "Polish vestments." One can make such conclusions as the one cited from A. Svitich's historical monograph only if one considers the Orthodox population of that time in Poland to be some sort of "cattle."

12. Private initiative in translations into the Ukrainian language of the books of Holy Scripture and liturgical rites. The Commission for the Translation of Holy Scripture and Liturgical Books into the Ukrainian Language under the Holy Synod in 1925. The same "Commission" at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw in 1932; its Kremenets and Lutsk subcommissions. The publication of its translations by the Ukrainian Scientific Institute, the Holy Synod, and the Petro Mohyla Society. The publication of the Altar Gospel in the Ukrainian language. The liquidation of the Commission at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute and its subcommissions. The matter of the Ukrainization of church worship in the parishes of the Volyn diocese, the Polissia diocese, and in the Kholm region and Pidliashia. The Ukrainian church press in the Orthodox Church in Poland; its cessation "for reasons beyond our control." Orthodox calendars in the Ukrainian language. Separate publications of church sermons, theological and church-historical works in the Ukrainian language. The teaching of religion in schools in the Ukrainian language and textbooks of the Law of God.

By the resolutions of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland of June 16 and December 14, 1922, and September 3, 1924, the use of the living Ukrainian language in church-religious life was blessed: in church worship, in church preaching, in extraliturgical talks in churches, and in the teaching of the Law of God in schools. Translations into this language of the texts of Holy Scripture, prayers, and liturgical rites were to be blessed by the higher church authority as a precondition for their use in church-religious life. But at the time of those very resolutions, evoked by the national revival of the Ukrainian people, which encompassed its church life as well, the question was not immediately raised by the church authority as to who would take care of the translations, who would make those translations that the Holy Synod was to bless for use. These translations, as Metropolitan Dionisiy himself testified in April 1925, "have until now been a matter of private initiative; I have already blessed several such translations, but what was possible at first, in the further development of church life is impossible"...

The private initiative mentioned here by the Metropolitan belonged most of all to Prof. I. Ohienko. Metropolitan Dionisiy, still as

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Bishop of Kremenets, blessed for use in churches his translations into the Ukrainian language of the "Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom," the "Holy Paschal Service," the "Holy Service for Pentecost," and the "Holy Service of Vespers and Matins." On August 28, 1924, the Holy Synod, with the signatures of its Chairman Metropolitan Dionisiy and members — Archbishop Feodosiy of Viden and Bishops Oleksander of Polissia and Oleksiy of Hrodna — issued to Prof. I. Ohienko a charter of the following content: "Charter of Blessing. The Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland bestows from our humble selves a blessing with the issuance of this charter to the Most Esteemed Professor Ivan Ivanovych Ohienko for his beneficial activity for the Orthodox Church in general and especially for the labor of translating liturgical books into the Ukrainian language." Also from private initiative was published in 1924 the "Holy Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great" in the translation of Priest Petro Tabinsky; the Gospel in the Ukrainian language, in a text blessed by the Russian Holy Synod, was published by V. A. Sochynsky.

At the end of April 1925, as we have already stated above (subsection 3), the matter of translating Holy Scripture and Liturgical Books into the Ukrainian language was taken over by the Commission under the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland, at whose first session on April 27-29, 1925, Metropolitan Dionisiy declared: "Although I know the Ukrainian language only theoretically, as Archpastor I feel it my duty to take the matter of translating Holy Scripture and Liturgical Books into the Ukrainian language under my care. Having the good will for this, I will gladly devote to this cause what I can from my experience. The matter of translation is the business of competent people — a matter of their mind and heart." At this same session, the Commission adopted the draft of its Statute, developed by Prof. I. Ohienko and Priest P. Tabinsky; the Statute of the Commission was to be confirmed by the Holy Synod. The Commission resolved to immediately proceed with the printing of the Gospel in the Ukrainian language following the text approved and published by the Russian Holy Synod, in liturgical format, in Cyrillic script; as a first priority, the Commission was to review and republish the texts of the Liturgies, then the Trebnik (Book of Needs), the Horologion, the Akathists and Synaxaria. ("Dukh. Besida," No. 9, 1925.)

What was accomplished by this Commission from these resolutions, we have no information. The "Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies" (Dictionary part) ("Shevchenko Scientific Society") in the article "Liturgical Language" (p. 146) makes no mention at all of this "Commission for the Translation of Holy Scripture and Liturgical Books under the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland." There is also no mention of this translation "Commission under the Holy Synod" in Poland from 1925 in the historical report on the matter of translating Holy Scripture and Liturgical Books into the Ukrainian language delivered by Prof. V. Bidnov at the first meeting of the newly formed, in spring 1932, "Commission for the Translation of Holy Scripture and Liturgical Books at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute" in Warsaw. ("Tryzub," April 10, 1932, pp. 6-7.) At this first meeting of the said Commission, there were present Metropolitan Dionisiy, who assumed the

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chairmanship of the Commission, Prof. O. H. Lototsky, Director of the Ukrainian Scientific Institute, as Deputy Chairman of the Commission, Prof. V. O. Bidnov, Secretary of the Commission, and its members — Archimandrite Polikarp Sikorsky, Priest Ivan Huba, Prof. M. P. Kobryn, Deputy Ye. S. Bohuslavsky, Prof. P. I. Zaitsev, O. F. Lapinsky, and V. V. Yakubovsky. Metropolitan Dionisiy concluded his opening remarks at the first meeting of the Commission with the words: "The invitation to me to participate in the Commission and the granting to me of the honor of opening it and chairing it speak for themselves and testify that the members of the Commission place themselves under the protection of the Holy Church and are filled with the most ardent desire to labor for the glory of God, for the benefit of the Holy Church, and for the strengthening of the souls of the pious and God-loving Ukrainian people."

The Commission for the Translation of Holy Scripture and Liturgical Books into the Ukrainian Language at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw conducted its work with the broad assistance of subcommissions organized in Volyn — in Kremenets and Lutsk. The Kremenets subcommission worked in the composition of professors of the Theological Seminary: M. P. Kobryn, L. K. Danylevych, F. U. Kulchynsky, and N. O. Vyshnevsky, and the editor A. V. Kotovych. Prof. M. P. Kobryn, who was also a member of the central Commission, a Master of Theology of the Moscow Theological Academy and a classmate at the Academy of Metropolitan Anastasiy of the Russian Church Abroad, performed the greatest labor, having translated into Ukrainian all the Apostolic Epistles, the Revelation of John the Theologian, the Book of Psalms, and the Octoechos.

The Lutsk subcommission was organized by Commission member Bishop Polikarp of Lutsk in 1932, soon after his arrival in Lutsk as his cathedral city. Members of this subcommission, under the chairmanship of Bishop Polikarp, throughout its work in 1932-39, included Archpriest P. Pashchevsky, Archpriest N. Abramovych, Director of the Lutsk Ukrainian Gymnasium B. M. Biletsky, General Secretary of the Petro Mohyla Society Prof. I. Wlasowsky, Prof. V. K. Fedorenko, Prof. Ye. S. Bohuslavsky, V. A. Sochynsky, M. F. Telezhynsky, and M. P. Tyravsky (secretary of the subcommission). The Lutsk subcommission during its existence held 72 sessions. At the sessions of the subcommissions, already completed translations of texts were collegially heard and edited, which in the redaction adopted by the subcommission were sent for final editing and publication to the Commission at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw.

The Volyn Diocesan Assembly of representatives of the clergy and laity, which took place on February 12-13, 1936, in Kremenets, adopted the following resolution on the matter of the celebration of worship in the Ukrainian language: "To greet with joy and deep satisfaction the work of the Commission under the chairmanship of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Dionisiy, at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute, for the good benefit of the Church and Orthodox Ukrainians, and to request His Eminence, the Most Eminent Oleksiy, to bless for use in those churches of the Volyn diocese where worship is celebrated in the Ukrainian language, the translations into Ukrainian of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the rites of betrothal and marriage, the rite of baptism, the Akathist to the Lord Jesus, and the Psalter, approved by the said

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Commission. To request the Most Eminent Oleksiy, in agreement with the Supreme Church Authority and the Ukrainian Scientific Institute, to publish as soon as possible the Altar Gospel, the Apostol, the paroemial readings for great feasts, as well as the prayers before Holy Communion. To also request Archbishop Oleksiy to publish collections of musical scores of church hymns of the Liturgy, Vespers and Matins, as well as collections of religious songs and Nativity carols" ("Tserkva i Narid," No. 5 for 1936).

Thus the work of the Commission for the Translation of Holy Scripture and Liturgical Books into the Ukrainian Language at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw, with its subcommissions in Kremenets and Lutsk, greatly served the Ukrainization of church services in the Orthodox Church in Poland and for the entire Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In the publication of translations approved by the Commission, besides the publications by the Ukrainian Scientific Institute itself, the Petro Mohyla Society in Lutsk has merits as well.

Through the efforts of the Ukrainian Scientific Institute itself, the following liturgical books were published: the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (1936), the Psalter (1936), the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great (1939), and the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts of St. Gregory the Dialogist (1939). The Synodal Printing House in 1942, with the blessing of Metropolitan Dionisiy, published in Ukrainian translation, previously edited by the Commission for the Translation of Holy Scripture and Liturgical Books at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute: the Small Trebnik (Book of Needs), the Sluzhebnik (Service Book), and the New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ; the last book was the first Orthodox publication of the entire New Testament in the Ukrainian language; the translation of the Epistles of the Holy Apostles and the Revelation of St. John the Theologian in it was done by Prof. Mykhailo Kobryn.

The Theological Section of the Petro Mohyla Society in Lutsk, organized and directed by Bishop Polikarp in 1937, published the following translations: "The Rite of the Holy Mysteries of Baptism and Chrismation," "The Rite of the Holy Mystery of Marriage," "The Rite of the Holy Mystery of Confession," "The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom," "Rites of Prayer Services," "The Rite of the Memorial Service," the "Octoechos" (at the expense of Archbishop Oleksiy of Volyn), the "Apostol," "Akathists," the "Horologion," "Vespers and Matins," "An Orthodox Prayer Book for Youth," "The Small Bohohlasnik," "Score of Memorial Service Hymns," and "Score of Liturgy Hymns of St. John Chrysostom." The material in these collections of church hymns, solidly prepared by Fr. Mykhailo Telezhynsky, contains, alongside so-called "ordinary" chants, compositions by well-known church composers — Dm. Bortniansky, O. Koshyts, K. Stetsenko, M. Leontovych, M. Lysenko, N. Rimsky-Korsakov, Zavadsky, Hr. Lomakin, A. Arkhangelsky, and others. Also included, as an appendix to the Liturgy hymns, were hymns from the hierarchical celebration of the Divine Liturgy, religious psalms, canticles, and concertos.

The "Altar Gospel" (Naprestolna Yevanheliia) in the Ukrainian language — the resolution for the printing of which was adopted as early as April 1925 by the Commission for Translation under the Holy Synod, and the publication of which was requested by the Volyn Diocesan

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Assembly in February 1936 — was printed in Cyrillic at the Warsaw Synodal Printing House only after Archbishop Oleksiy and the Volyn Spiritual Consistory took care of it, allocating seven thousand zlotys for its printing. The Altar Gospel was typeset at the Printing House by the pious Hierodeacon Sydorchuk; it was completed in printing and binding shortly before Pascha 1939. This was the first in the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Altar Gospel in large format in the living Ukrainian language. Archbishop Mstyslav, while still Canadian, reprinted this Altar Gospel by photostat, and it rests on the altars of many Ukrainian Orthodox churches in Canada and the USA.

In January 1939, Prof. O. H. Lototsky, who from the establishment, on the basis of the decree of the Council of Ministers of Poland of February 7, 1930, of the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw, had been its organizer and director — submitted a declaration of withdrawal from membership in the Institute; the declaration was accepted by the Minister of Religious Confessions and Education Świętosławski with an expression of gratitude to Prof. O. Lototsky for his great work at the head of the Institute over 9 years. After Prof. O. Lototsky's departure from the Ukrainian Scientific Institute, Metropolitan Dionisiy resigned from his duties as Chairman of the Commission for the Translation of Holy Scripture and Liturgical Books at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute. Then this Commission effectively ceased its existence, and subsequently its subcommissions in Volyn also ceased to exist. The liquidation meeting of the Lutsk subcommission, under the chairmanship of Bishop Polikarp, took place on March 2, 1939. At it, the memory was honored of subcommission member Vasyl Sochynsky, translator of the Akathist to the Venerable Iov of Pochayiv, who had reposed on February 27, 1939.

The cycle of the annual Orthodox church worship in translations into the Ukrainian language that was published in the Orthodox Church in Poland was, of course, far from complete, as it still is not in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church even now, for the work is both important and great and difficult; but using those translations, as well as the translations from Greater Ukraine (the Festal Menaion), the introduction of the Ukrainian language into worship where parishioners desired it no longer encountered serious obstacles from the lack of Ukrainian translations.

How, then, did the matter of the Ukrainization of church worship stand in the Ukrainian Volyn diocese? Above, in subsection 5, we wrote about the extraordinarily slow progress in this matter, so that before the Lutsk Church Congress, which took place on June 5-6, 1927, one could hardly count even 20 parishes in which the Ukrainian language was used in worship. The introduction of the living Ukrainian language of worship in Lutsk was connected, as stated in subsection 9, with the transition of the Lutsk Holy Cross Brotherhood to Ukrainian leadership. After a long delay in the legalization of this Brotherhood with its

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immovable properties dating back to the seventeenth century, it was finally legalized on July 30, 1935, with the confirmation of its statute by Volyn Voivode H. Yuzevsky. The text of this Statute of the Lutsk Brotherhood, which was based on the charter-privilege of 1619 to the Brotherhood from Polish King Sigismund III, was harmonized with the norms of the current law of the Republic and adopted at the general meeting of the Brotherhood's members. Archbishop Oleksiy blessed the work of the legalized Brotherhood with an inscription on its Statute: "Remembering that the brotherhoods during the most difficult period in the history of our Church in Ukraine indisputably played a dominant role in the struggle for the Faith and the Church, led the way in communal and cultural life, with firm faith that the Government of the Most Serene Republic, in accordance with its assurances, will surround the renewed Lutsk Brotherhood with its care in the restored Polish state — I shall pray that the Merciful Lord help the newly elected Board of the Brotherhood fulfill the duties laid upon it and conduct the Brotherhood's work in accordance with the glorious traditions from the seventeenth century and the testaments and intentions of its chief leader, the late Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, for the glory of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland."

The newly elected Board of the Brotherhood, in the composition of — chairman: architect and Sejm deputy S. P. Tymoshenko; members: Archpriest Pavlo Pashchevsky, attorney S. I. Bohdanovsky, Prof. V. K. Fedorenko, agronomist-engineer M. H. Chyrko, engineer Yu. Konstantaniv, and engineer A. Holosiuk — conducted the Brotherhood's work until the occupation of Western Volyn in the first month of the Second World War, in September 1939, by the troops of the Bolshevik government of the USSR.

The leading role in the matter of the Ukrainization of church worship, which for the Lutsk area was held by the Lutsk Brotherhood with its Holy Cross Church, was played for the Kovel area of Volyn by the Annunciation Church in Kovel (a monument of wooden architecture of Ukrainian churches from the 16th-17th centuries), with its longtime rector Fr. Ivan Huba (now Archbishop Ihor of the UAOC), choirmaster Ya. Bartko, and church elder, former Sejm deputy, physician Mykola Pyrohiv. In Volodymyr-Volynskyi, after the ancient Mstyslav Cathedral, under the rectorship of Archpriest H. Boryshkevych (died 1957 as Archbishop of Chicago of the Russian Church Abroad), came under the exclusive use of the "Slavianists" in the late 1920s — the center for the Volodymyr area in matters of church services in the Ukrainian language became the St. Nicholas Church in Volodymyr, with its rectors (successively) Fr. Mykola Sherotsky, Fr. Borys Yakovkevych (now Bishop Borys of the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Canada), and Fr. Yevhen Miliashkevych, with the conductor of the Ukrainian choir Ilarion Vyzhva. In Kremenets, with the appointment of Archbishop Oleksiy to the Volyn cathedra, the Ukrainian service was restored at the Holy Cross Church, whose rector at that time was Fr. V. Vaskevych.

In Rivne, the largest city of Volyn under Poland, services in the Ukrainian language encountered a prolonged stubborn resistance, as in the city of

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Dubno, from the cathedral clergy. The rector of the Rivne cathedral, Archpriest N. Rohalsky, was in general one of the chief RNO activists in opposing the Ukrainian church movement in Volyn; his exacerbation of the national-ecclesiastical struggle led to his transfer by the Holy Synod from Rivne to the city of Vilna. His successor as rector of the Rivne cathedral, Archpriest Dm. Saikovych, was likewise transferred to the city of Vilna after a tactless incident during the hierarchical celebration of the Divine Liturgy in the Ukrainian language by Bishop Polikarp at the Rivne cathedral in 1934, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Rivne Ukrainian Gymnasium.

With the name of that same Ukrainian Gymnasium, the organization of regular services in the Ukrainian language in Rivne is also connected. At first, after long negotiations by the Gymnasium's Directorate and with the help of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn, the "cathedral parishioners" were allowed to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in the Ukrainian language for the students of the Ukrainian Gymnasium in the basement St. Michael's Church of the Rivne Cathedral; the services were conducted by the gymnasium's religion teacher, Fr. Yuriy Shumovsky. This was in 1935. Obstacles were again placed: the students of the gymnasium, having come to the church, would find it locked. Later, at the intervention of the community, the Sejm deputies, and the gymnasium's Directorate, a church building belonging to the cathedral on Barmatska Street was allocated, which was converted into a house church. The consecration of the gymnasium church took place in May 1936, in honor of St. George the Great Martyr and Victorious. The iconostasis for it was taken from the military church that existed in Tsarist times in the military barracks and was closed under the Polish authorities. The rector of the gymnasium's Ukrainian church was the gymnasium's religion teacher, Fr. Yevhen Barshchevsky. The choir in the church was the gymnasium's, with the participation of amateur singers from the community, under the direction of the gymnasium's singing teacher Kalmutsky.

The gymnasium youth loved their little church very much; it was entirely decorated with ornaments by the gymnasium students; the banners were embroidered by the female students; a beautiful Plashchanytsia (Epitaphios) was painted by gymnasium artists, and the artistic inscriptions around it were embroidered by female students. It is noteworthy that during the gymnasium's existence, that is, until the Second World War, all the readings prescribed by the Typikon at the All-Night Vigils and Liturgies were read by gymnasium students, who also had their own student Typikon reader. The parishioners were all the Orthodox student youth, their parents who lived in the city, and the conscious part of the Ukrainian community for whom worship in the native language was dear.

In 1937, by my order, as secretary of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory, a survey was conducted throughout the Volyn diocese regarding the use of the living Ukrainian language in church worship. The responses sent by the deans to the questions of this survey yielded the following totals: 1) worship was conducted exclusively in the Ukrainian language — in 124 churches of the diocese; 2) from time to time worship was conducted in Ukrainian in 126 churches; 3) services alternated between the Ukrainian language and Church Slavonic

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in 40 churches; 4) services were conducted in Church Slavonic, but with the reading at the Liturgy of the Apostol and the Gospel and the singing of the "Creed" and "Our Father" in the Ukrainian language — in 99 churches; 5) services were conducted with Ukrainian pronunciation of the Slavonic text — in 26 churches. Thus, according to these survey data, in 415 churches of the Volyn diocese in 1937, the Ukrainian language was used in worship in one way or another. In total, at that time, the Volyn diocese, the largest in the Orthodox Church in Poland, had 689 parishes; thus, exclusively Church Slavonic with Russian pronunciation remained in worship in 274 parishes of the diocese.

The spread of the Ukrainization of worship in the Volyn diocese falls, obviously, in the years after the consecration of Archimandrite Polikarp as Bishop of Lutsk (1932) and with the appointment of Archbishop Oleksiy to the Volyn cathedra (1934), especially after the Volyn Diocesan Assembly of January 29-30, 1935. The significance of the resolutions of this Assembly, as we have stated above, was seen by the contemporary press also in the fact that they would serve as encouragement for changes demanded by life itself in other dioceses as well, toward the Ukrainization of the Church where its flock was also Ukrainian. Such a diocese with a larger number of the Ukrainian Orthodox population was the neighboring Polissia diocese in the "kresy" (borderlands).

In the Polissia diocese, at the end of December 1928, a Diocesan Congress took place in Pinsk with the participation of delegates from the clergy and the laity. Some time before this congress, Bishop Oleksander of Polissia had a meeting in Brest with representatives of the Ukrainian organizations united in the "Civic Committee" and with prominent persons from the clergy, such as military chaplain Archpriest Orest Milkiv, Archpriest St. Zhukovsky, Archpriest K. Znosko, and Archpriest P. Naumov. In his opening remarks at this meeting, Bishop Oleksander declared that the Orthodox Church in Poland should not cultivate the traditions of the Russian Church or preserve the state heritage of Russia; that living in the conditions of the Polish state and respecting its interests, the Orthodox Church should rely on the feelings and attachment of the local Orthodox population to their language, ancient customs, and characteristics. Therefore, the clergy should attentively respond to the desire of the faithful to hear religious instruction in church and school in their native language, to learn prayers and readings of Holy Scripture in that language, and so forth.

Of the clergy present at the meeting, only Archpriest St. Zhukovsky mildly opposed the bishop, calling for caution with "innovations." But that same Archpriest Zhukovsky then conducted the election to the Diocesan Congress from the Brest district of the Ukrainian candidate V. S. Soloviy.

At the Diocesan Congress, the delegate from the Brest region, V. S. Soloviy, presented a report in which he developed and substantiated the Ukrainian postulates regarding the use of the living Ukrainian language in the church-religious life of the diocese. Bishop Oleksander declared that he blessed the use of the Ukrainian language in sermons, in the teaching of prayers, and

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in the readings of the Gospel and the Apostol, where the faithful so desired. The Congress, despite the resistance of a portion of the delegates headed by the Russian Prince Lyshchynsky-Troiekurov, approved the theses of V. Soloviy's report, after which the Polissia Consistory issued corresponding circulars throughout the diocese.

Such were the "Ukrainization plans" in church life in Polissia at the beginning of 1929. The "Ukrainization" of the Church, in accord with the resolutions of the Holy Synod of June 16, 1922, December 14, 1922, and September 3, 1924, was to be carried out only where the parishioners themselves desired it. In carrying it out in Polissia, even when parishioners desired it, caution and gradualness were applied: in Bishop Oleksander's blessing for the use of the Ukrainian language in worship, the following was outlined — the reading of the Gospel and the Apostol in the Ukrainian language, preaching in the same language, and in schools the teaching of prayers to children in the Ukrainian language. Obviously, from this partial Ukrainization there was a further transition to the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, and then of the entire worship and the rites in the Ukrainian language, also depending on the appearance of translations of liturgical texts. Such gradualness of the "Ukrainization" of the Church, which could also be observed in Volyn, in the Polissia diocese was limited only to parishes in the Sarny district, which in the division of state administration belonged from January 1, 1931, to the Volyn voivodeship, and not to the Polissia voivodeship, while remaining in the composition of the Polissia diocese.

The Polishchuk accepted something new into his conservative life very cautiously. "When you speak with him," writes to me a priest from the former Polissia diocese, "he nods his head to everything you say. It seems to you that you have convinced him, and he entirely agrees with you. And at the end of the conversation you ask him: 'Well then, Kyrylo, is it good?' Then he lowers his head and says: 'I'll think about that, Father. Your business is to talk, and my business is to listen to what you say. I'll think about it, I'll consult with my wife, my children'... And it is useless to speak to him about the same thing at that moment. In vain. Therefore, the Ukrainization, even in the Sarny district, proceeded very slowly, with great caution. In one parish, at the Nativity, the grandfathers walked out of the church when the cantor began singing the 'Creed' and 'Our Father' in Ukrainian. Why? The fault was mine, for not having spoken with those grandfathers. They thought the Poles had ordered them to sing that way. 'The Poles are laughing at our faith, Father!' said the grandfathers."

But the main reason that in the Polissia diocese, beyond the Sarny area, even the "gradual Ukrainization" of church services did not take place was not the conservatism of the Polishchuk people. It was caused by the brazen interference of the Polish administration in the matter of the liturgical language of the Orthodox population of the Polissia diocese. But before speaking of this interference, let us say again that Archbishop Oleksander of Polissia and Pinsk himself, a Russian Siberian by origin, a protégé of Metropolitan Yuriy Yaroshevsky from the Petrograd

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Theological Academy, was not at all an opponent of the Ukrainian language in worship, as some homegrown Ukrainian politicians, who would have wished to introduce the Ukrainian language in the church against the will and desire of the faithful themselves, sometimes reproached Bishop Oleksander. He was against violent revolutionary change, which always provokes in church life resistance and division, and this "is exploited by the black-winged Poles and the sectarians — one must go slowly"...

"When I was going to my parish," recounts one of the priests who was under the jurisdiction of Archbishop Oleksander, "the bishop gave me such a fine fatherly instruction, such a powerful nationally patriotic word, which I have not heard from any of our bishops to this day: 'The Lord has called you to work in His vineyard for the good of your long-suffering people. Do not spare yourself. Give everything for them. I am proud of you, young patriot priests. I thank the Lord that He sends you. We must create together, amidst the black Poles, a Zaporozhian Sich of ourselves — you, as it is written, on the palankas, and I at the center of the Sich. Do not sell the honor of Ukraine for a piece of, as you say, lordly sausage. Be proud of what you are. I love you, young and strong in spirit and rich in love for your Fatherland. Go with God on your way, to the righteous, God's cause!'"

In the Sarny district of the Polissia diocese, according to the testimony of priests who served in parishes there, there were almost no "purely Slavonic" parishes. The Divine Liturgy was celebrated there in parishes either only in the Ukrainian language, or alternating with services in Church Slavonic, or partially in the Ukrainian language, such as reading the Apostol and Gospel in Ukrainian, singing the "Creed" and "Our Father" in Ukrainian translation. Why could not such a gradual process of Ukrainization of the church, against which Bishop Oleksander had nothing, have taken place in the entire Polissia diocese as well, as the national consciousness of Ukrainian Polissia grew — 60% of whose population at the time of the census in Poland in 1930 identified their nationality (because it was so recorded) as "tuteyshi" (locals)?

Because such was the duplicitous national policy in Poland even of the Piłsudski-ites, when in one of its Ukrainian voivodeships — Volyn — Voivode H. Yuzevsky could conduct (from 1928 to 1938) a Ukrainophile policy, while in the neighboring Ukrainian voivodeship, Polissia, Voivode Colonel Janusz Kostek-Biernacki, a terrible Ukrainophobe, conducted a Ukrainophagous policy, behaving as a "cacique," mocking the "tuteyshi" in remaking them into Poles.

The designs of Ukrainian activists regarding the gradual de-Russification of church life in the Ukrainian Polissia met with the decisive resistance of the Polissia Voivode Kostek-Biernacki and were destroyed at the root by his exterminatory Polonizing policy. In the words of one of the priests in the then Polissia diocese, "in Polissia, when Kostek-Biernacki was governing there, they broke the ribs of those priests who dared to conduct services in the church in Ukrainian. There it was forbidden to speak to parishioners in the local language, only

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'in the Polish or Russian language' — there was no mention of the Ukrainian language; as if it didn't exist"... Thus the Sarny district in the Polissia diocese, which had been administratively assigned from 1931 to the Volyn voivodeship, became a place of "refuge" for clergy persecuted by Kostek-Biernacki. Bishop Oleksander sent here young priests, both Ukrainians and Belarusians, who did Ukrainian work here; several older Ukrainian priests now showed solidarity with them as well.

For those for whom the testimonies of Ukrainian priests of the then Polissia diocese about Bishop Oleksander's positive attitude toward the Ukrainian church movement would be insufficient, let them also consider the facts of Bishop Oleksander's refusal to travel to Moscow to Metropolitan Sergiy during the Soviet occupation of Polissia in 1939-41 and his consecration, together with Archbishop Polikarp, of Bishops Nikanor and Ihor for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in February 1942 during the German occupation of Ukraine. What do these facts tell us?...

A vivid example of what Voivode Kostek-Biernacki did to the Ukrainian clergy can be the tragic fate of Fr. Viroslav Tkhorzhevsky, about whom even in Volyn they knew as perhaps the only one outside the Sarny area in the Polissia diocese who celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Ukrainian language. Fr. Viroslav had been the rector of the parish in the village of Kamin-Shliakhetsk since spring 1928. In this village, he began with preaching in the native language of the parishioners, after which they themselves asked him to read the Gospel in Ukrainian, and then, when the cantor and choir learned the hymns of the Divine Liturgy, they always celebrated the entire Liturgy in the Ukrainian language. When the rule of Voivode Kostek-Biernacki began, at the end of summer 1932, the voivode, citing Article 3 of the "Temporary Rules of January 30, 1922" of Minister Ponikovsky (dangerous activity of a clergyman for the state), demanded that the Polissia Archpastor immediately dismiss from the position of rector of the parish of Kamin-Shliakhetsk Fr. Viroslav Tkhorzhevsky and the parish cantor Leontiy Kvartyruk.

After his dismissal, Fr. V. Tkhorzhevsky went to his farmstead, where he had 12 hectares of land, near the town of Vysotsk on the Horyn River. But even on his own farmstead, Kostek-Biernacki did not leave the pastor in peace. In January 1938, the police conducted a search at Fr. Viroslav's farmstead, confiscated his document of Polish citizenship, after which he received an order to leave the Polissia voivodeship. Fr. Tkhorzhevsky left his farmstead for Volyn, to Lutsk; with the support of Sejm deputies, he received permission from Voivode Yuzevsky to reside in Volyn, and shortly afterward Archbishop Oleksiy appointed Fr. Viroslav rector of the parish in the village of Lystvyny in the Dubno district. But when in spring 1938, after Voivode Yuzevsky, who was transferred to the position of voivode in Łódź, Voivode Havke-Novak came to Volyn, similar in his views on Ukrainians, apparently, to Biernacki, he did not allow Fr. Tkhorzhevsky to reside in Volyn, and then Metropolitan

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Dionisiy sheltered Fr. Viroslav with him in Warsaw. With the beginning of the Second World War, in which Poland soon fell, Fr. Tkhorzhevsky headed for his native Polissia, to his own house in the town of Vysotsk. Here he ended his life on May 16, 1943, by a martyr's death; the national Ukrainian pastor was murdered by Soviet partisans together with local bandits, led by Buzhynsky.

The question of Ukrainizing church worship stood differently in the long-suffering lands of Kholmshchyna and Pidliashia. These conditions stemmed from the historical fact that on these Ukrainian lands, for centuries there had been an offensive by Polish Catholic lords and their henchmen against the soul of the Ukrainian peasantry, to catholicize and Polonize it. Orthodox Archbishop Evlogiy of Kholm (who died as a metropolitan governing the Western European Russian churches), with whose name, as a member of the Russian State Duma, is connected the Duma's adoption in 1911 of the Law on the separation of the Kholm region from the "Kingdom of Poland" and the creation of a separate Kholm province, writes in his memoirs: "I happened to serve (16 years) where the most acute struggle for Orthodoxy was taking place. In the Kholm region, I learned for the first time what the systematic humiliation of our Church and our people by the Polish Catholics was. There I saw luxurious churches (kostels) and next to them our old, leaning, poor little churches. With the ardor of youth, I threw myself into the struggle"... ("The Path of My Life," p. 653.)

Thus, when the Kholm region and Pidliashia, with the revolution of 1917, found themselves within the borders of the restored Polish state, already in 1918 the Poles rushed on these lands to close and destroy Orthodox old, leaning, poor little churches, to seize and reconsecrate as kostels the larger churches — among the first of which the Jesuits captured the Orthodox shrine on Danylivka Hill, the ancient Kholm cathedral. By the time of the solemn proclamation in Warsaw on September 16-18, 1925, of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland, of the 388 churches in the Kholm region and Pidliashia that had existed before the restoration of Polish statehood, only 63 remained in the use of the Orthodox; 59 had been destroyed, 111 had been closed, and 150 had been converted into kostels. (K. Nikolaev. Op. cit., p. 263.)

Thus the fanatics in Catholicism, together with Polish chauvinists, immediately extraordinarily exacerbated the religious problem in the Kholm region, combined with the national one. "Although Orthodoxy in the Kholm region," writes an autochthon of the latter, "was subject to the Russian Orthodox Church, here on the spot it was in Ukrainian hands and did not create any camp of people who would consider themselves Muscovites. On the contrary, whoever remained Orthodox — only he was preserved as a Ukrainian... Whoever became a Uniate was already more Polish than Ukrainian (in Pidliashia, the Uniates thus right up to the Second World War considered themselves Poles)... Through their Orthodoxy, the Ukrainian people

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never considered themselves Muscovite. On the other hand, when a Ukrainian became Roman Catholic, he automatically went over to the Poles"... (I. Martsak. From the Martyrdom of Kholmshchyna in the Biłgoraj area. Winnipeg. 1957. Vol. Publishing Fund, p. 20.)

Thus, in the circumstances of the terrible offensive against Orthodoxy in the Kholm region by the Catholic action in the restored Poland, the defense by the Orthodox population of their faith, their Church — a defense that obviously required the unity of the Orthodox — would not the defense be complicated by questions about replacing Church Slavonic as the liturgical language with the living Ukrainian language in church worship? One thinks so. Let us recall that even in Greater Ukraine, Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky himself considered the living language of worship the most important cause of resistance among the people against the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (Vol. IV, Part 1 of this work, p. 157); in Volyn, in the Orthodox Church in Poland, despite all the slowness of introducing the living Ukrainian language into worship, this change of the liturgical language also encountered strong resistance from traditional conservative piety, even though there were not yet such circumstances in the church-religious life there as in the Kholm region and Pidliashia from the very beginning of the restored Polish statehood.

Reread the "page from the memoirs" of Dr. Tymosh Olesiuk about the delegation in Warsaw from the village of Spas, Kholm district, in 1920, sent by the community to the highest Polish government to petition "that the injustice would not be allowed to befall them through the seizure and reconsecration as a Catholic kostel of their ancestral Orthodox church," from which "the neighboring priest with his Cracovians had already thrown out into the yard and burned the church iconostasis and announced the reconsecration of the church into a kostel in a short time." At the head of the delegation was a grandfather past seventy, a longtime church elder, a connoisseur of the liturgical Typikon, who, when the Poles closed the church, led common prayers of the parishioners under the church walls in the cemetery; he had liturgical books and read from them in order both for the priest and for the cantor. He brought with him to Warsaw a heavy handwritten Gospel in Church Slavonic from the first half of the sixteenth century. This Gospel the people of Spas had carried with them even to the Urals during the refugee flight from their native Kholm region in the First World War; in this Gospel, on the title page, was an inscription recording by whom and when this Gospel was endowed to the church of the village of Spas — it was "the irrefutable and foremost proof of the right of the Orthodox parishioners to this church"... ("As Under Diocletian." 1960, printed by the UOC in the USA.)

It is not difficult to imagine how such a grandfather, and by his authority the pious parishioners, in their struggle for their ancestral Orthodox church, would have responded to the call to abandon Church Slavonic in worship and prayers and switch to the living Ukrainian language. But the events in the church life of the village of Spas, Kholm district, were not exceptional in the Kholm region, but rather typical.

As for church preaching, preaching in the Ukrainian language was not a novelty for the Kholm region, for even before the revolution

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, in the times of Russia, priests there could preach in the Ukrainian language, especially during the solemn church pilgrimages before the masses of pious pilgrims from the entire Kholm and Pidliashia land. Obviously, for missionary purposes, in view of the significance of Orthodoxy on these lands for preserving the population from being catholicized and Polonized, the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church did not persecute here the use in preaching, for its comprehension, of the native language of the population. In the times of the "Kholm-Warsaw" bishops of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — such as Archbishops Leontiy, Flavian, Ieronim — with their vicar "Lublin" bishops, such as Bishop Tikhon (later Patriarch of Moscow), Bishop German, and finally Bishop Evlogiy, under whom the Kholm diocese in 1905 was separated from the Kholm-Warsaw diocese and became independent — in those times of "Russifiers," preaching in the churches of the Kholm region and Pidliashia "was always delivered in the people's language, even in the times of Evlogiy," as priests who were graduates of the Kholm Theological Seminary testify.

Archpriest Ananiy Sahaidakivsky wrote to me that he, while still a seminarian, preached in the church of his native village of Siedliska (Zamość district) — where his father was the priest — in the Ukrainian language. The same I heard about preaching in Ukrainian while still a seminarian in 1903-4 from Metropolitan Oleksiy Hromadsky. Thus it is not difficult to imagine what indignation arose in the Kholm region and Pidliashia when the Polish district heads on these lands in 1938 began ordering Orthodox priests to deliver sermons in churches in the Polish language, as the state language — that is, encroaching upon the age-old custom here of preaching in church to the people in their language. People recalled that even Archbishop Evlogiy, when his nephew, a priest from the Tula diocese, came to him and wanted to remain as a priest in the Kholm region, refused him, saying: "You cannot be a priest here; here the way of life is entirely different, different people, a different language"...

Archpriest Dmytro Pavelko, whose activity in the field of the national awakening of the Kholm region was widely known even in Volyn, one of the most outstanding Ukrainian preachers in the Kholm region, persecuted by the Polish administration for his national activity among the people — when he received the order to preach in Polish in the church, decided it was better to leave his longtime pastoral work than to speak from the church pulpit in a foreign language and thereby trample underfoot among the people his previous struggle for the rights of the native language. And he, the creator of the well-known pious song "Volyn is famous for Pochayiv" and other poems about the long-suffering Kholm region, turned to the Warsaw Consistory with a request for his dismissal from the position of rector and transfer to supernumerary status — which was granted by the Consistory.

The publication of the Ukrainian church press in the Orthodox Church in Poland begins with the publication of the biweekly "Pravoslavna Volyn" (Orthodox Volyn), as the organ of the Volyn Diocesan Administration; the resolution to publish "Pravoslavna Volyn" was adopted at the Volyn Diocesan

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Congress in Pochayiv in October 1921. "Pravoslavna Volyn" was published in 1922 in Kremenets; its editor was Prof. V. O. Bidnov, who in September 1921 had come from Tarnów to Kremenets, invited to teach at the Theological Seminary. But after a year, Prof. V. Bidnov was expelled by the Polish administration from Kremenets to Maków (Warsaw voivodeship), after which, soon, it seems, the publication of "Pravoslavna Volyn" also ceased.

From September 15, 1924, "Dukhovna Besida" (Spiritual Conversation) began to appear in Warsaw, whose editor-publisher (of the first three issues) was Ye. Yu. Sakovych, a candidate of theology of the Petrograd Theological Academy; but the fact that "Dukhovna Besida" was printed at the Synodal Printing House of the Orthodox Church, and in its first issue there was published the blessing of Metropolitan Dionisiy in the words: "Bless, O Lord, this new word to the glory of the Orthodox Church, for the benefit of the Ukrainian flock," testifies that this "church-popular biweekly" was published in agreement with and with the help of the higher church authority. The editor-publisher of "Dukhovna Besida" after Ye. Sakovych and until the end of its publication (in December 1925) was the well-known Kholm church-civic activist and writer V. P. Ostrovsky, who for some time also published the literary-scholarly periodical "Nash Svit" (Our World).

At the beginning of January 1926, editor-publisher V. P. Ostrovsky, having merged "Dukhovna Besida" with the periodical "Nash Svit," began publishing the biweekly "Nasha Besida" (Our Conversation). In the editorial article "With United Forces" (No. 1 of "Nasha Besida" for 1926), V. Ostrovsky explains why "Dukhovna Besida" ceased to exist as an independent organ — namely, "under the pressure of circumstances": the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education "demanded of the church authority the cessation of this organ or its removal from the Synodal Printing House on the grounds that this printing house is for its own use and does not have the right to print a private organ. The printing house was threatened with the loss of its concession." For these reasons, "not wishing to subject the church authority to unpleasantness," it was decided to transfer the printing of "Dukhovna Besida," merging it with "Nash Svit" under the name "Nasha Besida," to a private printing house.

But the Polish Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education did not succeed this time in silencing the Ukrainian printed word in church affairs; on the contrary, having left the Synodal Printing House, it gained the possibility of far greater freedom of expression, and on the pages of "Nasha Besida," the policy of the Polish government with regard to the Orthodox Church more than once found sharp and deserved criticism. Already in its first issue for 1926, in the article "The Situation of the Orthodox Church in Poland," V. Ostrovsky wrote: "At a time when for the regulation of other aspects of life in Poland, through the legislative bodies, various 'statutes' have been adopted, the Orthodox Church stands as if outside the law. To this day it has no legal norms, has nothing to rely upon, either in regulating its internal life or in defending its interests and its dignity... What is happening in the life of the Orthodox Church in Poland has no parallels in other

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confessions and sects: for seven years, we have not heard of the seizure of evangelical churches, Jewish synagogues, or sectarian houses of prayer, nor of the forced 'reduction of parishes' or communities, nor of such transferring from place to place of their clergy at the demand of local authorities, as happens with Orthodox priests... The higher church authority, the Sobor of Bishops, at its session in January 1922, took up the drafting of a concordat. The work was interrupted by the then Minister of Religious Denominations Ponikovsky... Minister of Religious Denominations Ponikovsky looked upon the Orthodox Church as a king upon his subjects and, declining bilateral understanding, graciously gave the Church his 'Temporary Rules' of January 30, 1922 (which 'operated' until the end of November 1938, I. V.), over his own and sole signature. These 'rules,' the Orthodox faithful justly considered and consider an insult to their Church, for the 'rules' of Minister Ponikovsky placed a five-million-strong community of faithful lower than the most minor society, which drafts a statute for itself... A concordat or law has been replaced by an administrative act of the executive authority, such as are usually issued for subordinate institutions"... (p. 9). "Nasha Besida" was published throughout 1926.

At the beginning of 1927, in Warsaw, with the blessing of Metropolitan Dionisiy, "Dukhovnyi Siiach" (The Spiritual Sower) began to appear, a church-popular biweekly devoted to the affairs of the Orthodox Church. Until April 1927, its editor was V. P. Ostrovsky, and in April the Metropolitan appointed A. V. Kotovych as editor. In 1928, the publication of "Dukhovnyi Siiach" was transferred from Warsaw to Kremenets, where the Volyn Spiritual Consistory became its publisher, and the actual editor was A. V. Kotovych. In Kremenets, "Dukhovnyi Siiach" appeared in 1928-1931 (until August), when its publication was halted by the Metropolitan over an article published in the biweekly, issued by the Spiritual Consistory, about an incident at Pascha 1931 in the church of the town of Klevan: the parish youth had decorated before Pascha the icon of the Pochayiv Mother of God in the church with yellow-and-blue ribbons, and the rector, who was also the dean of the district, Archpriest Yevseviy Markovsky, tore off those ribbons; then the people left the church and did not have their Paschal baskets blessed. This matter was used by Consistory Secretary V. Pokrovsky, through his appropriate representation of it to the Metropolitan, to halt the publication by the Consistory of the Ukrainian church-popular biweekly.

In 1932-35, in Lutsk, with the blessing of Metropolitan Dionisiy, the journal "Za Sobornist" (For Conciliarity) was published as a non-periodical organ of the Petro Mohyla Society; its editor was the general secretary of the Society, I. F. Wlasowsky. In total, nine issues of "Za Sobornist" appeared. The journal was devoted primarily to the conciliarist ideology of the church structure and life of the Orthodox Church in Poland; alongside the vast majority of articles in the Ukrainian language, there were in "Za Sobornist" articles in Belarusian and Russian as well.

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The last issue of "Za Sobornist" was devoted to the Volyn Diocesan Assembly of January 29-30, 1935, when the journal's editor was already secretary of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory, after which change the publication of the journal "Za Sobornist" also ceased.

The Volyn Diocesan Assembly of January 29-30, 1935, welcomed the proposal of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory for the publication of a diocesan organ — a biweekly, which under the name "Tserkva i Narid" (Church and People) began to appear from March 15, 1935. In the "Introductory Archpastoral Word" to this publication, Bishop Oleksiy wrote: "With great joy we give our blessing for the appearance of our diocesan organ under the name 'Tserkva i Narid.' Henceforth, Orthodox Volyn will be able to express in our deceitful days about itself — how it believes, how it loves its holy Church, how it treasures its holy customs and traditions... Henceforth it will be able to give a fitting response also to those who, not knowing the spirit of the Volyn people and its spiritual leaders, are ready to call down fire from heaven and burn in us everything that nourishes and sustains us spiritually, but which some do not like"... ("Tserkva i Narid," No. 1 for 1935, p. 3.)

In the article "Our Goals," the editor-in-chief I. Wlasowsky wrote: "We proceed to the publication of a new church organ at a time that is not easy, at a transitional time — a term that characterizes the life of our Church in the Republic, and in particular of our Volyn diocese, for not the first year now... For us, in our modest service to the Church through the printed word in this transitional and preparatory period for the normalization of its structure, it is an inseparable task and goal to serve the great cause of the revival of conciliar forms of church and church-diocesan life and simultaneously to cooperate in the uplift and improvement of the religious-moral spirit of the pastorate and the entire church-popular community... We shall strive toward the improvement and normalization of relations between pastors and flock, taking into consideration the entire complex of contemporary conditions of church-social, national, and political life"... (Ibid., pp. 11-12.)

The biweekly "Tserkva i Narid" appeared without interruption throughout 1935-38; 91 issues were published. In the last issue for 1938, dated December 15, there was published a notice from the Volyn Spiritual Consistory to the clergy of the diocese, who received the journal free of charge (10 thousand zlotys were allocated for its publication in the annual diocesan budget), that with this issue, the 24th for the current year 1938, the publication of the diocesan biweekly "Tserkva i Narid" is discontinued. In the article following this, "A Few Final Words from the Editors," the cessation of the journal is explained by the claim that, with the issuance of the "Decree of the President of the Republic of Poland of November 18, 1938, on the Relationship of the State to the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church," "the transitional and preparatory period for the normalization of the structure of the Orthodox Church in Poland" had ended.

How the journal served the Church and the people during this period is not, of course, for the editors to judge; and the conditions under which it carried out its service — the time is still too fresh to speak objectively about that. "Therefore, let this fourth, and at the same time the last, annual volume of the journal, following the first three, go to rest on the shelves of the library cabinet, until a historian opens its pages, seeking in them the image of our church life and its struggles in this protracted (over nearly 17 years) transitional period" (Ts. i N., No. 24 for 1938, p. 1043).

So one had to explain the closure of the journal. In reality, Article 78 of the said "Decree of the President of November 18, 1938" orders that "the official organ of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church is the 'Vidomosti Pravoslavnoi Mytropolii' (Bulletin of the Orthodox Metropolia), and of individual dioceses — 'Vidomosti (name) Pravoslavnoi yeparkhii' (Bulletin of the Orthodox diocese)," "published in the Polish language." Thus "Tserkva i Narid," as a diocesan organ, and moreover in the Ukrainian language, was contradicted by Article 78 of the President's Decree.

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But neither in the "Decree of the President" nor in the "Internal Statute of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church," confirmed by the Decree of the Council of Ministers of December 10, 1938, is there a prohibition on the Orthodox Church publishing anything other than the official "Vidomosti" in the Polish language, nor is there any mention that the Church, in publishing anything else, must publish only in the Polish language. Thus, even with the end of the transitional period in the life of our Church in Poland, the journal "Tserkva i Narid," when it ceased to be the official organ of the Volyn diocese, could have remained a church-popular biweekly in the Ukrainian language, so desired by both the clergy and the people.

And here "the awl sticks out of the sack," as they say... The prohibition against further publishing "Tserkva i Narid" came from the Department of Religious Denominations at the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education, at the head of which Department, after the removal of Count Fr. Pototsky, was placed a young man named Dunin-Borkowski; he was the one who gave this order to Archbishop Oleksiy. Obviously, "Tserkva i Narid" was a great obstacle to the Polonizing offensive against the Orthodox Church by the Department of Religious Denominations and the entire "Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego" (Camp of National Unity). "Pravoslavna Volyn," "Dukhovna Besida," "Tserkva i Narid" — were victims of the violence against the Ukrainian Orthodox press in the Orthodox Church in Poland by the Polish administration.

The Petro Mohyla Society in Lutsk began from May 1937 to publish, with the blessing of Archbishop Oleksiy of Volyn, a religious-civic Orthodox periodical for the people called "Shliakh" (The Path). The Volyn Spiritual Consistory, in a circular to the clergy of the diocese, called upon the clergy to subscribe widely to "Shliakh" for parish libraries, as "a popular Orthodox periodical for the people in the Ukrainian language"; the periodical appeared as a monthly; its editor was former Sejm Deputy Prof. Ye. S. Bohuslavsky. To the Petro Mohyla Society, Mr. Dunin-Borkowski from the Department of Religious Denominations could not order the cessation of the Ukrainian "Shliakh"; its publication was halted by the Second World War, immediately with the coming in September 1939 of the godless Bolshevik

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government to Volyn, when the Petro Mohyla Society also ceased to exist.

In the theological journal — the annual "Elpis," published from 1926 at the expense of the Synod and the Ministry of Religious Denominations by Metropolitan Dionisiy, with the collaboration of professors of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology of the University of Warsaw, articles were printed in the Polish and Russian languages, and only as a very rare exception in the Ukrainian language.

Orthodox calendars in the Ukrainian language began to appear in Poland in the 1920s, such as the Kholm People's Calendars under the editorship of M. Vavrysevych; "Dukhovnyi Siiach" calendars in 1926, 1927, and 1928 under the editorship of V. Ostrovsky; and the "Kholm Calendar" for 1929 under the editorship of A. Kotovych. The Volyn Diocesan Missionary Committee, for the jubilee of the 950th anniversary of the Baptism of Ukraine-Rus in 1938, published a large "Ukrainian Orthodox Calendar" under the editorship of A. Kotovych, secretary of the editorial board of "Tserkva i Narid."

Among the separate publications that appeared with the collaboration of the editorial board of "Tserkva i Narid," the more important ones should be noted: Aleksiy, Archbishop of Volyn. Sermons. Vol. I. For great feasts and various occasions. Sermons. Vol. II. For Sundays and feast days. These were sermons in the living Ukrainian language, published over 4 years in the journal "Tserkva i Narid"; their appearance was especially valuable from the standpoint that this was the first collection in print of sermons in the contemporary Ukrainian language delivered by a bishop.

Archpriest Anastasiy Abramovych. Methodology of the Law of God. (Teaching the Law of God in Elementary School.) I. Wlasowsky. The Contemporary Ukrainian Evangelical Movement. Yevhen Sakovych. The Pinsk Sobor of 1791. Yevhen Sakovych. History of the Joining of the Kyiv Metropolia to the Moscow Patriarchate. Mykhailo Kobryn. On Holy Tradition. Mykhailo Kobryn. On Holy Scripture or the Bible. Archpriest M. Tuchemsky. The Life and Activity of St. Prince Volodymyr and the Baptism of Rus-Ukraine Under Him. S. Antonovych (Zhuk). A Brief Historical Outline of the Pochayiv Dormition Lavra. O. Tsynkalovsky. Traces of Christianity in Volyn Before Prince Volodymyr the Great.

Published by the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw were the very valuable works of Prof. O. Lototsky: Autocephaly, Vol. I. The Principles of Autocephaly. Warsaw. 1935. Autocephaly, Vol. II. Warsaw. 1938. The second volume of "Autocephaly" contains the history of the canonical structure and development of the individual autocephalous Orthodox churches in the East. In Prof. O. Lototsky's plan, Vol. III was to be devoted to the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but the inexorable death of the professor at the beginning of the Second World War, on October 22, 1939, cut short these plans.

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In Volodymyr-Volynskyi, where Dr. A. Richynsky published in 1924-26 and then in 1929 the journal "Na Varti" (On Guard), there was also published by the same publishing house a brochure "The Origin of the Episcopate in Connection with the Question of the Grace-Bearing Status of the Hierarchy of the UAOC"; its author, as we have been informed, was Archpriest P. Tabinsky; it was reprinted as an article in the journal of the VPCR "Tserkva i Zhyttia" (Church and Life), No. 1 for 1927, pp. 58-83, under the name V. Volynsky as author.

In 1953, the publishing house "Na Varti" published the work of A. Richynsky: "Problems of Ukrainian Religious Consciousness." One should also mention the "Religious-Scholarly Herald" (Relihiyno-Naukovyi Visnyk), which in 1921-23 was published, on the initiative of the Ukrainian military priest Fr. Petro Bilon, by the Brotherhood of the Holy Protection at the 6th Sich Riflemen Division of the Ukrainian Army in the internment camp in Poland in Oleksandriv Kuiavsky (later in Shchypyorno). This Brotherhood did not consider itself part of the Orthodox Church in Poland, recognizing as the central church authority for the Ukrainian military clergy in emigration the authority of the UAOC in Kyiv. Issue No. 1 of the "Religious-Scholarly Herald" appeared on September 30, 1921; only after seven months, due to the lack of financial resources, were they able to publish Issue No. 2, after which the journal appeared more or less regularly; in 1923, every two months, when it was supported by subscription from the Volyn clergy. The last issue, 13/15, appeared in October 1923. A fine supplement to the journal was the "Preaching Leaflet." Publication of the Religious-Scholarly Herald was discontinued after the departure to the USA of the journal's founder and responsible editor, Fr. Petro Bilon, who received an appointment to a parish from the Ukrainian Orthodox Spiritual Consistory in the USA.

The Constitution of the Republic of Poland of March 17, 1921, established the obligatory nature of religious instruction for students in all elementary public schools of Poland (Article 12 of the Constitution). The "Temporary Rules" on the attitude of the Government of Poland toward the Orthodox Church of January 30, 1922, stipulate (Article 18) that the teaching of the Law of God for students of the Orthodox faith in public schools is to be conducted in the native language of the students. The "Internal Statute" of the Orthodox Church in Poland, confirmed by the Decree of the Council of Ministers of December 10, 1938, in Chapter XII — "Religious Instruction," says not a word about the language of that instruction. But throughout 1922-38, the binding norms were the "Temporary Rules" of Minister Ponikovsky. It was clear that Ukrainian children were to study the Law of God in the Ukrainian language, and not in Russian, as some priests of Russian ideology practiced in the first years of restored Poland, and not in Polish, as others later began to practice, currying favor with the Polish authorities. The Volyn Diocesan Assemblies of 1935 and 1936 adopted resolutions reminding the clergy that instruction in the Law of God in schools should take place only in the native language of the students, and appealed to the higher church authority with requests

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for the publication of appropriate textbooks on the Law of God in the native language of the students. From the Synodal Printing House, the following textbooks of the Law of God for elementary schools were published in the Ukrainian language: Orthodox Prayer Book. Elementary Study of the Law of God for Seven-Year Schools. O. Bilousenko (Prof. Lototsky) — The Old Testament; the same — The New Testament. Study of the Worship of the Orthodox Church. Catechism. — Textbook of Religion for Elementary Schools. Sacred History of the Old Testament. Sacred History of the New Testament.

13. The death of Marshal Józef Piłsudski. The struggle after his death of two currents in the "sanation" camp of the Piłsudski-ites. The transfer of power into the hands of the chauvinistic current of the military in their alliance with Polish clericals. The revindication action of converting to Catholicism Ukrainian peasants in Volyn. The struggle against it by representatives of the Church and Ukrainian parliamentarians. The Ukrainians' farewell on Volyn to Voivode Yuzevsky, transferred to Łódź. The awakening of the spirit of unity of the hierarchy, clergy, and faithful in the Orthodox Church during the offensive against it. The Polish press on the implanting of "Polishness" through catholicization. The mass destruction by the Poles of Orthodox holy places in the Kholm region and Pidliashia in summer 1938. The Sobor of Bishops of the Orthodox Church, July 16, 1938. The Epistle of Metropolitan A. Sheptytsky. The celebration of the jubilee of the 950th anniversary of the Baptism of Ukraine-Rus; the significance of this celebration. The echo in the world of the events of the persecution of the Orthodox Church in Poland.

On May 12, 1935, Józef Piłsudski died, the First Marshal of restored Poland, whom the President of the Republic of Poland, Ignacy Mościcki, in his address on the occasion of the Marshal's death, called "the greatest person in the entire history of Poland" — as the resurrector of Polish statehood and its Builder. Piłsudski became the Builder of the state life of Poland from the coup he accomplished on May 13, 1926, at the head of the army devoted to him. From that time, Piłsudski occupied in the Government of Poland the position of Minister of Military Affairs, Inspector General of the Armed Forces, and was several times Prime Minister of the Council of Ministers, simultaneously having the greatest influence on the direction of the entire state life of Poland and its foreign policy.

From the May coup of 1926 to the death of Marshal Józef Piłsudski, exactly nine years passed, during which, under the so-called "sanation" government of Marshal Piłsudski, the Ukrainian church movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland had, as we have seen, significant gains. Proceeding from the actual state of these gains, and contemplating what awaited the Orthodox in their church life under Piłsudski's successors, the Volyn Diocesan Assembly, the first after Piłsudski's death, which took place on February 12-13, 1936, adopted a resolution, grateful to the memory of Marshal Piłsudski, and contributed

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2,000 zlotys for a monument to the First Marshal and sent a delegation to the Volyn Voivode to deliver the resolution, signed by all participants of the Assembly headed by Archbishop Oleksiy of Volyn, and the contribution. The delegation, composed of Bishop Polikarp of Lutsk, Archpriest Pavlo Pashchevsky, Mitred Archpriest Stepan Hrushko, and Secretary of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory I. Wlasowsky, presented the matter of honoring Piłsudski's memory by the Volyn Diocesan Assembly to Voivode H. Yuzevsky on February 21.

In his lengthy response to the delegation, Voivode Yuzevsky emphasized that the Diocesan Assembly of Orthodox Volyn, as evident from its resolution, displayed a high understanding of the historical role of the Marshal in relation to the Orthodox Church in Poland, for the principles for the stabilization of the life of the Orthodox Church in Poland proclaimed in the President's Charter of May 30, 1930, on the convocation of a Sobor of that Church, had been approved in their time by Marshal Piłsudski himself. We knew that with such approval from the Marshal, Voivode H. Yuzevsky also supported the demands of the Ukrainian church movement in Volyn, as Piłsudski's "man of trust" in the affairs of church policy in Volyn.

The reflections of activists who stood close to the Ukrainian Orthodox church cause in Poland on whether, after the death of Marshal Piłsudski, some changes might come in the church policy of the "sanation" government, particularly regarding the Ukrainian church movement in the Orthodox Church, were not groundless. Such changes did not come immediately, but I remember how Archbishop Oleksiy, returning from Warsaw from sessions of the Holy Synod or the Mixed Pre-Conciliar Commission with the participation of government representatives, would arrive in an increasingly gloomy mood and would warn that one must be prepared for an offensive against the Orthodox Church in various forms, particularly for changes in its current hierarchy.

In the aforementioned address of the President of the Republic, upon the death of Marshal Piłsudski, to the citizens of Poland, it was said that Piłsudski "had long felt that his physical strength was making its last efforts," and therefore he sought out and trained for independent work people upon whom the burden of responsibility should fall in turn!...

As it became apparent soon after Piłsudski's death, among these "people trained for independent work with the burden of state responsibility" — that is, among the very top of the Piłsudski-ites — there was no unity, no unanimity regarding the rights in Poland of national minorities, particularly of the more than 6 million Ukrainian people.

In 1936, during the budget session of the Polish Sejm, the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn had to wage a strenuous struggle for all three private Ukrainian gymnasia that existed in Volyn (in Lutsk, Rivne, and Kremenets), as well as for Ukrainian education in Volyn in general. The designs to liquidate these gymnasia were displayed by the same school curator of Volyn, Firevych, who was mentioned above as one of the liquidators of the Kremenets Theological Seminary

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. In this struggle, the Ukrainian deputies of Volyn, besides memorials to the Minister of Religious Confessions and Education, besides speeches in Sejm commissions and at the plenum of the Sejm, sent delegations from the Deputies' Representation to the Prime Minister and to the Ministers of Education and Internal Affairs. The Prime Minister at that time was Colonel Walery Sławek; at an audience with him, the deputies' delegation found full understanding and a promise that he would influence the Minister of Education so that the Ukrainian gymnasia in Volyn would not be touched. Upon the delegation's departure, they raised the question of a change in the position of the Volyn School Curator; agreeing with the justness of such a change, V. Sławek advised the deputies "to win over the Minister of Internal Affairs, for without his consent, nothing will succeed."

The Minister of Internal Affairs at that time was M. Kościałkowski, on whose initiative and with whose help the Non-Partisan Bloc of Cooperation with the Government had previously concluded an agreement with the largest Ukrainian party of Galicia, UNDO (Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance), which agreement was called the "normalization of Ukrainian-Polish mutual relations in Galicia." The delegation from the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn also visited Minister Kościałkowski. In conversation with the delegation, Minister Kościałkowski expressed views on the "normalization" of Polish-Ukrainian relations in Poland entirely opposite to those of Premier V. Sławek. We cite these views as conveyed by a participant of the delegation, the then chairman of the Ukrainian Deputies' Representation of Volyn, Deputy Petro Pevnyi.

To the latter's remark that when Poland was part of Russia, the Poles too demanded schools for themselves in the Polish language, the minister replied: "First — Ukrainians can in no way be compared to Poles. The Russians seized Poland, but we won back part of what belonged to us from time immemorial. And secondly — Volyn never had Ukrainian schooling. I will not discuss Volyn as a Ukrainian land, or the national consciousness of Volyn's population. This will lead to nothing, and here we will find no common language with you. It is Voivode Yuzevsky who builds on Volyn 'Potemkin villages' and thinks that thereby he does something useful for the state. I do not deny that on Volyn there exists an ethnographic mass that you call Ukrainians. Ultimately, I already for reasons of courtesy use the name 'Ukrainian' instead of 'Ruthenian.' But you too must understand, Gentlemen, that the land is Polish. Therefore, the only path is the assimilation of Volyn, and of all Ukrainians in Poland in general. It cannot be that the Voivode of Volyn thinks in one set of state categories and the Voivode of Stanislaviv, let us say, in others. And among us, unfortunately, that is the case. And you, Gentlemen, instead of helping the government, inflame matters that have already been overgrown with the moss of ages. But please do not consider me a Ukrainophage; I am not an enemy of the Ukrainian people, but that people lives beyond the borders of the Polish state... I understand the curator (Firevych) and therefore I respect his work, for it serves the State"... (Litopys Volyni. Winnipeg. No. 4. 1958, pp. 59-63. Emphasis ours.)

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Obviously, Minister M. Kościałkowski, who seemed to belong to orthodox Piłsudski-ites, thought about the Ukrainian question in Poland in the same "state categories" as the Polissia Voivode Kostek-Biernacki, and considered these "categories" to be the "ultima ratio" of Poland's state policy toward the millions of its Ukrainian citizens. True, during the tenure of Mr. Kościałkowski as Minister of Internal Affairs, such Ukrainophagous views did not yet prevail in the central government, and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers V. Sławek, together with the Minister of Religious Confessions and Education V. Jędrzejewicz, supported the Ukrainian gymnasia in Volyn and removed from the position of school curator of the Volyn district Mr. Firevych. But the struggle of two currents in the Piłsudski-ite camp over state policy regarding the Ukrainians continued.

In mid-1937, the Ukrainian parliamentarians of Volyn — consisting of the chairman of the Representation, Deputy S. Tymoshenko, Deputies Fr. M. Volkov and M. Bura, and Senator M. Maslov — had an audience with the Vice-Minister of Internal Affairs Yu. Paczórkowski. The question was raised about the general direction of policy in Volyn, and the vice-minister declared that regardless of the various factors unfavorable to the Ukrainian citizenry that had recently appeared on the arena of political life, he affirms that the policy of normal coexistence and cooperation of the Polish and Ukrainian populations, conducted in Volyn by Voivode Yuzevsky, will remain unchanged, for there is visible proof that this direction of policy is beneficial both for the entire state and for the Ukrainian population. "The entire complex of Volyn affairs," said the vice-minister in conclusion, "that now await resolution will be decided by the local Volyn authorities, who have the full approval of the Government for this" ("Shliakh," No. 4, 1937, p. 10.)

We have dwelt on this fact of the struggle of two currents of state policy regarding the Ukrainians, which (struggle) emerged in Poland after the death of Marshal Piłsudski within the very "sanation" camp, for the reason that this struggle, with the subsequent victory of the Polonizing current, was most reflected precisely in the church life of Orthodox Ukrainians in Poland and was directed, in this Polonizing current, against the Ukrainian church movement.

The assurances of Vice-Minister of Internal Affairs Paczórkowski about the continuation of the policy of normal coexistence and cooperation of the Polish and Ukrainian populations proved to be illusory. Instead of the policy of "normal coexistence and cooperation," an offensive began on the freedom of faith and the Orthodox Church in Poland, stronger than the manifestations of intolerance toward Orthodoxy in the first years of the restoration of Polish statehood under the endek ("National Democracy") governments in Poland.

In November 1936, President of the Republic I. Mościcki bestowed upon General Edward Rydz-Śmigły the dignity of "Marshal of Poland." Combining the marshalship with the position of "Inspector General of the Armed Forces," Marshal Rydz-Śmigły, "a person, according to K. Nikolaev's characterization, of very limited abilities," became "the actual dictator" of Poland (Op. cit., p. 246). Around him gathered seven generals, of whom General Felicjan Sławoj-Składkowski became Premier and Minister of Internal Affairs, General Skwarczyński became head of the political organization OZN ("Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego" — Camp of National Unity), General Smorawiński became the commander of the Lublin military district — and this military authority conducted a chauvinistic policy in Poland, from which the Catholic

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reaction in Poland soon began to profit: the heirs of Marshal Piłsudski found themselves in alliance with the Polish clericals.

The Kraków Metropolitan Sapieha in 1937 transferred from the royal crypt on Wawel in Kraków the coffin with the remains of Marshal Józef Piłsudski, buried there, to the "Silver Bells" tower. And although around this event of the humiliation of the great Marshal's memory, the Piłsudski-ites created a great commotion — it was, however, without consequences. This attested to the return of powerful influences of the Catholic hierarchy in the state policy of Poland, with which was connected the advent of difficult times for the Orthodox Church.

The affairs of the Orthodox Church, which legally belonged first of all to the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education, were now, in the campaign against Orthodoxy, in effect "parceled out" among three ministries — Religious Confessions and Education, Military Affairs, and Internal Affairs — which together began to "care for" the Orthodox Church with great danger to it. This "care" became a departure from the principles of state policy toward the Orthodox Church laid down during the governments in Poland of Marshal Piłsudski — principles that had their most vivid affirmation in the Charter of the President of the Republic of May 30, 1930, addressed to Metropolitan Dionisiy. This Charter, by which the revival of the historical traditions of conciliarity in the free internal governance of the Orthodox Church in Poland and the convocation of a Sobor of that Church was proclaimed, was lost — more than that, trampled by those heirs of Marshal Piłsudski who came to power in Poland in the last years before its lightning fall under the onslaught of Hitler's hordes. These were politicians who, in the characterization of a Polish publicist, "did not measure up to the resolution of state tasks" (The Vienna "Słowo," No. 307 for 1936).

The Polish-Catholic action of converting to Roman Catholicism Orthodox Ukrainians of Volyn in localities of the border strip with Eastern Volyn, which was under Soviet rule, began in the last months of 1937. This conversion action was conducted first of all by officers of the Border Defense Corps, abbreviated KOP, conducted, of course, not through missionary preaching about the one saving Catholic faith, but through all manner of repressions and persecutions of the local Orthodox population, restrictions on their civil rights. Peasants' passports were confiscated, without which one could not move about in the border zone; they were forbidden to leave their homes in the evening, to light lights in their homes in the evenings, to visit neighbors,

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to read Ukrainian periodicals and books under threat of imprisonment; rumors began to be spread that the KOP would resettle from the border zone all Orthodox Ukrainians as an unreliable element; conversion to Catholicism, however, would give these neo-Catholics various benefits and privileges, such as better land allotments during the consolidation of lands that was to be carried out; the Orthodox would receive worse plots, or would be entirely deprived of land and resettled.

In this action of terrorizing the Orthodox Ukrainian population, KOP officers were joined by Polish settlers (osadniks), who in restored Poland had received land holdings on the Ukrainian ethnographic territory, workers of the gmina (commune) self-government — among them the gmina head of Lanivtsi, Kremenets district, Jan Stadnytsky — and even several Polish teachers of elementary public schools.

Without doubt, these "missionaries" did not begin the so-called "revindication action" in Volyn on their own initiative. The idea of defending Poland from the east with a "Catholic wall" by means of forced conversion to Catholicism, and thereby to "Polishness," of entire Ukrainian villages on the border with the USSR — the creators (of this idea) had further and higher origins than the borderlands of the Kremenets district; about this we shall speak further.

In this "revindication action," very notorious became not only in Poland but far beyond its borders, in the entire civilized world one may say, the case of the small village of "Hrynky," belonging to the parish of Hrybova, Kremenets district. In this village, as in others, in October 1937, a KOP celebration was held; after the programmatic ceremony near the school building, a school dance was organized. On the occasion of this celebration, the exterior front wall of the school was decorated and adorned with portraits of the highest dignitaries of the State, as well as holy icons. The portraits and holy icons were for some reason not taken down after the celebration, but left hanging outside overnight. Early the next day, it was discovered that these portraits and icons had been desecrated during the night by unknown criminals. Of the 5 persons arrested in the investigation of this matter, four of them were soon released, while one, who allegedly confessed guilt, was imprisoned.

This event, which has the appearance of a great provocation, caused even greater anxiety among the already frightened peasants of the village of Hrynky and neighboring villages. Guilty without guilt, they expected even greater repressions, and this was precisely what created the psychological ground for the successes of the "missionaries." The heavy, anxious experiences of the Orthodox Ukrainians of the village of Hrynky brought them to the point that on December 19, 1937, they found themselves — 35 families, numbering 116 souls — in the town of Lanivtsi, at the Roman Catholic kostel, where the local priest Adolph Yarosevych, also one of the "missionaries," received them into the Roman Catholic Church. The "missionary" merit of Fr. Yarosevych was immediately noted in the organ of the Lutsk Catholic bishop, "Życie Katolickie" (No. 52 for 1937). But soon after the first outbursts of joy at the mass conversion of Orthodox peasants in Hrynky to Catholicism, "Życie Katolickie"

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was forced to address the question: was the conversion of those peasants to the Catholic faith voluntary or not? A series of facts raised this question for anyone who had a Christian conscience.

The chairman of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn, engineer S. Tymoshenko, two weeks after the "conversion," having obtained a pass from the authorities to the border zone area, arrived in Hrynky to learn about the matter of the conversion to Catholicism from the converts themselves, but five minutes after his arrival, the Sejm Deputy was asked to leave by KOP officers and forced to leave Hrynky. The Spiritual Consistory, having received a report from the dean of the Lanivtsi district about the events in Hrynky, delegated there a member of the Consistory, Fr. A. Brynykh, and the diocesan missionary, Fr. S. Kaznovetsky, but they too were not admitted by the same KOP officers and returned to Kremenets. The dean of the Lanivtsi district, to which the village of Hrynky belonged, Fr. Mykolai Maliuzhynskyi, having a permanent pass for travel through his district, was now forced to request a separate permission from the KOP each time to visit the village of Hrynky, and when after such permission he appeared in Hrynky, he was escorted by a KOP corporal, which extraordinarily oppressed the peasants.

On January 26, 1938, Archbishop Oleksiy of Volyn arrived in the village of Hrynky for an archpastoral visitation, having previously notified, as was customary, the Volyn Voivodeship Administration. The KOP did not dare to prevent the Archbishop of Volyn from entering the border zone to Hrynky.

Bishop Oleksiy, in his sermon to the people in the church of the village of Hrynky, having reminded the older parishioners of their late rector Fr. Dionisiy, who could not speak highly enough of them as good Christians in life, continued in his sermon: "And now I hear that you, in a significant number, have betrayed your ancestral faith and have fallen away into another confession. My astonishment and sorrow knew no bounds, that you truly fell into misfortune, though in extraordinary circumstances of your life. And here I am among you, who weep and sob. But it is not easy for me either, for the Lord placed me 'as a watchman of the house of the new Israel, to admonish you in the name of God.' You weep and sob the entire time I am with you, from the moment of meeting me, and to this hour you do not cease to weep. This is a good sign. I see and feel that not by your own will have you fallen into the greatest misfortune — the falling away from the Native Church. And if not by your own will, then to whom is this necessary, who wanted your tears and sobbing?" And in a short time after the archpastoral visitation in Hrynky, more than a hundred persons from among the "converts" returned to the Orthodox Church.

Arriving in the neighboring Lanivtsi, Archbishop Oleksiy preached in the local church: "Today, my friends, we all find ourselves as if on the eve of the Last Judgment, for today the times are apocalyptic, the events are terrible. In a country not far from you, the Antichrist has already opened his maw to devour the faithful. Today is the highest time for all Christians to unite, to give a powerful rebuff to the hostile forces. But this does not mean that we Orthodox must abandon what is ours, subordinate ourselves to someone,

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and adapt ourselves to someone. No, far from it" ("Tserkva i Narid," 1938, Nos. 4, 6.)

To the cited facts from life at the site of the "missionary conversion action," there was soon added the transfer of this matter to the floor of parliament through interpellations in the Sejm to the Minister of Internal Affairs on February 1, 1938, by Deputy Stepan Skrypnyk (now Archbishop Mstyslav of the UOC in the USA) and on February 11, 1938, by Deputy Stepan Baran, a Greek Catholic. Deputy St. Skrypnyk, having told about the conversion action against the Orthodox Ukrainians in Hrynky, affirms in his interpellation the continuation of this action in other localities of the Lanivtsi and Bilozirka gminas of the Kremenets district, which "causes great anxiety among the local Orthodox population, threatened in their fundamental right — freedom of confession." The interpellation conveys the words of one of the householders of the village of Hrynky, present at the forcible confiscation by KOP representatives of Deputy S. Tymoshenko's pass: "Now you, Mr. Deputy, see how we live here, when even a deputy is not free to speak with us. But we assure you that they can give us a Catholic certificate, but our souls will remain Orthodox and Ukrainian." (Text of Deputy St. Skrypnyk's interpellation in "Shliakh," No. 3 for 1938, pp. 13-14. Emphasis ours.)

When from the series of all the cited facts — and still more could be cited — it was obvious that the acts of conversion of Orthodox Ukrainian peasants to Roman Catholicism were not voluntary, the defenders of the "conversion" action, which in reality contradicted the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religious confession in the restored Republic, advanced the theory (and the practice of violence in its implementation) of "revindication of souls," under which the conversion action received not only a religious but even more a national character. They began to write that the action was an internal Polish affair, that it was a reckoning between Poles and the Russian tsarism, which "forcibly converted to Orthodoxy," that in this action "a Pole was speaking to a Pole: you are a victim of violence, return, now that the obstacles have disappeared, to your own." And the "missionary" activity of persons who held government positions — whether in the KOP or in the civil administration — was being justified by the claim that in them "mainly national convictions were at work" (Życie Katolickie, No. 9, 1938).

To this theory of "revindication of (Polish) souls" in the conversion action, one had to write: "It is an untruth that in the Catholic action now raised in Volyn, only a Pole speaks to a Pole, a Catholic to the descendants of former Catholic families. Already setting aside even the theory about the supposedly exclusively Polish character of surnames ending in -sky, -tsky, -ych — the lists of surnames of many of the converted, among which there are Mykhailovs, Bohdanovs, Markovs, Sedelnikovs — not even from Volyn at all — while the Volyn ones are: Datsiuks, Marchuks, Savchuks, Yakymchuks, Pyvovarchuks, Klymchuks, Lutsiuks, Mykytiuks, Tsymbaliuks, Melnychuks, Kovalchuks, Otchenashis, and so forth — testify to this" (Tserkva i

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Narid, No. 6, 1938, p. 249). The Polish Sejm Deputy, historian J. Hoffman, in a speech during the debate on the budget of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said: "I find myself precisely in that fortunate or unfortunate position that I am working on a certain historical elaboration that concerns the Church, and I have here the metrical data of the parish of Lanivtsi (Roman Catholic), from which it appears that in those Hrynky there were only two Polish families: one Beyzima, which is noted from 1732, and the other Rekonwald, which slightly changed its surname among the children and is noted from 1803 to 1813. These are only two families over the span of records from 1732 to 1846. After that, certainly no more Poles arrived there. The situation is analogous in other localities in that border strip, which (localities) were named in a certain part of the Polish press: I have detailed data on how many Poles lived there. I will not compare Hrynky and what is happening there either to the Kholm region or to Września... But I appeal to the Prime Minister that into that mysterious 'I' of a person, into his soul, his faith, one should not climb, to put it vulgarly, 'with galoshes'" ("Wołyń," No. 9 for 1938).

"I consider that from the standpoint of Polish raison d'état and our traditional tolerance, we cannot regard the Hrynky affair as one that brings honor to anyone whatsoever," said in session a second Polish deputy, the Chairman of the Budget Commission in the Sejm and former Premier L. Kozłowski (Ts. i N., No. 6 for 1938, p. 250).

Such voices on the matter of the Catholic action of forced "conversion," as those cited of Deputy Jakub Hoffman and former Premier, Deputy L. Kozłowski, were Polish voices of that current in the sanation camp after the death of Marshal Piłsudski that sought the realization of constitutional freedoms and the normal coexistence and cooperation in Poland of the various national groups of its population. The representative of the other, chauvinistic, current in that camp was General Sławoj-Składkowski, Premier and Minister of Internal Affairs, in his response of March 31, 1938, to the interpellations, mentioned above, of Deputies St. Skrypnyk and St. Baran. Of course, he denied the truthfulness of all the facts that the deputies had presented in the interpellations; as proof of the Government's adherence to the constitutional principles of freedom of faith, he put forward the archpastoral visitation of the Kremenets area on January 25-29, 1938, by Archbishop Oleksiy, which took place without obstacles and even with a "triumphal arch" for the entrance of the Archbishop, built by the KOP officers as a display of "respect for the dignitary of the Orthodox Church."

In conclusion, the representative of the Higher Government treated the interpellations of the deputies as attempts "to give to a normal and understandable (?) religious movement the character of an unauthorized action of administrative officials" — attempts that were being made, he said, for political purposes. The orders issued thus far in the Hrynky affair, Minister Składkowski considered to be "entirely sufficient" (Ts. i N., No. 8, 1938).

On March 28, 1938, in Kremenets, under the chairmanship of Archbishop Oleksiy, a meeting of the Volyn Diocesan Committee took place, with the participation, besides its permanent members, of representatives of the Ukrainian

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of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn and the Petro Mohyla Society. In his opening address at the gathering, Archbishop Oleksiy, having defined the main purpose of the assembly — to discuss the celebration of the jubilee of the 950th anniversary of the baptism of Ukraine-Rus by Prince Volodymyr the Great in 988, said: "In Kyiv, our people cannot now celebrate this 950th anniversary of the acceptance of the Christian faith from the Greeks, and therefore a special obligation falls upon us here to celebrate most solemnly this jubilee of the 950th anniversary of the Orthodox faith and Church among the Ukrainian people since the time of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Volodymyr. This gathering of ours, having such an exalted subject in the history of the nation to discuss, would bear an entirely joyful character, were this joy not clouded by those reports and communications that come almost daily to the diocesan authorities from the border parishes in the Kremenets, Zdolbuniv, and Rivne districts about the now widely known Roman Catholic campaign to convert the Orthodox to Catholicism. Therefore, this extraordinary session of the Mission Committee must also discuss this campaign and the counter-measures against it — how we, in a manner worthy of our faith and our people, are to preserve and defend the heritage of Great Volodymyr — the Holy Orthodox Faith."

At the session of the Mission Committee, the members resolved that the main celebration of the 950th anniversary of the baptism of Ukraine-Rus would be held on August 12–14 of that year in the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyi and at the Zymne Sviatohirsky women's monastery near Volodymyr. After the celebration in Volodymyr, the Committee further resolved that the 950th anniversary jubilee would be celebrated in all district cities, towns, and villages on dates depending on local circumstances, throughout the months of August, September, and October 1938. An Executive Committee for organizing the jubilee celebration was formed, consisting of Consistory member Fr. Yurii Hryhorovych, Deputy S. Tymoshenko, Deputy S. Skrypnyk, Consistory Secretary I. Wlasowsky, Chairman of the Petro Mohyla Society M. Khanenko, Dean of the Volodymyr Cathedral Ye. Konoplyanka, and acting diocesan missioner Fr. S. Kaznovetsky.

Regarding the campaign of converting the Ukrainian Orthodox people to Roman Catholicism, the gathering was informed by the Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn, Deputy S. Tymoshenko, about the defense of the interests of the Orthodox Church and the rights of the Orthodox population that the said Representation had recently undertaken in the Sejm and Senate, in budget committees and in plenary sessions of the Sejm and Senate, as well as in audiences with representatives of the state authorities. The assembly heard and approved memoranda prepared on the matter of "conversion" to Roman Catholicism, addressed to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and to the Minister of Religious Denominations and Education. The Minister of Religious Denominations and Education, W. Świętosławski, was expected to be in Lutsk on March 28, in view of which the Assembly resolved to entrust the memorandum to Minister Świętosławski personally through a delegation from the Orthodox Ukrainian organizations of the city of Lutsk and its surroundings. In closing the gathering, Bishop Oleksiy

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called for the unity of all members of the Church, clergy and faithful, for "apart from God and ourselves, it is difficult for us to rely on anyone in these complex times of our present life."

A delegation of Orthodox Ukrainians, led by Frs. Protopresbyter Pavlo Pashchevsky and Mitred Archpriest St. Hrushko, numbering over 30 persons — representatives from various Ukrainian organizations of Volyn — was received in Lutsk by the Minister of Religious Denominations and Education, W. Świętosławski, on March 29, 1938, in the presence of the Volyn Voivode H. Yuzevsky and Sejm Deputies S. Tymoshenko and St. Skrypnyk. On behalf of the delegation, Protopresbyter Fr. Pavlo Pashchevsky addressed the Minister. Welcoming the Minister who had arrived in Volyn, Fr. Pashchevsky cited from Shevchenko's poetry ("To Bronisław Zaleski") the Great Shevchenko's view on the sad role that religious struggle had played in the history of Polish-Ukrainian relations in antiquity, and his appeal to the Polish poet:

"Extend your hand to the Cossack, And once more in the name of Christ Give a pure heart. Let us restore our quiet paradise"...

"The response to this appeal," said Fr. Pashchevsky, "we heard in our own times, when the First Marshal of Poland, Józef Piłsudski, extended his hand to the Leader of the Ukrainian people, Symon Petliura, with whom he marched on Kyiv in 1920"... Having noted the prominent part Ukrainians played in the events of that time, Fr. Pashchevsky then raised those grievances that currently pained the Ukrainian heart in Volyn, specifically in the sphere of church and national life, namely: he drew the Minister's attention to the failure to convene to this day (8 years since the President's decree of May 30, 1930) a Church Sobor of the Orthodox Church, the still unregulated legal status of the Orthodox Church, the deprivation of Volyn of a theological school for the training of a national pastorate, and the fresh onslaught upon Orthodoxy by the Catholic campaign, which employed in its aim of converting people to Catholicism all manner of unpleasant means of coercion. In conclusion, the Protopresbyter entrusted to the Minister two memoranda — one concerning general Orthodox Church matters in Poland, and the other concerning specifically the campaign of forced conversion to Catholicism, adopted at the session of the Volyn Diocesan Mission Committee on March 28, 1938.

In response to these grievances, Minister Świętosławski assured the delegation that the preparatory work on regulating the legal status of the Orthodox Church was nearing completion and that this regulation through legal acts would follow shortly; as for the other matters raised, the Minister promised to pay attention to them after acquainting himself in detail with the memoranda submitted to him.

Not a month had passed after this conversation in Lutsk between the Ukrainian delegation and Minister Świętosławski before Volyn, on April 24, 1938, on Pascha, bade farewell to its long-serving (since 1928) Volyn Voivode H. Yuzevsky. In the fact of Voivode Yuzevsky's transfer from Volyn to the position of Voivode of Łódź, and the appointment as Volyn Voivode of the Łódź Voivode A. Hauke-Nowak — the change in the policy of the current Government of

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Poland in its attitude toward the Ukrainian population of Poland, and specifically toward Orthodox Ukrainians, was plainly manifest. The broadly conceived Catholic campaign of "conversion" in the "borderlands" (kresy), coupled with the Polonization of the Orthodox population, was something Voivode Yuzevsky was entirely unsuited for.

At the solemn farewell to Voivode Yuzevsky by the citizenry of all Volyn in the packed voivodeship hall, Deputy S. Tymoshenko spoke on behalf of the Ukrainians. In his address, S. Tymoshenko emphatically underscored that before Voivode Yuzevsky, throughout the 9 years that Western Volyn had found itself within the borders of reborn Poland, as many as 12 of his predecessors, Volyn voivodes, had applied their efforts to this "largest province in the State, but it was only Voivode Yuzevsky who gave its life a truly proper direction." "As a representative of the Ukrainian population of Volyn," said S. Tymoshenko, "I am happy to emphasize that aspect of your Volyn work to which you, a connoisseur of the ideas of the First Marshal of Poland, placed particular stress. You conscientiously fulfilled his testament concerning an honest borderlands policy... You found the true and only path to this — namely, the path of a particularly delicate attitude toward the religious and national needs of the Ukrainian people of Volyn, for which they will forever remain boundlessly grateful to you"... (Shliakh, No. 6, 1938, pp. 9–10).

That same day, April 24, 1938, Voivode Yuzevsky and his wife Yulia Yuzevska were separately seen off by the Ukrainian community at the "Ridna Khata" club. Present were representatives of Ukrainians of various former political currents and organizations — from Lutsk, Rivne, Kremenets, Volodymyr, Dubno, Kovel, Zdolbuniv, Sarny, Kostopil, and Horokhiv. The participants of this farewell later recalled more than once how pervaded with sadness and anxiety the mood was at that time, with a premonition of the onset of some great events and changes in Eastern Europe that would engulf the Volyn land as well.

On May 9, 1938, a delegation of the Orthodox Volyn populace, headed by Archbishop Oleksiy of Volyn, consisting of Sejm Deputies S. P. Tymoshenko, S. I. Skrypnyk, Dean of the Lanivtsi deanery in the Kremenets region Protopriest Mykola Maliuzhynskyi, and peasant Yustyn Mychka from the village of Hrynky, was received in Warsaw by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, General Felicjan Sławoj-Składkowski. The delegation informed the Premier in detail about the Catholic campaign of forced conversion to Roman Catholicism of the Orthodox in the border villages of Volyn adjacent to the Soviets, and entrusted the Chairman of the Council of Ministers with a memorandum adopted at the session of the Volyn Diocesan Mission Committee. The result of this delegation to General Sławoj-Składkowski was merely that by an order of the Minister of Internal Affairs dated June 10, 1938, the border zone under the command of the KOP (Border Defense Corps) was expanded in the Volyn Voivodeship to encompass the entire districts of Kremenets, Zdolbuniv, Rivne, Kostopil, and Sarny, as well as a number of communes in the non-border districts of Lubne and Lutsk; a member of the delegation, the dean in the border zone in the Kremenets region, Fr. Mykola Maliuzhynskyii

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, at the demand of the voivodeship administration, was transferred from Lanivtsi to a parish in the village of Krymne, Kovel district.

The great threat to the Orthodox Church in Poland from the Catholic campaign of conversion and "revindication of souls," supported by high-ranking Polish dignitaries, chiefly those in military positions, led in the internal life of the Church to a powerful awakening of the spirit of unity among its constituent parts — the hierarchy, the clergy, and the faithful. In the face of the great danger to the faith of the people, disagreements on national grounds subsided.

For Metropolitan Dionisiy, who was traveling from Warsaw to the Pochayiv Lavra for the feasts of the Ascension of the Lord and Holy Trinity, an unprecedented reception was organized in Volyn at the railway station in the city of Rivne on May 31, 1938. Archbishop Oleksiy of Volyn came from Kremenets for the reception, along with many clergy, numerous representatives of Ukrainian organizations, Ukrainian youth, and up to a thousand Orthodox citizens. Deputy St. Skrypnyk delivered a welcoming speech as the Metropolitan alighted, in which he expressed on behalf of all gathered the great satisfaction and feeling of joy that the Metropolitan had come to Volyn, so that by his presence and authority as Primate of the Orthodox Church in Poland he might strengthen the hearts of the faithful, give them comfort and hope, cement their souls in love and devotion to the ancestral Orthodox faith, to the native Orthodox Church... The speaker's greeting was met with loud exclamations from those assembled: "Glory! Glory to Bishop Metropolitan!" At the Pochayiv Lavra, on Ascension Day and the first day of Holy Trinity, the solemn Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Metropolitan Dionisiy and Archbishop Oleksiy, concelebrated by numerous clergy, both from the Lavra and those who had arrived with processions of pilgrims from Volyn, Polissia, the Kholm region, and the Hrodna region; during the services many preachers delivered sermons, which the pilgrims listened to with great attention and then warmly thanked the preacher-priests for their comprehensible and heartfelt instruction, for the strengthening of faith and preparation for the struggle in its defense. On Holy Trinity Sunday, students of the fourth year of the Orthodox Theological Department at the University of Warsaw arrived from Warsaw at Pochayiv, accompanied by Protopresbyter Fr. T. Teodorovych; before the Holy Wonderworking Icon of the Pochayiv Mother of God they made a solemn vow "to stand for the Orthodox Faith to the end." (Shliakh, No. 7, 1938, p. 11).

On June 9, 1938, in the Metropolitan's quarters of the Pochayiv Lavra, under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Dionisiy, a conference was held on the defense of Orthodoxy against the onslaught of the Catholic-Polish campaign in Volyn, as well as on the celebration of the jubilee of the 950th anniversary of the baptism of Ukraine-Rus in August 1938. Participants in the conference included Archbishop Oleksiy, Sejm Deputies S. Tymoshenko, St. Skrypnyk, M. Bura, Senator M. Maslov, Consistory Secretary I. Wlasowsky, Consistory legal counsel Adv. V. Perventsev, and church warden of the Kremenets cathedral N. Minakov.

We have already written above that the religious policy of the Polish government toward the Orthodox Church in the years after the death of

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Marshal Piłsudski became the opposite of those principles that had been so clearly proclaimed in the President of the Republic's Decree of May 30, 1930. About these principles, a Polish historian also wrote at the time: "The conviction was becoming increasingly general that only a return to historical traditions, to the principles of conciliarity (sobornost), would give the external autocephaly (of the Orthodox Church) proper internal foundations"... that after the issuance of the said President's Decree — "the Orthodox Church in Poland stood before a turning point that would determine its entire future." (Janusz Woliński. Polska i Kościół Prawosławny. Lwów. 1936, pp. 143–145). Yet at this very "turning point" in the life of the Church, political factors changed the direction of policy toward the Orthodox Church. What now guided the actions of Piłsudski's military and non-military successors was not a "return to the principles of conciliarity" for the revival of church life, but essentially the negation of that Church, the combating of it as an obstacle to the state interests of Poland.

An account of this change in the program of religious policy toward the Orthodox Church can be found abundantly in the press of the time, especially given the negative attitude of the Polish government and Polish public toward the neo-Uniate campaign of Rome in Poland. (See note below.)

The sanation newspaper Kurier Poranny wrote: "The hitherto neo-Uniate campaign hampers the process of spreading Western culture in the borderlands and artificially, for unknown purposes — hardly religious ones — makes it difficult for the borderlands population to bond with the state and with Polish culture... Polish society, which is for the most part deeply attached to the Catholic religion and culture, has no reason to favor Orthodoxy in the borderlands. But the hitherto policy of the forces directing the neo-Uniate campaign places Polish society in an extraordinarily difficult position. Those conducting the neo-Uniate campaign must understand that the raison d'état of the Polish state, closely tied to the tasks of defense, demands the strengthening of the Polish-Russian border as a cultural border, and at present this is all the more necessary because from the east comes the ruinous propaganda of communism. They must also understand that the population in our eastern borderlands shows readiness for close union with the entirety of state life and for the gradual adoption of the foundations of Polish culture. It is inadmissible that this evolution should be opposed from any quarter." (Emphasis ours).

The National Democratic Party (endecja) newspaper Goniec Warszawski, expressing solidarity with these thoughts of the sanation Kurier Poranny, stated them even more openly: "In the union of the Orthodox Church with the Catholic Church through the intermediary of an Eastern-rite Catholic church being created on Polish lands, we do not believe. In the serious development of that Church at the expense of the Orthodox, we likewise do not believe. We fully acknowledge our duty to propagate the true faith,

Note: In detail about this attitude, see subsection 8.

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but only the Roman Catholic Church can count on lasting success. That propaganda is one hundred percent consonant with the interest of the Polish nation and state. Therefore, it can count on the full understanding and ardent support of all." (Tserkva i Narid, No. 6, 1938, pp. 226–227. Emphasis ours.)

In supporting the Catholic campaign of converting the Orthodox to Roman Catholicism, certain successors to the power of Piłsudski in Poland found themselves in one camp with the Polish National Democrats (endeks). The aim of this campaign for both was the same: to implant Polish culture, the fundamental element of which is Catholicism, among the Orthodox Ukrainians and Belarusians — citizens of Poland — in the interest of the Polish nation and the Polish state; in other words, to conduct (by all means) assimilation, both religious (Catholicism) and national (Polishness), of the Orthodox Ukrainian and Belarusian population. Polish culture was presented in this as Western culture, and the Poles as its representatives: the Polish-Russian border was to be strengthened as a cultural border by implanting "Polishness."

Ukrainian Greek Catholic press organs in Galicia, such as Meta and Nova Zoria, were so mistaken in those times in their understanding of the aims of the Catholic campaign of converting the Orthodox. Meta, for example, wrote in its issue of February 13, 1938: "About the well-known events in Hrynky, Ukrainian deputies spoke in the Sejm, and only on that occasion did the Ukrainian public have the opportunity to learn something from the press about this secret affair. We have already emphasized that this kind of 'missionary' propaganda for the Latin rite, as took place in Hrynky, deeply harms the cause of the Holy Union in Volyn, which can be successfully carried out only with the active participation of Ukrainian Greek Catholic circles." (Emphasis mine). Nova Zoria also wrote: "After several years of great efforts, the Poles state that the result of the neo-Union equals nearly zero. And despite this, the Polish chauvinists do not grant our Uniate church access beyond the Sokal border, a church that has developed forms and 300 years of tradition behind it. It is precisely for that reason they deny it access. Twenty years have been wasted"...

Regarding such naive "dreaming" of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic circles, we had occasion to write at the time: "Evidently, the Greek Catholic church, despite 300 years of tradition, is not regarded as capable of spreading Western culture in the borderlands... The dreamers continue to insist that the success of the 'Holy Union' in Volyn depends on the participation in the Uniate campaign of 'Ukrainian Greek Catholic circles,' continue to demand that they be let into Volyn, as if not seeing that the 'great Uniate idea' has no demand, as such, on today's political market, and even provokes revulsion." (Ts. i N., No. 6, 1938, article "Is It the Twilight of the Uniate Idea?").

In the perspective of 25 years from the events of that time, now even the said dreamers probably see quite clearly that for the Polish political factors who initiated and supported the campaign of "Hrynky" and other territories of "apostleship" over the "poorly baptized," the matter was not at all about

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the "Holy Union," which moreover in 300 years had hardly Polonized the Ukrainians in Galicia, so that even in reborn Poland it was necessary, in the interest of "Polishness," to conduct a broad propaganda there for conversion to the Latin rite.

Memoranda to the central authorities, delegations of Orthodox to the premier and ministers, protests and interpellations from the tribunes of the Sejm and Senate regarding the Catholic campaign of "conversion" somewhat restrained its momentum, but far from halted it. For support for it came, as already stated, from the highest Polish dignitaries in military positions. The President of the Republic himself, Prof. Ignacy Mościcki, who was opposed to this intolerant and in its methods unconstitutional campaign, was unable to stop it; he received the Orthodox Metropolitan on this matter in the evening, seemingly in secret, at a private audience. Metropolitan Dionisiy recounted this at the above-mentioned conference in the Pochayiv Lavra on June 9, 1938.

Having somewhat weakened the "cultural-missionary" campaign of the Polish corporals on the Volyn border with the Soviets, the Polish Kulturträger hurled themselves upon the long-suffering Kholm region and Podlasie, which did not lie on the border and, it would seem, did not require here the interests of the state in its defense to "strengthen it as a cultural border." And the "culture" there was even worse than what had been displayed on the Volyn border in the campaign of converting Orthodox peasants to Catholicism through terror.

We have already written above (subsection 12) that before the proclamation of autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland in 1925, that is, under the National Democratic governments, 320 churches had been liquidated for the Orthodox in the Kholm region and Podlasie by various means (59 destroyed, 111 closed, and 150 converted into Roman Catholic churches); under the sanation governments of Marshal Piłsudski, the population had managed to reopen a few of these closed and confiscated churches; a few prayer houses had also been built. When after the death of Piłsudski the faction of adherents of the National Democratic policy in religious and national affairs gained power within the sanation government, the Catholic campaign of "conversion" and the liquidation of Orthodox holy places in the Kholm-Podlasie region returned once again. This liquidation was carried out, as if to testify to the superiority of Polish-Catholic culture, precisely on the eve of the celebration by the Orthodox Church in Poland of the jubilee of the 950th anniversary of the baptism of Ukraine-Rus.

Already in April 1938, the Polish administration closed, without any pretext or legal grounds, 23 churches on the eve of Pascha. (K. Nikolaev. Op. cit., p. 263). The mass destruction of Orthodox churches was carried out in the Kholm region and Podlasie in June and the first half of July 1938, carried out in an organized manner — not only without the hindrance or halting of these barbarous acts by the organs of the state administration on the ground, but on the contrary — with their participation and assistance. "The Coordination Committee in Lublin (of the Catholic campaign) directly supervised the destruction of churches, for the Kholm region and Podlasie belonged to the Lublin Voivodeship," and at the head of the "Coordination

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Committee in Lublin stood a military man, General Smorawinski, commander of the Lublin Military District." ("From the History of the Martyrdom of the Kholm Region and Podlasie." — Ridna Nyva Calendar for 1958, pp. 83–84).

The barbarous campaign of destroying Orthodox holy places in the Kholm region and Podlasie did not, obviously, testify to the superiority of the Polish-Catholic culture with which, in the opinion of Kurier Poranny, the Orthodox population of the "borderlands" was to be imbued in defense of the Polish state against communism from the East; rather, it brought the level of such "culture" close to the barbarous acts of persecution of religion and destruction of church holy places in the East by the godless Bolshevik authorities.

Sejm Deputy Stepan Baran (a Ukrainian Catholic), who submitted two interpellations to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers on the matter of the destruction of Orthodox churches in the Kholm region and Podlasie at the plenary session of the Sejm on July 6 and 21, 1938, writes: "The final balance of Orthodox churches in the Kholm region and Podlasie is as follows: on August 1, 1914, there were a total of 389 Orthodox churches there, and on September 1, 1939, only 51. The Poles took for themselves 149 Orthodox churches and converted them into Roman Catholic churches, and 189 Orthodox churches were completely demolished or simply burned. The demolition of churches (in the summer of 1938) was carried out in a planned and systematic manner with the help of imported Polish workers and under the supervision and protection of the Polish state police. This was done amid the desperate weeping and loud lamentations of the local Ukrainian Orthodox populace. Polish workers would carry out of the church the church icons, books, vestments, and other church furnishings, throw them all in a heap, and only then proceed to demolish the church. In the process, they often destroyed the old cemetery near the church and the church fence, cut down trees, and leveled the entire area with the ground and sowed it with grass, so as not to leave any trace of the church. There were cases when workers arrived not only with the police but also with police dogs to drive Orthodox peasants and peasant women away from the church. In the destruction of churches, not even the mortal remains of the Orthodox were spared — they were exhumed from graves with the most extreme desecration... In the frenzied demolition of Orthodox holy places in the Kholm region by the Poles, there was no restraint. In the single year of 1938 alone, 115 Orthodox churches were demolished or burned. The Orthodox were not permitted to erect either chapels or prayer houses in place of the confiscated, locked, or destroyed churches. Under the protection of the Polish state police, such new buildings were immediately demolished, and those who were engaged in their construction, as well as Orthodox priests who dared to hold services in them, were subjected to monetary fines or arrested." (Stepan Baran. Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. Published by Vernyhora. Munich. 1947, pp. 107–108.)

During this same extraordinary session of the Polish Sejm and Senate in July 1938, the following Ukrainian deputies and senators spoke at legislative sessions with interpellations and protesting speeches on the matter of the Catholic-governmental campaign of destroying Orthodox churches in the Kholm-Podlasie

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land: Orthodox — St. Skrypnyk, Protopriest Fr. Martyn Volkov, Senator Mykola Maslov; Greek Catholic Senator Ostap Lutsky; and Polish Deputy — Catholic J. Hoffman (from Volyn).

The terrible events of the mass destruction by the Polish administration of Ukrainian Orthodox holy places in the Kholm region and Podlasie led to Metropolitan Dionisiy's convening of a long-unprecedented Sobor of all Bishops of the Orthodox Church in Poland, which took place in Warsaw on July 16, 1938. In the decisions of the Sobor, a "Conciliar Act" was drawn up, by which: 1. The readiness of the Orthodox hierarchy in Poland to rally around its Primate and to be faithful to him unto death in the common service to the Orthodox Church in Poland was recorded. — 2. The Sobor resolved to observe a three-day fast on August 1, 2, and 3, 1938, throughout the entire metropolia, with church services in all churches twice daily in black mourning vestments. — 3. The bishops resolved to address the flock with an Archpastoral Epistle in this grave hour "for the strengthening of faith and love." — 4. The "Memorandum of the Holy and Sacred Sobor of Bishops of the Holy Orthodox Church in Poland" was adopted, regarding the destruction of Orthodox churches in the Lublin Voivodeship, for presentation to the President of the Republic of Poland, the Chief Inspector of the Armed Forces Marshal Rydz-Śmigły, and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers General Sławoj-Składkowski.

In the epistle to the flock, the episcopate wrote: "We understand how difficult it is for you now, for there is nothing more grievous on earth than to witness with one's own eyes the destruction and desecration not only of one's own, but of one's ancestral holy place. But how pure and calm is your Christian conscience, that you have suffered not as murderers, thieves, and usurpers of others' property, but as Christians faithful to your good confession." The government immediately imposed a confiscation order on the bishops' epistle, and it could not appear in the press; it circulated in handwritten copies. Deputy Fr. Martyn Volkov read it from the church ambon in his parish in the town of Sarny; after the dissolution of the Sejm elected in 1935, when Protopriest M. Volkov ceased to be a deputy, the administration brought him to trial for proclaiming the epistle, which took place in the autumn of 1938 in Sarny: the court sentenced Fr. Volkov to one month of imprisonment and a fine of 100 Polish zlotys.

On Sunday, July 17, 1938, at the Metropolitan's residence in Warsaw, at the invitation of Metropolitan Dionisiy, a reception was held in which 22 persons participated, including all Orthodox bishops, several archpriests, Deputies S. Tymoshenko and Fr. M. Volkov, Senator M. Maslov, Chairman of the Rada of the Petro Mohyla Society M. Khanenko, and others. In the exchange of views, participants raised various pressing questions from the difficult current church life; unanimous was the opinion that in the present times all believers of the Orthodox Church in Poland must avoid everything that could divide them, shunning above all any national and political disagreements. The desire was also expressed for a delegation to approach the

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highest authorities of the Republic with a memorandum requesting the prompt convening of a General Sobor of the Orthodox Church in Poland and the issuance of a law regulating the legal and material status of the Orthodox Church within the state.

Dated August 2, 1938, there appeared an "Epistle Concerning the Kholm Region," addressed to the Most Reverend Bishops, the Very Reverend Chapters, and the Honorable Clergy of the Galician Province, from Andrey, Metropolitan of Lviv and Galicia. This Epistle, like the Epistle of the Orthodox Episcopate, was confiscated by the Polish authorities. We have its full text in the aforementioned monograph by Sejm Deputy Stepan Baran, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, on pp. 108–110. In his "Epistle," Metropolitan Sheptytsky, on the basis of the interpellation in the Sejm by Deputy St. Baran, writes: "About a hundred churches (in the Kholm region) have been dismantled and demolished. Many have been locked. Some have been burned by the hand of unknown criminals. In the locked churches and chapels, worship has been forbidden, both in them and outside them. Often they also destroyed the implements of religious worship. People were compelled, sometimes by force, to accept the Catholic faith in the Latin rite. Priests... were expelled and subjected to painful punishments of monetary fines or imprisonment. Innocent people were beaten more than once and driven from their homes. It is even forbidden there to teach catechism and preach in the people's mother tongue. The Orthodox Church is covered in mourning"...

Affirming these facts with evident sympathy for the persecuted and tormented Orthodox Ukrainians of the Kholm region, Podlasie, Volyn, and Polissia, Metropolitan Sheptytsky lamented on account of these un-Christian acts, and from the thought that "the events in the Kholm region destroy in the souls of the Orthodox, our un-united brethren, the very idea of the possibility of union, and present the Universal Church (that is, the Catholic Church) as hostile and dangerous to the Orthodox people. In the eyes of the multi-million population of Poland, the Apostolic See is presented as complicit in the work of destruction"...

Such a presentation, in our view, was entirely logical and justified by the facts, for in the Catholic campaign of "conversion" — by means not of religious-ideological persuasion but of every manner of coercion and terrorism — both Catholic clergy and Catholic laypeople took part, not some kind of unbelievers or atheists. And most importantly: the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, whether the Polish bishops or the Apostolic Nuncio in Warsaw himself, did not distance themselves with a single word from the barbarous acts of their spiritual sons who were destroying Christian holy places, and did not condemn the un-Christian methods, methods of the Middle Ages, in the spreading of the Catholic faith through various forms of inquisition. And when Metropolitan Andrey asks in his "Epistle": "Who then dared, in a Catholic state, before the eyes of the representative of the Apostolic See — the Nuncio, before the eyes of numerous Catholic bishops, to deal the Universal (that is, Catholic) Church such a terrible blow? Who then dared, contrary to the interests

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of the State, trampling on the traditions of Marshal Józef Piłsudski, to carry out such an unprecedented deed?" — to these questions there is no answer in the Metropolitan's "Epistle." For the hint at some "enemies of the Church," "enemies of Christianity," "Masons" who had supposedly seized state power in Poland, in "Catholic Poland" — this hint in the "Epistle" remains unproven, unconvincing, and is rather the Metropolitan's evasion of a truthful answer to his own questions. Close, on the contrary, to a truthful answer to these questions are the words of Metropolitan Sheptytsky himself at the end of his "Epistle": "Today perhaps Catholic opinion is not yet oriented, today many Catholics still do not realize what has happened, and what is and will remain a grave memento for Catholic Poland." (Emphasis mine).

Although Metropolitan Sheptytsky in his "Epistle" did not directly name those who "trampled the traditions of Marshal Józef Piłsudski" and covered Catholic Poland with eternal shame through their un-Christian acts, they revealed themselves by confiscating the Metropolitan's "Epistle": it was the then Polish Government, as K. Nikolaev correctly wrote: "Metropolitan Sheptytsky issued an epistle condemning the actions of the Government, and his epistle was confiscated." (Op. cit., p. 264). And the Orthodox hierarchy conveyed their gratitude to Metropolitan Sheptytsky for his stand — the only Catholic hierarch who spoke in defense of the Orthodox Church persecuted in Poland.

There was one more statement from the Catholic clergy — not a hierarch, but a clergyman belonging to the Jesuit order, the editor of the journal Oriens, the organ of the Eastern Mission of the Jesuits in Poland. The elderly Fr. Jan Urban was distinguished by his independence of thought, and his articles in the journal Oriens were always read with great interest — vividly written and permeated for the most part with knowledge and understanding of the subject about which the author wrote. By Fr. Urban's count, 120 Orthodox churches had been destroyed in the Kholm-Podlasie region. And raising the question of the consequences of the destruction of Orthodox churches, Fr. Urban says that, of course, "the landscape of the Kholm region, so characteristic with its numerous church buildings, often abandoned and covered with moss, has changed"... "but there were also other consequences, which 'the liquidators certainly did not expect,'" namely: Ukrainians reconciled with the Russians, the Orthodox hierarchy drew closer to the people, and moreover all these actions (the liquidation of churches) were attributed to the Catholics; in any case, this was done before the eyes of the Nuncio and the Polish episcopate, and from this one must think that "the cause of converting the Orthodox to the Catholic Church has been made more difficult for a long time to come"... (Oriens, 1938, p. 150).

The new Volyn Voivode, a Pole of German origin, Mr. Hauke-Nowak, sent Archbishop Oleksiy a letter at the beginning of the summer of 1938, in which he proposed the voluntary surrender of 14 church properties of the Volyn Diocese — former Roman Catholic churches that the Russian authorities had confiscated and converted into Orthodox

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churches; I recall that among these objects were the masonry cathedrals in Lutsk, Kremenets, and Ostroh. Bishop Oleksiy not only did not surrender the properties but did not even reply to the voivode's letter, following his rule of never responding to unpleasant government letters, because "perhaps things will change," as he used to say.

In July of that year, 1938, while I was spending my vacation in a Volyn village, the police commandant arrived and delivered an urgent summons for me to appear before the head of security of the Volyn Voivodeship. This head, who at that time was Mr. Stefanitsky, in an elevated and agitated tone demanded that I influence Archbishop Oleksiy regarding the immediate revindication of those 14 "objects," for "what else is the gentleman (meaning me) sitting in the Consistory for?" To his demand I replied that I did not enter service in the Consistory in order to surrender Orthodox holy places, and that Archbishop Oleksiy was not easily susceptible to "influences" and would not decide and satisfy such an important question as the surrender of churches without the Metropolitan and the Holy Synod. The conversation ended at that.

Also in July, of those 14 "objects," the church with its grounds in the village of Staryi Oleksynets, Kremenets district, was revindicated by Voivode Hauke-Nowak through administrative proceedings (see subsection 9 about this); this decision was given the rigor of immediate execution in view of "public interest." Archbishop Oleksiy nevertheless filed an appeal against this decision of the voivode with the Minister of Religious Denominations and Education.

On August 19, 1938, on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, Bishop Polikarp of Lutsk, in his sermon on this feast day in the Lutsk cathedral, raised the matter that so stirred the people of Lutsk — the revindication of the cathedral church in Lutsk, to which the hierarchy and clergy had allegedly agreed. "Do not believe the rumors," said the Bishop, "all that slander against the bishop and clergy is spread by those who want there to be division among us, so that it would then be easier to take the Orthodox sheep, who would remain without a shepherd, into their own hands. Remember that the bishops know their duty to God and to you! Remember that only in the unity of all is there strength!" (Shliakh, No. 9, 1938, p. 14).

The letter of Voivode Hauke-Nowak about the return to Roman Catholics of 14 Orthodox holy places continued to lie in Archbishop Oleksiy's file; it appears that the bishop did not make an official presentation of this proposal of the voivode to either the Metropolitan or the Holy Synod.

The events of the destruction of Orthodox churches in Poland, with the obvious participation of the Government itself, and in general the Catholic campaign of "revindication" of Orthodox souls and churches in Poland, found a wide resonance in the world. In Orthodox churches of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Canada, and the USA, in the monasteries of the holy Mount Athos, special services with prayers for the Orthodox in Poland were held. In this atmosphere of unrest and tension in the life of the Orthodox Church in Poland, the time came to celebrate the jubilee of the 950th anniversary of the baptism of Ukraine-Rus under the holy Prince Volodymyr the Great in 988.

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The main jubilee celebrations took place, in accordance with the resolution of the Volyn Diocesan Mission Committee, at the Zymne Monastery and in the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyi — places linked to the memory of the Prince-Baptizer — and the main day of celebration was August 14, which by the old calendar was August 1, the presumed day of the baptism of Kyivans under Prince Volodymyr; on this day, called in our nation the feast of the Maccabees, from deep antiquity our Orthodox Church has appointed the procession of the Cross at the early service and the lesser blessing of water.

The festivities began on Friday, August 12, at the Zymne Monastery, located 5 km from Volodymyr, where an All-Night Vigil was served in the evening, and on the following day, Saturday, August 13, a hierarchical Divine Liturgy and a great memorial service (panakhyda) for all the departed Orthodox from the baptism of Ukraine to the present day. The services were celebrated, with the concelebration of numerous clergy, by Archbishop Oleksiy and Bishop Polikarp. In his sermon before the memorial service, Archbishop Oleksiy spoke of the deep connection of the present generation with the Volyn land and the places where the great Ukrainian princes and bishops, champions of the Orthodox faith, lived and worked. Already at the Zymne women's monastery, a great multitude of pilgrims had gathered; among them, a group of pilgrims from the Kholm region drew attention to themselves: with their outward appearance, their deeply pious Kholm-region chants, and the oak cross with a crown of thorns that they had brought from the Kholm region, they reflected the contemporary life of the Orthodox Church. The pilgrims who could not fit in the monastery buildings for the night of August 12–13 spent the entire night listening with rapt attention to the pious songs of the Kholm pilgrims.

At 4 o'clock in the afternoon on August 13, all the bells of all the churches in the city of Volodymyr began ringing, and from those churches — the Cathedral of the Dormition, the Church of St. Basil, and the Church of St. Nicholas — cross processions set forth to meet the magnificent cross procession coming from the Zymne Monastery to Volodymyr; along the way, the cross procession from the Ustyluh parish joined in. At the gate erected beyond Volodymyr, these processions met, and after the traditional greetings they formed into one enormous procession, which turned back toward the city, singing pious songs in the direction of the Cathedral. At the meeting of the cross processions, many had tears in their eyes. This happens when a grieving heart, sensing that it does not beat alone in the breast but that its echo resounds in thousands of its people, begins to burst outward in tears of joy. In the Cathedral, a solemn All-Night Vigil was celebrated in the hierarchical manner — Bishops Oleksiy and Polikarp presiding — with the procession of the cross adorned with flowers after the Great Doxology, and immediately upon the conclusion of the Vigil, a cross procession set forth from the cathedral at about 10 o'clock at night to the site of the "Old Cathedral" (in the suburb of "Fedorivka"), where a universal memorial service was held for the repose of the souls of all the departed fathers and forefathers from time immemorial.

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On Sunday, August 14, at 6 in the morning, Divine Liturgies were celebrated in all the churches of the city of Volodymyr, at which hundreds of pilgrims communed. From early morning, cross processions began arriving at the Cathedral from the villages — Novosylky, Oran, Ovadne, and from more distant surrounding areas of the Volodymyr and other districts. The spacious cemetery around the cathedral and the long, wide street leading to it were filled with masses of people. In the cathedral cemetery, blind lyra players had positioned themselves, playing and singing mournful pious songs and psalms about the Mother of God of Pochayiv, about the Last Judgment, about St. Nicholas, and others.

The solemn Divine Liturgy in the cathedral began at 9 o'clock. Bishops Oleksiy and Polikarp presided, concelebrated by 18 priests, Archdeacon Hermogen, and two deacons. The cathedral choir sang under the direction of the skilled conductor I. Menko-Miniuchko, together with a choir of cantors. The magnificent baritone of the Archdeacon of the Volyn Cathedral, Hermogen, complemented the beauty of the solemn service. After the Gospel, the Dean of the Lutsk Cathedral, Mitred Archpriest St. Hrushko, preached. An extraordinarily solemn moment of the Liturgy was the singing of the Orthodox Creed, "I Believe," which was begun by the fathers in the sanctuary (there were about 100 of them), and then taken up by the masses of the faithful in the church and in the cemetery.

At noon, a cross procession set forth from the cathedral to the River Luha for the blessing of water, to the so-called "Bili Berehy" (White Banks), about 3 km beyond the city. Taking part in the cross procession were Archbishop Oleksiy, Bishop Polikarp, 40 priests in vestments, 30 priests without vestments, the nuns of the Zymne Monastery headed by Abbess Maria, representatives of the authorities, church choirs, and masses of the faithful numbering about 15,000. Exemplary order throughout was maintained by the faithful themselves. When they reached the place, on the high banks of the River Luha on both its sides, like swallows on telegraph wires, the masses of people had settled. The long causeway across the river and the valley along the river were likewise filled with people. Up the steps carved from the earth, Bishops Oleksiy and Polikarp ascended to the hilltop.

In the valley by the river, the clergy stood in two rows, with church choirs, and on the sides crosses and banners. From the hilltop, Bishop Oleksiy delivered to the people a jubilee address, profound in content and perfect in form. In it, the Archbishop gave a majestic portrait of Prince Volodymyr the Great, his spiritual rebirth through holy baptism, after which he became also the spiritual progenitor of his people; further, the Archbishop spoke of what the Holy Orthodox faith had given the Ukrainian people over nearly a millennium, and to Volyn in particular, from which it followed that the present jubilee celebration was a feast not only of church and religion but also of national culture. Passing then to the significance of this feast in our own day for ourselves and for our descendants, the Bishop dwelt upon the deeds of "criminal people who have set themselves the task of erasing from the soul of our people the seal of grace that descended upon Rus after its baptism; the godless work of the communists is entirely contrary to what St. Volodymyr gave us." For the modern godless ones

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"are murderers of human souls, luring people with the delusions of an earthly paradise, mocking sin and virtues, preaching class hatred among the people, making of the state an organized evil and a social crime, and creating new idols — subtle and seductive, like the pride and self-deification of man." "When we try to lift the curtain of the mysterious future," the Bishop said, "it becomes terrifying... And what, one thinks, if the present shaking of the thunders keeps spreading and reaping ever greater harvests for itself? And what if our sins have filled the cup of God's wrath? And what if this jubilee year is for us a year of judgment, and the Lord is already weighing us on the scales of His truth? O, woe then"... And the Bishop called out: "Let us then, before the face of our Spiritual Progenitor, the holy Prince Volodymyr, make a vow — to preserve in purity our Orthodox faith and to guard our nationality as a talent received by us, by God's design, from above"... (Tserkva i Narid, No. 15–16, 1938, pp. 587–593).

Having finished speaking, Bishop Oleksiy blessed the people, descended together with Bishop Polikarp from the hill to the river, and they blessed the water. After the blessing of the water, the magnificent procession returned by cross procession to the Cathedral of Mstyslav. The people, strengthened in spirit at the hearths of the Orthodox faith, began slowly to disperse homeward. A telegram was sent to His Beatitude Metropolitan Dionisiy: "Humbly, in prayerful unity, we have celebrated the jubilee festivities in Volodymyr. We send to Your Beatitude from ourselves and from all participants sincere filial feelings of love and devotion. Archbishop Oleksiy, Bishop Polikarp, Mitred Archpriest Hrushko, Archpriest Konoplyanka, Deputy Bura, Nikita Minakov."

The jubilee celebrations in Volodymyr were exclusively of a church character. The representational Academy planned by the Volyn Mission Committee for the evening of August 14 in Volodymyr did not take place for reasons beyond its control (Shliakh, No. 9, 1938, pp. 7–10).

In the cities and many villages of Volyn, jubilee celebrations of the 950th anniversary of the baptism of Ukraine-Rus also took place. In some districts, the festivities were held jointly for the entire deanery, in a location chosen by the deans. In the reports about these celebrations, a gratifying phenomenon was noted: that the active organizers of this jubilee church-national festival were the Orthodox Ukrainian youth. It was written: "The festival gave much. It raised faith, strengthened it, and proved that our youth firmly holds to its faith. The older generation rejoiced, for it saw that the descendants are walking the right path, the one that leads to a new, reborn life"... (Shliakh, No. 9, 1938. Reports from Vyshhorodok, Berezhanka, Zalistsi Vyshnevetski of the Kremenets district, Tesluhiv of the Dubno district.)

On Sunday, October 30, 1938, Ukrainians in Warsaw celebrated the 950th anniversary of the baptism of the Ukrainian people. A magnificent Academy, organized by the Central Board of the Ukrainian Central Committee, took place in the large Engineers' Hall. It was honored by the presence of Metropolitan Dionisiy, numerous Orthodox and Greek Catholic clergy, representatives of the Ministry of Religious Denominations, of Ukrainian scholarship, representatives of the Ukrainian army

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headed by General Salsky, delegates of nations friendly to Ukraine, and press representatives. Addresses at the Academy were delivered by Prof. O. H. Lototsky and Prof. Dm. I. Doroshenko. The Ukrainian National Choir, under the direction of S. Solohub, performed Bortniansky's "We Praise Thee, O God," the mighty "Whither Shall I Go" by Lysenko, and the jubilee cantata "988–1938" by Kravchenko-Kudryk. Mrs. N. Doroshenko recited the declamation "On the Kyiv Hills." With the prayer "God, Great and One" this jubilee Academy concluded.

Undoubtedly, these celebrations of the jubilee of the 950th anniversary of the baptism of Ukraine-Rus greatly lifted the spirits of the Orthodox Ukrainians amid the sad events of the assault and violence of the Polish-Catholic campaign of "conversion" in Volyn, the Kholm region, and Podlasie. At the same time, reports were also coming from across the ocean, from Canada and the USA, that in defense of the Orthodox Ukrainians under Polish rule, protest rallies were being held by Orthodox Ukrainians, petitions were being compiled to their governments with information about the persecution of the Orthodox in Poland, and efforts were being made to raise the matter at the forum of the League of Nations. Archbishop Ioan Teodorovych, who at that time headed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA and the Ukrainian Greek-Orthodox Church of Canada, issued an "Archpastoral Epistle Concerning the Persecution of the Ukrainian People in Poland" (Visnyk, August 15, 1938).

The worldwide outcry about the great intolerance of the Polish government and the religious persecutions in Poland was also exploited by the government of the country in which the greatest religious persecutions had been and continued at that very time — where thousands of churches had been destroyed and desecrated, hundreds of bishops and thousands of priests tortured, and hundreds of thousands of faithful — namely, the government of the godless USSR, about which Sejm Deputy St. Baran writes:

"The events in the Kholm region in the summer of 1938 also attracted the interest of the USSR government, and the Soviet ambassador in Warsaw submitted a sharp protest-démarche to the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, invoking the relevant provisions of the Treaty of Riga of 1921 concerning the protection of the religious and national rights of Ukrainians in Poland. And since war by Germany against Poland was already threatening at that time, at the demand of the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Beck, the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued an order to immediately halt the further demolition of Orthodox churches in the Kholm region and the repressions against the Orthodox. What is more: the starostas, police, and village heads were ordered to inform the Orthodox who had recently converted to Roman Catholicism out of fear that they could return to Orthodoxy." (Op. cit., p. 111).

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14. "Polish Orthodoxy" as a governmental idea for spreading "Polishness" through the Orthodox Church. The "Commission for the Translation of Liturgical Books into the Polish Language" of 1934. Liturgical services in the Polish language for Orthodox Ukrainian soldiers; protests against this in the Sejm by Ukrainian deputies. Governmental "Societies of Orthodox Poles" composed of non-Poles. The government's creation of a "Polish Orthodox hierarchy." The consecration as bishops in November 1938 of Archimandrites Tymofiy Shretter and Matviy Siemashko. "Decree of the President of the Republic of November 18, 1938, on the Relationship of the State to the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church" and "Regulation of the Council of Ministers of December 10, 1938, on the Recognition of the Internal Statute of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church." Analysis of these acts from the standpoint of the ideology of the Ukrainian national-church movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland. The frivolity of the Polish government's designs for the Polonization of the Orthodox Church. The end of post-Versailles Poland.

After the destruction of Orthodox holy places in the Kholm region in the summer of 1938 and the counter-actions by the Orthodox themselves in Poland and by actors on the international forum against that pogrom campaign, there came in the last year before the fall of post-Versailles Poland, if not a complete cessation, then a great weakening of the "missionary zeal" for converting the Orthodox to Catholicism in Poland. Instead, the governmental authorities of the Republic now replaced the weakened "revindication campaign" with an intensification of the campaign for implanting Polish Orthodoxy in Poland.

Such a change in the religious policy of a certain faction of the Piłsudski-ites toward the Orthodox in Poland clearly testified that this faction was indifferent to religious faith itself: in the foreground stood not religious faith, but "Polishness." When the Polonization of Orthodox Ukrainians and Belarusians through conversion to Catholicism in the revindication campaign encountered internal and external difficulties, why not try to conduct Polonization broadly without changing people's faith, within the bosom of the Orthodox Church itself? Why not try to create a Polish Orthodox Church? After all, the Russian government in its Russification of Orthodox Ukrainians and Belarusians had carried it out for two hundred years precisely through the Orthodox Church and its clergy... And now, within the bosom of the former Russian Church, the Ukrainians in Poland were waging a struggle for its Ukrainianization or de-Russification, so why not turn this young movement into a Polonization movement in the interest of the Polish state, in the interest of "Polishness"? Why instead of "Ukrainian Orthodoxy" not implant and spread "Polish Orthodoxy"? That Rome would gain nothing from this, that Rome would be displeased with the favoring of Polish Orthodoxy — that was not important; on the other hand, Poland would gain, having acquired millions of Orthodox Poles, and all the more so since in reborn Poland, Rome had launched a neo-Uniate campaign among the Orthodox in an explicitly "Russophile direction."

Such was the genesis of "Polish Orthodoxy," the idea of which arose in Poland reborn as a consequence of the First World War, for in the history

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of old Poland we know of no precedents where its state Catholic authorities, or indeed any Polish political factors, had interfered in the matter of the liturgical language of the Orthodox Church.

In subsection 11 we have already shown how, contrary to the assertions of the then (1925) Rector of the University of Warsaw, Prof. Krzyształowicz, in his speech at the opening of the Orthodox Theological Department at the University, that "Poland has never known religious oppressions, and now no one thinks of denying the rights of other confessions, for such are the principles of Polish ideology" — contrary to these emphasized words, the Polish Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education gradually took into its own hands the preparation of priests for the Orthodox Church, pushing the Orthodox spiritual authorities aside from this matter of primary importance for the Church, and isolating those who were to become pastors of their people from their national-civic environment already from their adolescent years, with the aim of Polonizing them in Polish schools and in a Polish dormitory in Warsaw.

The obligatory teaching of religion to pupils in the elementary and secondary schools of Poland was to be conducted, in accordance with Article 18 of the "Temporary Regulations on the Relationship of the Government of the Republic of Poland to the Orthodox Church of January 30, 1922," for Orthodox pupils in their native language. Departures from this rule in the practice of religious instruction repeatedly prompted resolutions of the church authorities and church institutions regarding the teaching of the Law of God to pupils in schools by religious instructors in the mother tongue, the native language. Such was the resolution of the Synod of the Orthodox Church of September 3, 1924, of the Lutsk church congress of 1927, the instruction to the clergy in the Archpastoral appeal of Metropolitan Dionisiy of August 1, 1928, and the resolutions of the Volyn Diocesan Assembly in January 1935 and February 1936.

In the Polonization offensive against the Orthodox through their Orthodox Church, with the intensification of the "Polish Orthodoxy" campaign, district starostas began ordering the clergy to teach religion to children in schools in the Polish language. We do not know, in truth, of instances of such orders by district starostas in Volyn, but in the districts of the Novahrudak Voivodeship, district starostas would summon the clergy of deaneries and issue them an order to use only the Polish language when teaching religion, also in sermons and in dealings with parishioners. In this, the clergy had to hear declarations from the starostas that "in the event of refusal by any of the priests to carry out this order, the appropriate conclusion will be drawn regarding such persons, of which everyone must be mindful." In view of the fact that such administrative orders violated the provisions of the Constitution and the Temporary Regulations on the Relationship of the Government to the Orthodox Church in Poland, the Higher Church Authority appealed to the Central State Authorities with recourses, requesting that such unlawful orders be annulled (Tserkva i Narid, No. 8, 1937, p. 303). The recourses had in view not individual starostas, but the entire Polissia Voivodeship, when it was governed in the position of voivode by Janusz Kostek-Bernatsky, for whom there effectively existed neither

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the Constitution of the Republic nor the "Temporary Regulations" for the Orthodox Church in Poland in his behavior toward that Church and its clergy, a behavior that can be called police-Polonizing. We have already written about it above (subsection 12).

The use of the Polish language in divine services was permitted by the same resolution of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland of September 3, 1924, which also blessed the use, as liturgical languages, of Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Czech. For all four languages, the permission for their use pertained to "those liturgical rites whose text has been approved by the higher church authority and in those parishes where the parishioners so desire." Ten years later, in November 1934, a Commission for the Translation of Liturgical Books into the Polish Language was organized under the chairmanship of Bishop Sava Sovietov. The formation of this commission was motivated in the Metropolitan's order by "the possibility of persons of Polish nationality joining the Orthodox Church," as well as by "the example of other Orthodox churches that had translations of the Orthodox Liturgy and frequently performed services in the language of the country in which the church was situated."

As for the joining of Poles to the Orthodox Church, cases of such accession, provoking great displeasure of the Polish Catholic clergy, were indeed becoming ever more frequent — naturally not from among the common people, and predominantly for matrimonial reasons: in the Orthodox Church, the dissolution of church marriages for various reasons was permitted.

After two years of work by the aforementioned Commission, the Holy Synod on October 17, 1936, approved for use in Orthodox churches, in case of need, the Commission's translations into the Polish language of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the Memorial Service (Panakhyda), and the Thanksgiving Moleben. Around this Synod resolution, a great uproar arose in the press of the time — an uproar that was not at all provoked by the resolution itself of September 3, 1924, which permitted, alongside Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Czech, also the Polish language in Orthodox worship. Objectively, it must be noted that the most calmly of all, the Ukrainian Orthodox press and Ukrainian Orthodox civic opinion reacted to the Synod's approval of the translation into Polish of the Liturgy, Panakhyda, and Moleben. For they viewed this matter from the Orthodox-canonical point of view, which Metropolitan Dionisiy expressed to a delegation from the RNO that came to him on this matter on December 9, 1936, in the words: "From the standpoint of the canons of the Orthodox Church, there can be no obstacles to translating Orthodox worship into various languages, and every Orthodox person can pray in any language of their choice."

The Orthodox Ukrainians, who demanded and fought for their Ukrainian language in worship, could obviously not deny Orthodox Poles the right to pray in the Polish language — moreover, the Ukrainian church movement for the introduction of the living Ukrainian language into worship never compelled Ukrainians themselves to adopt that introduction, never demanded the Ukrainianization of

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worship in all Orthodox parishes with Ukrainian populations, demanding such Ukrainianization only where the parishioners desired it.

Yet the Synod's blessing for the use in Orthodox worship of translations into the Polish language of the Liturgy of John Chrysostom, the rites of the Panakhyda, and the Thanksgiving Moleben became an "event" and caused an uproar, particularly in the Russian press, because this Synodal resolution was approached not from the Orthodox-canonical point of view but from the national-political one. The Synod's approval of the Polish translations was interpreted as the compulsory introduction of the Polish liturgical language for the Orthodox. And to the aforementioned delegation of the RNO members, the Metropolitan explained: "The fact of blessing translations of liturgical books into the Polish language would be mistaken to interpret as encouragement to switch to the Polish liturgical language. In general, one must not think that the Church will be used as an instrument for the Polonization of the population; no orders for the Polonization of worship have been issued." (Russkoye Slovo, 1936, No. 291).

It would have been extraordinarily strange if such orders from the church authorities had already been issued, but the Metropolitan himself on the state holiday of the proclamation of the independence of reborn Poland, November 11, 1936, solemnly celebrated a moleben in the Polish language in the Metropolitan cathedral in Warsaw — evidently not for Orthodox Poles as congregants in the cathedral, but — possibly — imparting to this thanksgiving moleben on a state holiday a purely official character.

Fr. Jan Urban, S.J., for whom, as indeed for the Polish Catholic clergy in general, "Polish Orthodoxy" could not be a source of pleasure, wrote about the celebration of a moleben in the Polish language in an Orthodox church on the Polish state holiday that "this recalls the experience of the Russian Te Deum Laudamus and God Save the Tsar, once sung under compulsion in Polish Catholic churches." (Oriens, XI–XII, 1936, p. 188). In adducing this analogy, Fr. Jan Urban unambiguously equated the present Polish government with the former Russian government in the striving to use the Church for political ends — in this case, to implant "Polishness" among the Orthodox non-Polish population through the Polonization of their Orthodox worship.

As for the RNO members, while opposing the designs for the Polonization of the Orthodox in Poland also through the Polonization of Orthodox worship, they continued to view the Orthodox Church in Poland as an outpost of "Russianness," of which they considered themselves representatives, and therefore in a memorandum submitted to the Metropolitan on the occasion of the Polish liturgical translations, they wrote that "the translation of worship into living languages constitutes a mutilation of the essence of worship, and instead of a prayerful mood, produces feelings of annoyance and even offense," and demanded "the cessation of divine services in living languages until a decision on these questions by a Church Sobor." (Russkoye Slovo, 1936, No. 291. Emphasis mine.)

Obviously, the RNO members in their politicking in the Orthodox Church

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did not consider what the prohibition by the Synod of divine services in the Ukrainian language in those numerous parishes where — at the desire of the faithful — it had already been introduced would have caused in the life of the Orthodox Church in Poland. The Synod understood this better than the Russian political intriguers, and therefore did not satisfy their demands to cease liturgical services in living languages in the churches, but it did hasten to appease the representatives of the 1% of Russians in the Orthodox Church in Poland in another way. By its resolution of February 27, 1937, the Synod amended its decree of September 3, 1924, on the use of living languages in worship in those parishes where the faithful so desired, in the sense that the desire of the parishioners alone, as had been the case until then, was no longer sufficient; in each individual case, one had to apply all the way to the Synod, which would consider the requests for the introduction of the Ukrainian or other living language into worship and grant its blessing for such introduction.

This resolution of the Synod of February 27, 1937, which made the introduction of the living Ukrainian language into worship more difficult, caused great alarm among the Ukrainian public. The Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn, the Ukrainian Volyn Union, the Lutsk Holy Cross Brotherhood, the Petro Mohyla Society — all these organizations appealed to the Synod and to Archbishop Oleksiy of Volyn, presenting the full danger in the church life of Orthodox Ukrainians of the above-named Synod resolution. In the city of Rivne, where this Synod resolution immediately led to the cancellation of the annual solemn divine service in the Ukrainian language in the Rivne cathedral on the occasion of the Shevchenko anniversary, a public rally was held on March 28, 1937, chaired by Deputy St. Skrypnyk, with the participation of over 1,000 persons, who adopted a resolution of sorrow, with a request for the annulment of the Synod resolution of February 27, 1937, as well as expressing the desire of those assembled for the celebration of Divine Liturgies in the Ukrainian language in the Rivne cathedral (Ts. i N., No. 8, 1937, p. 304).

The protests of the organized Ukrainian community, as well as the events of the offensive against Orthodoxy by the Catholic campaign from the end of 1937 (the village of Hrynky and others), about which we have recounted above, rendered the Synod resolution of February 27, 1937, inoperative.

The idea of "Polish Orthodoxy" had its stages in post-Versailles Poland before the government intensified its favoring of it after the slowing down of the Catholic campaign of "converting" Orthodox Ukrainians to Roman Catholicism in the autumn of 1938. It was cultivated most by the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Education in organizing state theological schooling for the training of Polonized priests of the Orthodox Church, as well as in the teaching of the Law of God in the Polish language to Orthodox pupils in state schools. But this idea was soon taken up also by military circles, and the military chaplains for Orthodox servicemen began celebrating divine services in the Polish language.

Ukrainian Deputy S. Tymoshenko, at a session of the Budget Committee of the Sejm in February 1938, asked in his speech:

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"For what purpose and by whom were the orders issued for Divine Liturgies in the Polish language for Orthodox Ukrainian soldiers? Why does that Ukrainian soldier not have the right to pray in his native language? Having sworn to give his life, if need be, for the State, has he forfeited that right? Dying on the field of battle, has he not earned the right to have the last prayer read to him by his spiritual pastor in his native language? What benefit do such orders bring the state?" (Shliakh, No. 3, 1938, p. 15).

Deputy Protopriest M. Volkov, at the plenary session of the same Sejm, said: "If a Catholic soldier of Polish nationality hears Divine Liturgy in the Latin language, a Greek Catholic soldier in Church Slavonic, a Jew, Muslim, Karaite, and others hear worship each in the traditional language of their religious rite, then the Orthodox soldier of non-Polish nationality is deprived of those possibilities and, compelled to hear the Divine Liturgy in the state Polish language, will feel a deficiency in his civic rights and a certain depreciation of his religious rite, since at home the liturgical language for him is either his native language or Church Slavonic." (Ts. i N., No. 6, 1938, p. 231).

These just protests of the Ukrainian deputies remained protests only for history, all the more so when the higher military circles began to favor "Polish Orthodoxy" as one of the "bridgeheads of Polishness and Polish culture" also among the civilian masses of the Orthodox population of Poland. It was not without the case that among this population, too, individuals were found who undertook, disinterestedly or from various self-interested motives, to propagate the idea of "Polish Orthodoxy." "Societies of Orthodox Poles" appeared — first in Białystok, then in Hrodna, Novahrudak, Slonim, and Vawkavysk; they were founded, at the initiative of the local administration, and their membership consisted mostly of former Russian civil servants who were recruited for "Polish Orthodoxy" under the threat of dismissal from their positions in state service, on the railways, in city councils, county councils, and the like. (More detail on "Poles of the Orthodox confession" in A. Svitich. Op. cit., pp. 169–173.) On the Ukrainian lands, among the Ukrainian Orthodox population, there were no such "Societies of Orthodox Poles" at all.

K. N. Nikolaev in his monograph "The Eastern Rite," having unobjectively presented Volyn's reception of Archbishop Oleksiy, appointed in 1934 to the Volyn cathedra after Metropolitan Dionisiy's forced departure from it, wrote: "Bidding farewell to his flock, at the end of his address Metropolitan Dionisiy placed the words 'Glory to God for all things,' but great bitterness remained in his soul, and to the Ukrainianization he responded with Polonization." (Op. cit., p. 247. Emphasis mine.) Any evidence for this resounding phrase, which I have underscored, from which it would follow that Metropolitan Dionisiy took revenge on the Ukrainians for their demand to give Volyn a ruling bishop who was Ukrainian, revenge by beginning to Polonize them through the Church — we will not find in K. N. Nikolaev's work.

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For the greatest achievements of Ukrainianization, or de-Russification of the Church, in Volyn came precisely in the years after Metropolitan Dionisiy's departure from the Volyn cathedra and the appointment of Archbishop Oleksiy to Volyn. On the other hand, what are the facts of the implantation or propagation of "Polish Orthodoxy" in Volyn by the church authorities? Above we have cited the fact that during the revindication campaign in the summer of 1938, Metropolitan Dionisiy was received en masse and solemnly by the population of Volyn. Could this really have been gratitude to him for the fact that "to the Ukrainianization he responded with Polonization in the Church"? History rests on facts, not on striking, peremptory phrases.

If Metropolitan Dionisiy were such a Polonizer in the Orthodox Church as some represent, would the Polish government, when it took up the implementation of the idea of "Polish Orthodoxy," have conceived the thought of creating a "Polish Orthodox hierarchy" to replace the old one? About these designs, the late Bishop Oleksiy told me more than once upon returning from Warsaw from sessions of the Synod or meetings of the Pre-Conciliar Mixed Commission.

Whether feigned or genuinely sincere, an adherent of the idea of "Polish Orthodoxy" among the then Orthodox hierarchy in Poland became only Bishop Sava Sovietov of Hrodna, a Russian who had completed an accelerated course at the Page Corps in Petrograd. While still a hieromonk, he had been expelled from Poland, but then received permission to return and made a career up to and including the episcopate, having been consecrated bishop in 1932, a week before the consecration of the Ukrainian candidate for bishop — Archimandrite Polikarp.

In November 1938, the Polish government indeed proceeded to create a "Polish Orthodox hierarchy." Already having behind it Bishop Sava Sovietov of Hrodna, as a declared "Pole of the Orthodox confession," the Polish government approached Metropolitan Dionisiy with a proposal that the Synod supplement the episcopate of the Orthodox Church in Poland with two more bishops, naming as candidates two widowed military priests-archpriests: Georgiy Shretter and Konstantyn Siemashko. Both already held the rank of major and occupied positions as deans of military districts: Fr. Shretter in Lublin, Fr. Siemashko in Lviv. The nomination by the Department of Religious Denominations of candidates for the episcopate from among military chaplains pointed to the common hand directing both the revindication Catholic campaign and the "Polish Orthodoxy" campaign. Neither Fr. Shretter nor Fr. Siemashko were Poles by origin. Shretter's father was a Volyn German, his mother Ukrainian; Siemashko, the son of a priest from a very ancient clerical family of Siemashko-Horsky, was Belarusian. Shretter received his secondary education at the Russian gymnasium in Ostroh, Volyn, and his higher education at the Orthodox Theological Department of the University of Warsaw. Siemashko graduated from the Kholm Theological Seminary and the Nizhyn Historical-Philological Institute (in the Chernihiv region). During their service as military chaplains

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, both candidates had shown themselves to be great adherents of the idea of "Polish Orthodoxy"; Fr. Shretter was 37 years old at the time of his consecration as bishop, Fr. Siemashko was 44.

Could the Synod have refused to consent to the consecration of Frs. Shretter and Siemashko as bishops? Formally, of course, it could have, but on what grounds? To resist the replenishment of the episcopate in the Church, when the alien-faith state government itself was concerned about it, would have meant inviting accusations that the Orthodox hierarchy was not caring for the good of its own Church. And as for the candidacies, one needed very weighty grounds for their rejection, when such rejection obviously entailed a conflict with the state government.

The Synod's resolution on the consecration as bishops of Archpriests G. Shretter and K. Siemashko was made on November 8, 1938. On November 12, at the Pochayiv Lavra, Archbishop Oleksiy, on the Metropolitan's commission, performed the tonsure of both nominees as monks, with Fr. Georgiy receiving the monastic name Tymofiy, and Fr. Konstantyn the name Matviy; the next day, Sunday, November 13, they were elevated to the rank of archimandrites. Also at the Pochayiv Lavra, the nomination as Bishop of Lublin of Archimandrite Tymofiy took place on November 26, and the consecration as bishop during the Divine Liturgy on November 27. On November 28 the nomination as Bishop (of Braslav) of Archimandrite Matviy took place, and the consecration as bishop on November 29. The nominations were held in the hall of the Bishop's residence at the Lavra; the divine services and consecrations in the Trinity Cathedral of the Lavra. The nominations and consecrations were performed by the Sobor of Bishops consisting of Metropolitan Dionisiy, Archbishops Aleksandr of Polissia and Oleksiy of Volyn, and Bishop Sava of Hrodna; the archimandrites Tymofiy and Matviy were led into the hall, filled with clergy, government representatives, and the Lavra brotherhood, for the solemn nomination ceremony by the Vice-Abbot of the Lavra, Archimandrite Panteleimon (now Archbishop of Canada in the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate) and Protopresbyter of the military clergy Fr. Fedoronko.

For this solemn ceremony of the episcopal consecrations of Archimandrites Tymofiy and Matviy, the following arrived at the Pochayiv Lavra from Warsaw: Dr. Janusz Woliński, as the representative of the Premier of the Council of Ministers and the Minister of Religious Denominations and Education; General Korytowski, as the representative of the Minister of Military Affairs; Counselor F. Sokha-Paprotsky, as the representative of the Minister of Internal Affairs. Government representatives also arrived from the Lublin, Vilna, and Volyn Voivodeships, and from the Lublin and Lviv military districts. The Orthodox military clergy appeared in nearly full complement.

The liturgical rites during the installation of these new hierarchs, who were to serve the idea of "Polish Orthodoxy," were all celebrated in the Church Slavonic language with the Russian pronunciation. As for the prescribed speeches delivered at the installation as bishop, A. Svitich writes: "Both bishops (Tymofiy and Matviy), before the nomination, delivered the prescribed speeches in the Polish language, in which they noted their devotion to the Polish State, which 'treats

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all its citizens equally regardless of confession; such benevolent treatment bears all the marks of historical tradition' (from the speech of Bishop Matviy). Metropolitan Dionisiy also spoke in the Polish language when handing the newly consecrated bishops their crosiers, as the symbol of episcopal authority." (Op. cit., pp. 175–176.)

In what language — only not "before the nomination" but after the nomination, as is customary — the newly nominated spoke, I cannot assert, but being present at the consecration of Bishop Tymofiy in the Trinity Cathedral, I can testify that Metropolitan Dionisiy, before handing the episcopal crosier to Bishop Tymofiy from the cathedra after the conclusion of the liturgy, addressed him, instructing him on what a hierarch should be in relation to himself and to his flock after the example of the Holy Apostle Paul — in the Russian language.

Being present as the representative of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory at the solemn dinner in the Bishop's residence of the Lavra after the consecration of Bishop Tymofiy on November 27, 1938, I remember what a sad and simply oppressive impression was experienced at that "celebration"; one recalled how, over 6 years earlier, we had truly celebrated, those of us present at the consecration in Warsaw of Bishop Polikarp, a great event in the life of the Ukrainian Orthodox people, who in the Orthodox Church in Poland, constituting 70% of its faithful, had the right to the further consecration of bishops from among Ukrainians, and instead were now receiving in their Church bishops from among "Orthodox Poles" with the assignment of Polonizing the Orthodox population in Poland. And how distressing it was during that dinner to hear the representatives of the Polish administration in their conversations about the event repeatedly using the expression: "our bishops"... Indeed, these were their bishops for political tasks, and not bishops of the Orthodox people, whose consecration was nowhere received by the Orthodox with joy, and if not with hostility, then with deep indifference...

At the same time as the consecrations of the "Polish Orthodox bishops" took place, the Polish state authorities completed the regulation of the legal status of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland. This regulation was accomplished through two acts: the "Decree of the President of the Republic of November 18, 1938, on the Relationship of the State to the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church" (Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, November 19, 1938, No. 88) and the "Regulation of the Council of Ministers of December 10, 1938, on the Recognition of the Internal Statute of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church" (Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, December 30, 1938, No. 103).

These legislative acts did not pass through the Sejm and Senate; they were issued between parliamentary sessions. It seems that it was deemed more expedient from a political standpoint not to submit for public deliberation by the Sejm and Senate, which were essentially Catholic in their composition, the matter of regulating the legal status of the Orthodox Church, let alone its Internal Statute. Until that time, as we know, the legal life of the Church in reborn

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Poland had been regulated, for nearly 17 years, by the "Temporary Regulations on the Relationship of the Government to the Orthodox Church in Poland of January 30, 1922," unilaterally issued by Minister A. Ponikowski. Midway through this period of the Temporary Regulations' operation, namely on May 30, 1930, the President of the Republic's Decree appeared, in which we read: "Now the time has come for the aspirations of the heads of the Orthodox Church in Poland, in the persons of the late Metropolitan Yuriy and Metropolitan Dionisiy, as well as of the Sobor of Bishops and all citizens of the Republic of the Orthodox confession, to be realized — that in accordance with the holy canons, the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Poland should hold its Sobor, the first in the reborn Polish State"... But this time for the General Sobor of the Autocephalous — in the sense of its independence from any other Orthodox Church — Orthodox Church in Poland never came until the very fall of post-Versailles Poland.

It would seem that such a matter as the discussion and adoption of the prepared draft Internal Statute for the life of the Orthodox Church in Poland was above all a matter for a Sobor of the Church itself, so solemnly proclaimed by the President's Decree. But this Decree of the highest dignitary of the State became a "lost decree" under the rule of a certain faction of successors to the authority of Marshal Piłsudski, about which we have written in subsection 13. Without the conciliar voice of the Church on questions of its structure and governance, the Church hierarchy, which had been working out the above-named acts of regulation of the status and life of the Orthodox Church in Poland in the so-called "Mixed Pre-Conciliar (?) Commission" with government representatives over the course of 8 years — this hierarchy was compelled more than once to yield to the "caesaropapist" demands of the Government; it would have been otherwise had it been able to rely on the resolutions of a General Sobor of the Church.

An analysis of the entire content of the above-named legislative acts, by which at the close of the existence of post-Versailles Poland the legal status of the Orthodox Church within it was at last regulated, does not fall within our scope. We shall dwell only on those aspects of them that are in one way or another connected with the ideology and aspirations of the national-church Ukrainian movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland.

First of all, the name given to the Orthodox Church in Poland in both the President's Decree and the Council of Ministers' Regulation draws attention: "The Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church." This is not how it was named even in the President's Decree of May 30, 1930, where we read several times "The Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Poland," as our Church was customarily called until the issuance of the acts of late 1938, most often with the omission even of the adjective "Autocephalous."

One can, of course, interpret the naming of the Orthodox Church in Poland as "Polish" not in the sense of nationality but in the sense of territorial-state belonging, in the spirit of Canon 17 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, which states that "the division of churches follows the political and civil order" — however, in view of the campaign to create "Polish Orthodoxy" and the designs to Polonize the Orthodox population through its Orthodox Church, in naming this Church "Polish" one already at that time correctly perceived the tendency to Polonize this Church

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. This designation "Polish" was also criticized by the organ of the Eastern Mission of the Jesuits in Poland, Oriens. "Orthodoxy among us," wrote Fr. Urban, "is not a Polish church, but a nationally mixed, predominantly Russian (?)-Ukrainian one; the Polish Church, for it encompasses 95% of Poles, is among us the Catholic Church. As for Orthodoxy, it would suffice to call it 'The Orthodox Church in Poland.'" (Oriens, XI–XII, 1938, p. 186. Emphasis mine.)

Neither in the President's Decree of November 18, 1938, nor in the Internal Statute of the Orthodox Church, recognized by the Council of Ministers' Regulation of December 10, 1938, are there provisions concerning the liturgical language of the Orthodox Church, concerning the language of sermons in churches, or concerning the language of religious instruction for Orthodox pupils in Polish schools (Chapter XII of the Internal Statute). The operative provisions on this subject remained, therefore, the resolutions of the Holy Synod of September 3, 1924.

As for the official language of the authorities and institutions of the Orthodox Church in Poland, Article 7 of the President's Decree provides that this language is Polish, but Paragraph 2 of that Article 7 states that "in relation to persons and institutions that address the church authorities and administrations in another language, those authorities and administrations may use the language of the petitioner." The official organs of the Church under the titles "Bulletin of the Orthodox Metropolia" and "Bulletin of (such-and-such) Orthodox Diocese" are published in the Polish language (Art. 78 of the "Decree"). Registry books in parishes are kept by the rectors of parishes, as "civil status officials," in the Polish language (Par. 26 of the Parish Statute of the Church). The minutes of meetings in institutions of the Orthodox Church, from the sessions of the General Sobor (Par. 12 of the Sobor's Rules of Procedure) to the meetings of the Parish Rada (Par. 77 of the Parish Statute), are written in the Polish language, as is frequently emphasized in the appendices to the Internal Statute of the Church, which were: 1) Electoral Ordinance for the Election Sobor; 2) Rules of Procedure of the Election Sobor; 3) Electoral Ordinance for the General Sobor; 4) Rules of Procedure of the General Sobor; 5) Rules for the Main Audit Commission; 6) Statute of Diocesan Assemblies; 7) Rules of Procedure of the Diocesan Audit Commission; 8) Parish Statute. Paragraph 2 of the "Rules of Procedure of the General Sobor" provides: "The official language of the proceedings of the Sobor is the Polish language. Speeches, explanations, refutations, and the like may be delivered and submitted in the languages used by the Orthodox population in Poland." Obviously, this provision applies also to all gatherings and meetings of church institutions of the Orthodox Church in Poland.

Having dispensed, in the drafting of the constitution for the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland, with a Local Sobor of that Church, the creators of that constitution did not ignore in its drafting the very principle of conciliarity (sobornost) in the internal life of the Church, a principle so

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inherent to the Orthodox Ukrainian Church in the old Commonwealth and so alien to the Russian Church from Peter I to the very revolution of 1917. The principle of conciliarity in the President's Decree and the Internal Statute of the Church of 1938 was embodied in the structure of the Orthodox Church in Poland through several organs of Church life. At the highest level, these were: the General Sobor of the Church, composed of the hierarchy, representatives of the clergy and faithful; the Sobor of Bishops of the Church with its executive organ, the Synod (composed of the Metropolitan and three bishops); and the Election Sobor of the Church for the election of the Metropolitan. There was also the Main Audit Commission (composed of two representatives, one clerical and one lay, from each diocese, elected by the Diocesan Assemblies, and two representatives from the monasteries of the Church). At the diocesan level, these organs included: Diocesan Assemblies of representatives of the clergy and faithful; Diocesan Consistories (composed of four clerical members and one lay member, elected by the Diocesan Assemblies); and Diocesan Audit Commissions (composed of two clerical and one lay member, elected by the Diocesan Assembly). At the parish level, there were Parish Assemblies and Parish Radas.

Closely connected with the principle of conciliarity in the structure of the Church, by which the general body of clergy and faithful is drawn into active participation in church life, is the principle of electability in filling various church positions, a principle that also existed in the ancient Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In the Orthodox Church in Poland, according to the rules of its Internal Statute of 1938, the electoral system was to be applied in filling the cathedras of the Metropolitan and bishops, the positions of Consistory members, and deans, but the same Internal Statute of the Church did not grant parishioners the right of election in filling church-parish positions of members of the clergy — priests, deacons, and cantors — who, according to Paragraphs 62–64 of the Internal Statute, are appointed, transferred, and dismissed by the diocesan bishop. Obviously, such a procedure did not exclude the customary request to the diocesan hierarch by parish representatives for the appointment of one or another candidate as priest, provided he met the other requirements, principally the educational qualifications demanded of pastoral candidates.

The former electoral practice in ancient times for selecting priests for a parish, in the absence of schools for the training of the pastorate, when parishes had to seek a priest for themselves, could not now serve as a model, and therefore in the program of activists of the national-church Ukrainian movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland there was no demand for an elected priesthood in parishes. (Ts. i N., No. 24, 1938, "Problems of Parish Structure.")

But the presence of organizational forms of conciliarity in the structure of the Orthodox Church in Poland, in the acts of legal regulation of the life of that Church in 1938, does not yet speak to the truly conciliar character of that Church's governance or to its freedom in internal life, to which Article 1 of the President's Decree of November 18, 1938, solemnly testifies: "The Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church in its internal life enjoys full freedom of governance

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within the bounds of state legislation, and specifically of this Decree, as well as of the Internal Statute, recognized by the State through the Regulation of the Council of Ministers." "Full freedom of governance," but "within the bounds of state legislation," the "President's Decree," and the "Council of Ministers' Regulation recognizing the Internal Statute" — this is already far from freedom of governance on the principles of conciliarity of the Church, but rather a mixture of conciliar forms of governance with caesaropapism in the Church.

Fr. Jan Urban, S.J., having presented the essential content of the provisions of the President's Decree of November 18, 1938, draws the conclusion that "a great step has been taken on the path of democratization of the structure of the Orthodox Church and the expansion of the influence of the lay element on church governance. Thus the Orthodox Church, following in the footsteps of other autocephalies, has drawn closer to the structural models of Protestantism, weakening the old-Orthodox principle of hierarchical governance, which is more consonant with Catholicism." (Oriens, XI–XII, 1938, p. 186.) If by "lay element" one understands here the participation in governance of representatives of the faithful of the Church, then one cannot agree with this, but this "expansion of influence" applies entirely to the secular state authority, which constitutes no "democratization" whatsoever in the structure of the Church.

Here, for example, is how the election of the Metropolitan of the Church by the Sobor proceeds. A so-called "Election Sobor" is established for this purpose, which convenes only for the election of the Metropolitan and at which no other matters may be considered, nor is the discussion of candidate persons for the Metropolitan cathedra permitted (Art. 20 of the Decree). The session of the Election Sobor is preceded by a "Pre-Election Assembly" of the persons who comprise the Sobor; at this assembly three candidates for the Metropolitan cathedra are nominated. After this, this same assembly appoints a Commission of three, which includes: the Deputy Metropolitan, as chairman and representative of the episcopate, one representative from the clerical participants of the Assembly, and one from the lay faithful. This Commission goes to the Minister of Religious Denominations and Education with the aim of ascertaining whether the Government of the Republic raises any objection to any of the nominated candidates. A candidacy unwanted by the Government is dropped; all may be dropped. In place of those dropped, the Pre-Election Assembly puts forward others. Ultimately, there may be as many as three (but no more) candidates agreed upon with the Minister, but no fewer than two. And only after this does the session of the Election Sobor itself take place for secret ballot voting on the agreed-upon candidates. Elected as Metropolitan will be the candidate who receives an absolute majority of votes; if no one receives such a majority on the first ballot, voting continues; in the event that two candidates receive an equal number of votes even after repeated voting, the choice is decided by lot between them. The newly elected Metropolitan is presented by the Minister of Religious Denominations to the President of the Republic "for the purpose of receiving the President's recognition

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," after which the Metropolitan takes an oath and receives a decree from the President for the assumption of the Metropolitan cathedra (Arts. 17–19 of the President's Decree of November 18, 1938). Such a "conciliar election" of the Metropolitan, with the decisive participation of the state government, differs little from the tsarist appointment to the Metropolitan cathedra of a candidate presented by the Holy Synod and the Chief Procurator of the Synod, as was the case in the Russian Church — perhaps with the chief difference that both the Tsar and the Chief Procurator were also of the Orthodox faith.

To this must be added yet another restriction by "state legislation" of the freedom of the Election Sobor in its choice of Metropolitan: the Sobor could elect him only from among the bishops of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church (Paragraphs 10 and 13 of the Internal Statute). Such a restriction was unknown to our ancient Election Sobors when they were operative (inoperative in Poland in the era of the "right of patronage" — 16th century; in Russia — from the establishment of the Holy Synod in 1721): to the Metropolitan cathedras were elected not bishops but archimandrites: the Hieromartyr Makariy, Iov Boretsky, Petro Mohyla, Varlaam Yasinsky, Yoasaf Krokovsky.

Diocesan bishops are elected by the Sobor of Bishops from three candidates presented to that Sobor by the relevant Diocesan Assembly, but without the consent of the Government (the Minister of Religious Denominations) the Sobor of Bishops cannot elect a candidate (Art. 26 of the President's Decree); the same applies to the "election" of a vicar bishop (Art. 27) and to the appointment by the Metropolitan of the Director of the Metropolitan Chancery (Art. 23). In the life of individual dioceses of the Orthodox Church, this role of chief procurator on behalf of the Polish government is played no longer by the Minister of Religious Denominations but by the relevant voivode, on whose voivodeship territory the parishes of the diocese are located — that is, the Church falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Thus, the 5 members of the Consistory elected by the Diocesan Assembly can be confirmed in their positions by the diocesan hierarch only with the consent of the voivode (Art. 32 of the Decree), and likewise the appointment of the Consistory secretary requires that consent (Art. 34). The diocesan hierarch must notify the voivode in writing of the intention to appoint a dean (elected by the clergy at a meeting of priests of the deanery), a priest — rector of a parish or his vicar, a deacon, or a cantor to a parish, inquiring whether there are any obstacles from the standpoint of state interests to the appointment of the given person (Arts. 35, 38 of the Decree). The voivode must respond within a month; failure to receive a response within this period gives the hierarch the right to proceed with the appointment (Art. 35). Under caesaropapism in the Russian Orthodox Church, hierarchs did not have such obligations toward governors.

The Statute of the Diocesan Spiritual Consistories was not drafted by the Mixed Commission; this statute was to be adopted by the Sobor of Bishops and then confirmed by the Minister of Religious Denominations and Education (Par. 51 of the Internal Statute), who thus placed himself, in the internal life of the Orthodox Church, above the Sobor of Bishops. This is yet another example

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of the application of the principle of "conciliarity" in the life of the Orthodox Church in Poland. In this same regard, the establishment by acts of state legislation of church majority — or church maturity — for the participation of the faithful in the conciliar life of the Church is an expressive fact. A member of the General Sobor representing the faithful could be a person of the male sex who was at least 35 years of age (Par. 7 of the Electoral Ordinance for the General Sobor). A member of the Diocesan Assembly could be elected from among the faithful also as a person who was at least 35 years of age, but here there was no longer the condition that only a man could be elected (Par. 13 of the Statute of Diocesan Assemblies). The right to participate in a Parish Assembly belonged to members of the parish, regardless of sex, who were at least 24 years of age and held Polish citizenship (Par. 45 of the Parish Statute). Polish citizenship was in general a prerequisite for the right to participate in the conciliar life of the Church. A Consistory member had to be at least 35 years old (Par. 43 of the Statute of Diocesan Assemblies), a member of the Diocesan Audit Commission also at least 35 (Par. 4 of the Rules of that Commission), a member of the Parish Rada likewise had to be 35 years of age (Par. 64 of the Parish Statute), and a church warden — 30 years of age (Par. 31 of the Parish Statute).

It is difficult to understand what guided the creators of the legislative provisions for the internal life of the Orthodox Church in Poland when they established such a high age qualification — 35 years — for the church legal capacity of the faithful regarding their participation in the conciliar life of the Church. At the same time, a person could be ordained as a priest who had completed the Orthodox Theological Department of the University of Warsaw, which was entirely possible at the age of 25. The same applied to persons who had completed only the State Orthodox Theological Lyceum (Par. 67 of the Internal Statute), which normally should have been at the age of 21, as candidates for the priesthood in the Russian Orthodox Church usually completed their seminary course. And at such an age, graduates of the Orthodox Lyceum or the Theological Department of the University were designated to be pastors, rectors of parishes, who, in the words of the Statute, "have the care of the entirety of the religious and church life of their parish, and also concern themselves with the expedient conduct of church administration, accounting, chancellery, as well as the acts and books of the parish office" (Par. 14 of the Parish Statute).

Therefore, not without foundation did people see in the precaution of the creators of the acts regulating the life of the Church against the participation of younger generations of the faithful in church institutions of a conciliar character, such as the General Sobor, Diocesan Assemblies, and Parish Radas, one of the means against the spread of the ideas of the Ukrainian national-church movement, for indeed with the national awakening of the youth, the work of Ukrainianizing the Church in the parishes also intensified. It was a great mistake from the hierarchy to agree to the exclusion of younger people from participation in the conciliar institutions — a grievous mistake both in view of the Polonization offensive against the Orthodox Church and in view of the godless atmosphere from the East.

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A. Svitich writes: "The new legislative provisions concerning the Orthodox Church in Poland, having as their ultimate aim the Polonization of that Church, very quickly began to be implemented in practice. The center from which guiding instructions in this matter emanated became the city of Hrodna, where a special 'Scholarly Institute' was even founded... Active support to the Institute was given by the Hrodna Orthodox Bishop Sava (Sovietov), who was elected its honorary member... Thus the Polonization of the Orthodox Church in Poland was outlined in enormous dimensions and, of course, would have been carried out very quickly had it not been for the Polish-German war that began on September 1, 1939, which put an end to this Polonization." (Op. cit., pp. 181–183.)

But all this is not history but resounding phrases. First, nothing from the "new legislative provisions" about the structure of the Orthodox Church in Poland was implemented in practice before the very end of post-Versailles Poland in September 1939. There was no General Sobor of the Church, no Diocesan Assemblies in the Church, no deanery meetings of clergy for the election of deans, no reorganization of spiritual consistories, no organization of parish councils. And the period of 8 months was too short to carry out the organization of church life on the basis of the Internal Statute of the Church of December 10, 1938. And although Article 85 of the President's Decree provides that "this Decree enters into force from the day of its promulgation," Article 83 states that "within two years of this Decree coming into force, the Sobor of Bishops, in consultation with the Minister of Religious Denominations, shall establish the number, as well as the territorial boundaries, of dioceses, deaneries, and parishes."

Second, what kind of center of Polonization was "Hrodna," and what guiding instructions and to whom could have emanated from there? Why not Warsaw? Provincial Hrodna was no kind of church-Orthodox center, but there was there a bishop — the Russian Sava, who had turned himself into a Pole, and therefore a "Scholarly-Publishing Institute" was opened there with funds allocated by the Government, with the Institute's organ Głos Prawosławia. At the head of this Institute stood, as far as I recall, Bishop Sava, and not Bishop Siemashko, who did not even reside in Hrodna, and the director of the Institute was not Prof. Ohiienko, as Fr. Heyer states (Op. cit., p. 158), but Fr. L. Kaspersky, one of the new "masters of sacred theology" and amateurs of "Polish Orthodoxy." Again, the role in the publishing activity of this Institute was played by the same military priests, such as S. Fedoronko, V. Romanovsky, A. Kalynovych, and others. It is hard to say whether any of them truly sincerely and with conviction labored for the idea of "Polish Orthodoxy"; I would never say this about the bishops Sava, Tymofiy, and Matviy themselves, with whom I had dealings. The main thing was that they enjoyed neither respect nor authority among their fellow hierarchs, nor among the general clergy, nor among the faithful. Bishop Oleksiy never called the newly consecrated bishops — the nominees of "Polish Orthodoxy" — anything other than "Tymoteusz" and "Mateusz" [their Polish name forms].

And although A. Svitich writes that "both new 'bishops-Poles'

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began their intensified activity of Polonizing the Orthodox Church, not only in official communications but also in conversations with clergy and laypeople, both of them spoke exclusively in the Polish language, and delivered sermons during divine services also only in Polish" (Op. cit., p. 177), — the Polish language in the mouths of the two of them was still far, very far from being "Polonization" of the Orthodox Church. And A. K. Svitich himself writes elsewhere how at the first hierarchical divine service of Bishop Tymofiy in the Warsaw Metropolitan cathedral there were almost no worshippers, and only a few persons came up for his blessing; as for Bishop Matviy, at his first reception at the Vilna Holy Spirit Monastery, the worshippers "booed the new hierarch" and did not let him deliver a welcoming address to those assembled when he began it in the Polish language (Op. cit., p. 176).

Above we have already emphasized that on the Ukrainian lands there were no "Societies of Orthodox Poles" at all, which appeared in some cities in the Hrodna Diocese under the administration of Bishop Sava Sovietov, with members predominantly from former Russian civil servants who now held positions in Polish institutions. We can also say that the work of the "Scholarly-Publishing Institute" in Hrodna with its Głos Prawosławia was almost unknown on the Ukrainian lands, and among the Ukrainian intelligentsia was not at all regarded as something serious or threatening to the Ukrainian national-church movement.

We think that such "success" attended this work in the north as well, in the Vilna and Hrodna dioceses. Therefore, to write about some "grandiose" dimensions of the Polonization of the Orthodox Church, supposedly halted only by the advance of German armies upon Poland, means not to believe in the resilience against coercion in matters of faith by the Orthodox popular masses of the Orthodox Church in Poland.

A closer acquaintance with the church-religious history of those masses — nationally Ukrainian and Belarusian — who lived under Polish rule in centuries past arouses in some and strengthens in others faith in the devotion of those masses to their ancestral Orthodoxy. It would not have been so easy or so simple to convert to "Polish Orthodoxy," unknown even in old Poland, all its Orthodox citizens, who as of January 1, 1938, numbered 4,165,000 in Poland, including 2,800,000 Ukrainians, and through "Polish Orthodoxy" to Polonize them, and in perspective, further to Catholicize them. Whoever lived with such dreams, having risen to the heights of power in the reborn Polish state, forgot that this was already the century of human history since the Birth of Christ — not the 16th or 17th, but the 20th. And those among the Poles who clearly saw all the folly of the "statesmen" of Poland after the death of the First Marshal Piłsudski in their offensive against the Orthodox Church called, like the Rector of Vilna University Prof. Zdziechowski, the Polonization of the Orthodox Church "madness," and Fr. Jan Urban — "a compromising of the Church and a road to communism." (K. Nikolaev. Op. cit., p. 248.)

Former Sejm Deputy of 1928 and editor of the conservative newspaper Słowo (Vilna), St. Mackiewicz, wrote regarding the church policy of the then Polish government of 1938:

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"We all, the entire Polish nation, feel the consequences of the mistakes that will come from the frivolous and intellectually low-level policy of the present Government. If I were a deputy to the Sejm, I would submit a proposal to bring this Government before the Supreme Tribunal." (Słowo, August 11, 1938, No. 219 — A. Svitich. Op. cit., p. 162.)

And beyond the church policy toward the Orthodox Church, and the national policy toward the national minorities in the state — in the internal life of Poland in the months of 1939, before the start of the Second World War, a suffocating atmosphere was felt, a premonition of some menacing events and changes. On April 2, 1939, Colonel Walery Sławek, the closest collaborator of the late Marshal Piłsudski and an outstanding fighter for Polish independence, shot himself in Warsaw. After the May coup of 1926, Sławek organized the "Non-Partisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government" and headed it. Following the elections of 1928 and 1930, he was Chairman of the parliamentary caucus of that "Bloc," was three times Premier, and for a short time after the death of the Marshal of the Sejm, Stanisław Car, served as Marshal of the Sejm and took a prominent part in creating the new Constitution of Poland. In his last months, Colonel Sławek completely withdrew from political work, evidently not sharing the direction given to it by the leaders from the generalship. And the suicide of Colonel Sławek was felt as a "memento mori" for Poland. The Ukrainian community highly valued Colonel Sławek for his Ukrainophilism and just treatment of Ukrainians in Poland.

On September 1, 1939, Hitler, without declaring war on Poland, hurled himself upon it like a tempest with his technically modern armed forces, and within a week was already at Warsaw, from which the Polish government emigrated to Romania, fleeing southward predominantly through Kremenets in Volyn. Poland was devastated in a blitzkrieg, and in the middle of September, from the East, by agreement between the Germans and Moscow, Soviet troops entered the eastern "borderlands" of Poland — that is, the Belarusian and Ukrainian lands.

But even during this devastation, the "wise" Polish administrators on the ground, such as the Volyn Voivode Hauke-Nowak and his security chief Nizhankivsky, considered it necessary for the "good of the state," or simply out of impotent spite and vengeance, to arrest on the night of September 8–9 many Ukrainian clergy and Ukrainian national activists in Volyn and transport them by rail, under the attacks of German bombers, northward, while in the south in Kremenets some of the Polish ministers were already spending the night as they fled to Romania. Among the hundreds of those arrested and transported to the "famous" Bereza-Kartuzka concentration camp, created for political prisoners by the no less "famous" Voivode of Polissia, Kostek-Bernatsky, in former Russian barracks — was the author of this work, who

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was taken there handcuffed hand to hand with the elderly Prof. M. P. Kobryn of the Kremenets Theological Seminary, the translator into the Ukrainian language of Holy Scripture and liturgical rites. Thus ended, together with the end of post-Versailles Poland, my work in the Orthodox Church in Poland.

When I returned from Bereza-Kartuzka, there was no longer any Polish authority, nor was there the Spiritual Consistory, of which I had been Secretary for 5 years. Instead of the Spiritual Consistory with its reverend Members and a staff of 35 officials, there remained with Archbishop Oleksiy a chancellery of 3–4 persons...

CHAPTER IV. THE UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH ON UKRAINIAN LANDS DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

About the fate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the terrible times of the Second World War, when the Ukrainian people found themselves between two forces in their collision with each other, found themselves between the hammer and the anvil — I wrote in 1946, at the commission of the late Bishop Metropolitan of the UAOC in exile, Polikarp. That same year, this work was published, with the rights of a manuscript, by mimeograph under the title: Senex. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church During the Second World War — 1939–1945. This commission was prompted by rumors spread by the enemies of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the West, about the alleged collaboration of the hierarchy and clergy of that Church during the war with German fascism. The sources for that work of mine were the archival documents of the "Administration of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in the Liberated Lands of Ukraine," of which Administration I was Secretary, Archpastoral epistles, correspondence of Archpastors and church leaders, the Ukrainian press of those times, notes, and oral reminiscences of participants and eyewitnesses of the Ukrainian church life of that era.

Obviously, this work becomes the foundation also for Chapter IV in the history of the fifth era of the life of our Church — the era of its rebirth — for this Chapter IV encompasses the events of church life in the terrible times of the Second World War.

The Second World War was started, as is known, by the German Führer Adolf Hitler with a lightning assault on Poland on September 1, 1939. Shortly before the very start of the war, the National Socialist or Fascist government of Germany entered into an understanding, close to the concept of a military alliance, with the Communist government of the USSR. This understanding freed Hitler's hands for military operations in the West, while the Communist leaders, having rejected the alliance against Hitler proposed to them by England and France, calculated on the exhaustion of both sides in a protracted war, which would create the ground for revolutions in the West and the spread of communism under the leadership of Moscow, which would then remain the only real force on the continent of Europe. In accordance with this German-Communist understanding, the territory of Poland was divided between Germany and the

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USSR. Western Ukraine, without the Kholm region and Podlasie, and Western Belarus, which had been under Poland, were ceded by Hitler to the USSR, whose troops occupied these lands in the second half of September 1939. On the territory of Poland occupied by the Germans, they established the so-called "General Government" with the center of authority in Kraków.

With this occupation of Poland, the Orthodox Autocephalous Church within it was also territorially split into two unequal parts: in the General Government there remained only the smallest Warsaw-Kholm Diocese with Metropolitan Dionisiy and his vicar Bishop Tymofiy of Lublin; the Volyn, Polissia, Hrodna, and Vilna dioceses found themselves under Soviet authority. This continued until the outbreak of war between Germany and the USSR on June 22, 1941. The retreat of the Soviet forces and the advance far eastward of the German armies, with their occupation of all of Ukraine, conditioned the further events and changes in the life of the Orthodox Church of the Ukrainian people, as did the subsequent German retreat westward and their defeat in the world war. Thus, the fate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church during the Second World War must be examined in close dependence on the course of military events and the changes of political authority on the Ukrainian lands.

1. The Ukrainian church movement in the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government. Organization of Ukrainian Church Radas. The struggle for the removal from the leadership of the Orthodox Church in the General Government of Archbishop Serafym (Lade) and the restoration of the rights of Metropolitan Dionisiy. The Ukrainian course in the life of the Church. The consecration in the General Government of a Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchy. The Internal Statute of the Holy Autocephalous Orthodox Church of 1942 in the General Government. Ukrainianization measures in the largest diocese of Kholm-Podlasie under the leadership of Archbishop Ilarion. The attitude of the German occupiers toward the Orthodox Church.

A. K. Svitich writes: "After the defeat of Poland, all its Orthodox population that entered into the composition of the newly created General Government converged in one desire: to liquidate as quickly as possible the unlawfully implemented (in Poland) autocephaly of the Church, which (autocephaly) had brought so much harm to the Orthodox Church in the Polish state." (Op. cit., p. 186.) We have no evidence that the Ukrainian church leaders in the General Government, where the Orthodox population was up to 95% Ukrainian (the Kholm region and Podlasie, and partly the Lemko region), set about "liquidating the autocephaly as quickly as possible" of the Orthodox Church. Thus "all the Orthodox population" was a small circle in the Russian colony in Warsaw, which hastened to turn to Archbishop Serafym of Berlin and Germany, inviting him to come to Warsaw and assume the governance of the Orthodox Church in the General Government.

A Russified German, a graduate of the Kyiv Theological Academy, Archbishop (later Metropolitan

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) Serafym Lade had been consecrated as bishop in 1924 in Ukraine by the hierarchs of the Synodal-Renovationist Church (headed by Metropolitan Pimen of Kharkiv) as vicar Bishop of Zmiiv of the Kharkiv Diocese; in 1930 he left Ukraine; in the West his consecration as bishop by the Renovationists was recognized by the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad, and he, as a German, first held a cathedra of that Church in Vienna and then in Berlin.

By inviting Archbishop Serafym to come to Warsaw and assume the governance of the Warsaw-Kholm Diocese — in other words, the Orthodox Church in the General Government — the Russians of the Warsaw colony would thereby liquidate the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church here, subordinating it to the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad, in whose jurisdiction Archbishop Serafym found himself.

On November 10, 1939, Archbishop Serafym arrived in Warsaw, but Metropolitan Dionisiy refused to transfer to him the governance of that part of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in former Poland that was now in the General Government. Archbishop Serafym returned to Berlin. "Then," as A. Svitich recounts, "the church-public circles of the Warsaw Diocese exerted a certain pressure on Metropolitan Dionisiy and convinced him that the liquidation of autocephaly and his, the Metropolitan's, removal were the unanimous desire of the faithful of the diocese." (Op. cit., pp. 186–187.) Under the pressure of this "church people," Metropolitan Dionisiy wrote or signed, on November 23, 1939, a letter to Archbishop Serafym; in this letter the Metropolitan, renouncing the further governance of "that part of the former Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Poland that is located on the territory of the General Government," asks Archbishop Serafym to come to Warsaw in the shortest possible time and assume governance of the Orthodox Church in the General Government.

To this testimony of A. Svitich about "a certain pressure" by the Russians on Metropolitan Dionisiy to renounce governance of the Orthodox Church in the General Government, one must add that this pressure was evidently also reinforced by certain pressure from the German administration, for the anti-German epistle to the Orthodox flock in Poland that Metropolitan Dionisiy had issued in the very first days of the war had been widely distributed. The Germans could not trust Metropolitan Dionisiy, and after his departure from Warsaw to Otwock, he was kept there under house arrest. Metropolitan Dionisiy himself later, in a letter to Archbishop Oleksiy of October 23, 1941, categorically denied his voluntary departure from the cathedra. Citing the church canons that forbid a bishop to voluntarily renounce his cathedra (Third Ecumenical Council, Canon 9; Peter of Alexandria, Canon 10; Cyril of Alexandria, Canon 3), the Metropolitan writes: "Therefore I did not renounce, and all the time, as Head of the Autocephalous Church, I maintained contact with the Most Holy Ecumenical Patriarchs... My accidental substitute (Archbishop Serafym) also commemorated me"... Thus, no liquidation of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in occupied Poland

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took place; this Church, according to its Internal Statute of 1942, came to be called "The Holy Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government." (Tserkovni Vidomosti. Warsaw. March 1943, p. 37.)

Archbishop Serafym, appointed effectively by the German authorities as head of the Orthodox Church in the General Government, arrived in Warsaw for the second time upon receiving the above-mentioned letter from Metropolitan Dionisiy and proceeded to govern the Church. But Archbishop Serafym from his very first steps in governing the Orthodox Church in the General Government encountered difficulties arising from his ignorance of the prior life of that Church in reborn Poland and his lack of understanding of the problems that needed to be resolved in the church life of the Orthodox with the fall of Poland. The chief of these was, of course, the national problem. In the preceding Chapter III we saw how the Ukrainian national-church movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland throughout the entire existence of post-Versailles Poland waged a struggle for the de-Russification of that Church, which in the composition of its clergy and faithful was nationally Ukrainian to the extent of 70%; we saw the successes this struggle achieved. As a result, among the unwise Polish politicians there arose the idea, in the last years before the fall of Poland, of using the Orthodox Church for the purposes of Polonizing its members — the Polish Catholic authorities began to propagate and implant "Polish Orthodoxy." This "Polish Orthodoxy" immediately, as the war began in September 1939, became irrelevant. Instead of the "Orthodox Poles," the "truly Russian" now came to the fore, who set about as quickly as possible "liquidating the autocephaly" of the Orthodox Church in Poland. But these were no longer the times of the 1920s. The Ukrainian church movement in the new Poland had already in the Orthodox Church its own history, its considerable achievements. And if before the fall of Poland the center of that movement had been Volyn, which now found itself under "the Soviets," then its place in the General Government was taken by the long-suffering Ukrainian Kholm region with Podlasie.

Before Archbishop Serafym Lade had even arrived to govern the Orthodox Church in the General Government, on the Kholm region a Church Council was formed by the Ukrainians in Kholm, from whose members an Executive Board was elected, headed by Fr. Ivan Levchuk. Metropolitan Dionisiy on November 16, 1939, confirmed the Kholm Church Rada, and Protopriest Fr. I. Levchuk, to whom he gave the rank of protopresbyter, was appointed Administrator of the Orthodox Church in the Kholm region and Podlasie. And A. Svitich writes that "the Kholm 'Church Council' became the exponent of the desires of the Ukrainian nationalists, who then appeared as supporters of autocephaly, because in it they saw a guarantee that the Church in former Poland would not be subordinated to the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad." (Op. cit., p. 188.) The legal adviser to the Kholm Church Rada at that time was Dr. Stepan Baran, a Greek Catholic who, as a Sejm Deputy from

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Galicia under the Polish state in several terms, had more than once defended from the Sejm tribune and in interpellations to the government the rights of the Orthodox Church.

The Kholm Church Rada, in the problems of the Ukrainianization of the Orthodox Church under the completely new circumstances after the fall of Poland, soon also raised the question of the official language in church institutions, both on the local level (in Kholm — the "Spiritual Administration") and in the center — in Warsaw. It was clear that the Polish language, with the fall of the Polish state, had lost its obligatory character for the Church, as established by the President of Poland's Decree of November 18, 1938 (Art. 7). Taking as the basis the national composition of the faithful of the Church, now even more so than under Polish statehood, the Ukrainian language was justified as the official language of the Orthodox Church in the General Government in its internal life. For if in former Poland the Orthodox Church had about 70% Ukrainian flock, now in the Warsaw-Kholm Diocese of that Church that remained in the General Government, Ukrainians constituted 95%.

Were there any legal grounds for the return of the Russian language in the offices of the Orthodox Church and the Russificatory course connected with it, which with the arrival of the Russophile Archbishop Serafym began to be dreamed of in the Russian colony in Warsaw? There were no grounds whatsoever. And the Ukrainian Orthodox community in Warsaw itself clearly realized the full justice of now Ukrainianizing also the central institutions of the Warsaw Orthodox Metropolia, for this was nationally a Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as Autocephalous in the General Government.

In Warsaw, too, a Ukrainian Church Council was formed, whose chairman was elected the former Minister of Religious Denominations under the Directorate of the Ukrainian People's Republic, Prof. I. Ohiienko. This Warsaw Church Council in fact and in law took on the significance of a Central Church Council in the Orthodox Church for the entire General Government, in which Ukrainian church radas were also organized in the cities of the Kholm region and Podlasie.

The task of the Ukrainian Orthodox community, organized in the General Government into Church Radas, was not only to continue, under entirely new political conditions, the action of the Ukrainian Church movement in the Orthodox Church of former Poland, but also to right the terrible wrongs that had been done under that Poland to the Orthodox Ukrainians precisely in the Kholm region and Podlasie, which in the General Government had the most Orthodox parishes. We mean here the Polish-Catholic campaign of confiscating and destroying Orthodox churches in the Kholm region and Podlasie, the closing of parishes, the persecution of Orthodox clergy, and the like. Obviously, the righting of these wrongs required the assistance of the new civil authority in the land, as well as of those Ukrainian institutions that were organized for cooperation with that German authority. The chief such Ukrainian institution in the General Government was the Ukrainian Central Committee under the chairmanship of Prof. V. Kubiiovych with its seat in Kraków; a network under it of Ukrainian Committees, as Aid

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Committees, alongside which the above-mentioned Church Radas existed, was spread across the cities with Ukrainian populations in the General Government. Thus the Ukrainian Central Committee in Kraków played an important role in the events of the church life of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government for the development of that life in a national Ukrainian character.

The complex of Ukrainian church affairs in the Orthodox Church in the General Government was entirely foreign to Archbishop Serafym Lade, and he, "having entered," as A. Svitich writes, "from his very first steps of activity in Warsaw into close communion with the church public" (Ibid., p. 189) — evidently the Russian one — could only support and restore the Moscow course in the governance and life of the Church.

When it became clear to the leadership of the Ukrainian church movement, measures had to be undertaken for the removal of Archbishop Serafym. This matter was not easy. The difficulties did not come from Archbishop Serafym himself, who willingly stepped aside from the governance of the Orthodox Church in the General Government, having an inclination for theological work rather than administration (his major theological works, published in Munich in 1947 by the Mission Committee of the German Diocese — Religion and Science and Dogma — reveal him to be an outstanding theologian). The difficulties lay in the resistance of the German authorities, who could not trust Metropolitan Dionisiy, who in his epistle had called upon his Orthodox flock "to stand in defense of our Fatherland Poland, liberated 20 years ago by the sacrificial blood of her best sons"; nor could they trust the vicar Bishop Tymofiy Shretter of Lublin, who, although of German origin (on his father's side), had been consecrated as bishop on the orders of the Polish authorities for the purpose of implanting "Polish Orthodoxy."

In this situation, the Ukrainians had no other recourse but to petition the authorities for the restoration of the rights of Metropolitan Dionisiy, who on the cathedra of the Primate of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland in 1923–1939, although far from always and not consistently, had gone to meet the demands of the Ukrainian church movement.

Several months of 1940 were spent convincing the representatives of the German authorities in the General Government that the removal of the (uncanonically) appointed Archbishop Serafym and the restoration of the rights of the Primate of the Orthodox Church in the General Government, Metropolitan Dionisiy, would in no way harm the interests of Germany; on the contrary, such a church policy, further connected with the consecration of a national hierarchy for the Ukrainians, would only broaden pro-German sentiments among the Ukrainian population. The Germans' interest in having the Ukrainian population on their side against the Poles in the General Government, and even more so, one must think, their plans for a further offensive to the East against the USSR, including for the "liberation" of Ukraine — contributed to the eventual triumph of the Ukrainians in their demands for the restoration of the rights of Metropolitan Dionisiy, which took place at the end of September 1940.

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During the time of the temporary administration of Archbishop Serafym, the "Spiritual Administration" in Kholm under the leadership of Protopresbyter Fr. I. Levchuk (his assistant was the talented Master of Theology Fr. Mykola Maliuzhynskyi) was also dependent upon him. During this time, the Spiritual Administration, with the help of the Ukrainian Central Committee in Kraków, managed to reclaim from the Roman Catholic Church in Poland up to 20 Orthodox churches in the Kholm region and Podlasie — a portion of those seized by the Poles during the time of Polish rule. Among these returned Orthodox holy places was the ancient Kholm Cathedral on Danylov Hill, dedicated to the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God, which the Jesuits had seized at the beginning of the rebirth of the Polish Republic after the First World War. After long delays by the Polish clergy, they were finally compelled on May 19, 1940, to transfer the Orthodox cathedral to its owners. On the occasion of this revindication, a great national-church celebration was held in Kholm, in which Archbishop Serafym did not participate.

Archbishop Serafym's refusal to consecrate two Ukrainian candidates as bishops — Prof. Ivan Ohiienko and Archimandrite Palladiy Vidybida-Rudenko — decided his recall by the German authorities from the position of Head of the Orthodox Church in the General Government. On September 23, 1940, in Kraków, at the Wawel Castle, the German Governor-General Dr. Frank received Metropolitan Dionisiy at a solemn audience; the Metropolitan arrived accompanied by Prof. Ivan Ohiienko, Protopriest Mykola Maliuzhynskyi, and the Chairman of the Ukrainian Central Committee, Prof. V. Kubiiovych. The Governor-General announced to Metropolitan Dionisiy the authority's decision to restore his rights of governing the Orthodox Church in the General Government, and Metropolitan Dionisiy, accepting this governmental confirmation, testified that on the territory of the General Government he would establish a canonical hierarchy and consecrate Prof. Ivan Ohiienko as bishop. After this, the following oath of Metropolitan Dionisiy took place:

"We, Dionisiy, Archbishop of Warsaw and Metropolitan of the Holy Orthodox Autocephalous Church in the General Government, as Head of this Church, promise the Governor-General faithfulness and obedience. We will strictly carry out the laws and regulations issued by him and will strive to ensure that the clergy subordinate to us respect and carry out these laws and regulations with the same faithfulness and obedience." (A. Svitich. Op. cit., p. 190.)

After this, Metropolitan Dionisiy departed for Warsaw and accepted the governance of the Church from Archbishop Serafym.

In the life of this Church, a Ukrainian course now became marked — the course that under Poland had taken place in the largest diocese of the Orthodox Church in Poland — the Volyn Diocese in 1932–1938. In the Metropolitan cathedral itself in Warsaw — the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Praga, divine services began to be celebrated in the living Ukrainian language; as its rector,

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the Metropolitan appointed Protopresbyter of the forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic, Fr. Pavlo Pashchevsky, a long-time activist since Kyiv in the field of the rebirth of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church; simultaneously the Metropolitan honored Fr. Pashchevsky with the rank of archipresbyter. Likewise the composition of the members of the Warsaw Spiritual Consistory was now Ukrainian. The Synodal press in Warsaw began printing books of Holy Scripture and liturgical rites in the Ukrainian language, whereas under Poland that press had printed, at the expense of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory, in the Ukrainian language only the Altar Gospel in large format.

But the most important event that signified the Ukrainian course in the Orthodox Church in the General Government was the consecration within it of Ukrainian bishops. In the Orthodox Church in post-Versailles Poland, over the course of 20 years, there were eight episcopal consecrations; of these, only one — the consecration of Archimandrite Polikarp Sikorsky as vicar Bishop of Lutsk — was a response to the demands of the Orthodox Ukrainians, numbering up to 2,500,000 (70% of the Church), to have a Ukrainian bishop. Now the Orthodox Ukrainians in the General Government (about 300,000) received in response to their demands two diocesan bishops who were Ukrainians.

The candidates were Prof. I. Ohiienko and Archimandrite Palladiy Vidybida. The Spiritual Administration in Kholm, in order to acquaint the Kholm community more closely with Prof. Ivan Ohiienko, invited him to Kholm for a whole series of lectures on the Ukrainian Church. "During those lectures, the Professor had the opportunity to personally get to know the clergy and faithful of the Kholm region, and the clergy and faithful could look more closely and become acquainted with Prof. Ohiienko." (Jubilee Book in Honor of Metropolitan Ilarion. 1958. Winnipeg. p. 178.) Prof. Ohiienko also visited the city of Hrubieshiv with lectures. The candidacy of Prof. Ivan Ohiienko for bishop was finally approved in the Ukrainian Central Committee and locally by the clergy and faithful of the Kholm region and Podlasie; Governor-General Dr. Frank gave his consent to his consecration. Besides Metropolitan Dionisiy, in the General Government there was only one other Orthodox bishop — the vicar Bishop Tymofiy Shretter of Lublin, who was living in retirement at the Yablochyn Monastery. His participation in the consecration of Prof. Ohiienko as bishop, necessary in view of Apostolic Canon 1, was also important for preserving the continuity of succession of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in the General Government from the Orthodox Church in Poland. The task of securing Bishop Tymofiy's consent to participate in the episcopal consecration was entrusted in Warsaw by Prof. Ohiienko to Judge V. Soloviy (now Bishop Varlaam of the UAOC), who visited Bishop Tymofiy at Yablochyn and carried out this commission.

In the first ten days of October 1940, Metropolitan Dionisiy, together with Prof. Ohiienko, traveled by automobile from Warsaw to the Yablochyn Monastery, and there over three days, October 9, 10, and 11, performed the monastic tonsure of Prof. Ivan Ohiienko with the name Ilarion in monasticism (after St. Ilarion of the Caves, October 2 old style), ordained him as hierodeacon and hieromonk, and elevated him to the rank of

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archimandrite. The nomination as bishop of Archimandrite Ilarion took place in the Kholm Cathedral on Saturday, October 19, 1940, and on Sunday, October 20, in the same cathedral, the solemn consecration of Archimandrite Ilarion as bishop was performed by Metropolitan Dionisiy, invited Archbishop Savatiy of Prague (a Czech, Candidate of Theology of the Kyiv Theological Academy, class of 1907), and Bishop Tymofiy; after the consecration, during the Great Entrance, Metropolitan Dionisiy proclaimed Ilarion Archbishop of Kholm and Podlasie; the immediate conferral of the rank of archbishop followed in consideration of the historical antiquity of the Kholm episcopal cathedra, established as early as the 13th century. After these celebrations, Archbishop Ilarion returned to the Yablochyn Monastery for supplementary training, and at the beginning of November he came to Kholm, where on November 3 the solemn enthronement on the cathedra took place, and he assumed governance of the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese, now separated from the former Metropolitan Warsaw-Kholm Diocese.

The second Ukrainian bishop to be consecrated in the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government was Bishop Palladiy (in the world Protopriest Petro Vidybida-Rudenko, former member of the Volyn Spiritual Consistory); the consecration of Archimandrite Palladiy as bishop, performed by Metropolitan Dionisiy, Archbishop Ilarion, and Bishop Tymofiy, took place in Warsaw in the Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Mary Magdalene on February 9, 1941. In consideration of his many years of pastoral service, Bishop Palladiy was also immediately elevated to the rank of Archbishop; his title was "Archbishop of Kraków-Lemko," and when the Germans, having begun the war with the USSR, took Lviv, "Lviv" was added to this title. Thus the smallest by number of parishes in the Orthodox Church in former Poland — the Warsaw-Kholm Diocese — now, in the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government under the Germans, was divided into three dioceses: Warsaw, under the governance of the Metropolitan, which had 10 parishes; Kholm-Podlasie, under the governance of Archbishop (from March 1944 — Metropolitan) Ilarion, which had, after the restoration of many parishes closed under Polish rule, 170 parishes; and Kraków-Lemko-Lviv, under the governance of Archbishop Palladiy, which had 35 parishes. (Fr. Heyer. Op. cit., p. 164.)

In November 1942, the Sobor of Bishops of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government adopted the "Internal Statute" of the said Church, which the Government of the General Government acknowledged on January 19, 1943. As the foundation of this Statute, the Sobor of Bishops took the "Internal Statute of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church" of December 10, 1938, with certain changes. The significant changes were: the establishment of the Ukrainian language as the official language of the Orthodox Church in the General Government (Art. 4 of the Statute), instead of the Polish language under Poland; the absence of the institution of the Holy Synod, evidently in view of the small number of bishops and dioceses; the absence, in violation of the principles of conciliar governance, of parish assemblies and parish councils, although there were Local and Diocesan Sobors; in the Polish "Statute" both existed. Article 56 of the "Statute

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" of the Orthodox Church in the General Government provides: "The rector governs the parish together with the members of the parish clergy and with the participation of the church warden." The functions of the Synod passed to the Sobor of Bishops, but whereas in the Polish "Statute" the composition of the Sobor of Bishops encompassed all bishops of the Church, both diocesan and vicar, under the "Statute" of the Orthodox Church in the General Government (Art. 28) only diocesan bishops participated in the Sobor of Bishops. Thus, the vicar Bishop Tymofiy Shretter of Lublin could not participate in the Sobors of the three diocesan bishops of the Orthodox Church in the General Government. Concerning the language of worship (which was passed over in silence in the Polish Statute of 1938), the "Statute" of the Orthodox Church in the General Government states: "The liturgical language of the Holy Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government is the Church Slavonic language with Ukrainian pronunciation in Ukrainian parishes and with Russian pronunciation in Russian parishes. Where a parish so desires, the liturgical language may be, with the blessing of the diocesan bishop, the living Ukrainian language." (Art. 5 of the "Statute.")

Naturally, even before the adoption of this Statute at the end of 1942, there was already a Ukrainian course in the life of the Autocephalous Church in the General Government. The historian's attention in regard to this course is drawn most to the church life on the Ukrainian lands of the long-suffering Kholm region and Podlasie, where under Poland the Ukrainianization of the Church had hardly taken place. The restored Kholm Diocese, which had been closed as a separate entity under Polish rule, and for which Archbishop Ilarion had now been consecrated — could it take advantage of the new circumstances for the development of its national-religious life in the Native Church after years of terrible abuse and oppression, both religious and national, at the hands of militant Polish Catholicism, which even in the 20th century had undertaken the de-nationalization of Ukrainians here through religion?

Little time passed before the cross-bearing Kholm region and Podlasie once again found themselves in different political circumstances, but even in these 4 years — moreover under the conditions of a great war — church life in the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese, imbued with a national Ukrainian character, demonstrated important achievements in realizing the ideas of the Ukrainian national-church movement, as a continuation of the achievements of that movement in Volyn before the war and the fall of Poland.

Archbishop Ilarion, addressing his flock at the beginning of his Archpastoral work, said: "Divine Providence has seen fit to place me at the head of the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese, at the head of that land which for the last 20 years has lived a heavy martyric life... The work for the full ordering of the Holy Orthodox

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Church in the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese is so great that only the entire united Church can accomplish it"...

The participation of the "united Church" in the ordering and development of church life in the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese during the German occupation was most manifest in the opening of Orthodox parishes that had been massively closed during the 20 years of Polish rule, in the revindication for those parishes of churches seized during the same period by the Catholic clergy, in the thorough renovation of those churches, and in the restoration to them of their Ukrainian Orthodox appearance. The devotion of the Ukrainian population of the Kholm region and Podlasie to Holy Orthodoxy, as the faith of their fathers, is vividly attested by the figures: at the end of 1943, the nominal list of parishes of the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese shows 175 parishes (Kholm Orthodox People's Calendar for 1944. Kholm. Holy Danylov Hill. pp. 34–35), whereas before the war, during which post-Versailles Poland fell in September 1939, there remained in the Kholm region and Podlasie only 52 parishes (Slovo Istyny, No. 2, 1949, p. 29), divided into 6 deanery districts; now, at the end of 1943, there were 175 parishes divided into 17 deaneries. (Kholm Calendar. Ibid..)

The Spiritual Consistory of the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese was formed by Archbishop Ilarion from the members of the former Spiritual Administration, which had been elected by the Kholm Church Rada. Its members included: Archipresbyter Ivan Levchuk, Frs. Mykola Maliuzhynskyi, Havriil Korobchuk, Hryhoriy Metiuk, Myron Senkevych, Yevhen Barshchevsky; even a layperson — former Sejm Deputy from the Kholm region Semen Liubarsky — was a member directing the Press and Publishing Department of the Consistory; the Secretary of the Consistory throughout was Vsevolod Kvasnytsky, who before the war had worked as one of the desk heads in the Volyn Spiritual Consistory. With the entirely Ukrainian composition of the Spiritual Consistory, an advisory body (not subsequently envisaged by the Church Statute) was created by the Archbishop's order of November 7, 1940, under the name "Council of the Archbishop of Kholm and Podlasie." The "Archbishop's Council" comprised the members and secretary of the Spiritual Consistory and some dozen prominent church activists of the Kholm region and Podlasie; its sessions were held from time to time for the discussion of the most important church and religious-national affairs. The legal adviser to the Archbishop and Consistory from the autumn of 1941 was Judge V. Soloviy.

By order dated May 19, 1941, Archbishop Ilarion convened a Diocesan Sobor of the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese in the city of Kholm, which took place on October 21–23, 1941. For this Sobor, 51 delegates had been elected locally: 30 from the clergy, 2 from the monastic community, and 19 from the laity. The Sobor unanimously confirmed "in the name of the entire Kholm-Podlasie people, Archbishop Ilarion on the cathedra." (Jubilee Book in Honor of Metropolitan Ilarion. Winnipeg. 1958. p. 195.) The Sobor approved Archbishop Ilarion's Ukrainianization measures

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regarding the liturgical language (about which we will say more below) and drafted a detailed work plan for him. (Ibid.)

The restoration in such a short time of more than a hundred parishes in the Kholm region and Podlasie obviously required a simultaneous increase in the cadre of clergy to serve the restored parishes. This extraordinary need in the growth of the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese was greatly assisted by the misfortune of other Ukrainian territories — their occupation by the godless Soviet authorities. The persecution of the Church and clergy by that authority forced clergy and church servants to leave their native places and flee to the West. With these refugees, predominantly from Volyn, Polissia, and Bukovyna, positions of priests, deacons, and cantors in the Kholm region and Podlasie were filled. Short-term pastoral and cantorial courses were also organized (at the Yablochyn Monastery) for those candidates whom the war had prevented from completing their studies in Poland. Thus the danger of leaving parishes without church service was averted; at the end of 1943, there were in the Kholm Diocese, as reported by member of the Kholm Spiritual Consistory Protopriest Fr. H. Metiuk (now Archbishop Andriy in Canada), 172 priests, 20 deacons, and 105 qualified cantors, who served 320,000 Orthodox faithful. (Kholm Calendar. Op. cit., p. 41.) That there was no shortage of clergy for the needs of the diocese at that time is testified by the same Kholm Calendar for 1944: the staff of the Kholm Cathedral consisted of 3 regular priests, 7 supernumerary priests, a protodeacon, 2 deacons, and a cantor — a total of 17 persons (p. 32).

In 1943, a Theological Seminary was also organized in Kholm for the preparation of candidates for the priesthood; its rector was Fr. Dr. S. Smereka (from Bukovyna), and the vice-rector was Fr. Ye. Barshchevsky, before the war a religious instructor at the Rivne Ukrainian Gymnasium. For the development of the Seminary, there were insufficient funds, as the Germans did not see the need for two Orthodox seminaries in the General Government (the second was in Warsaw); there was also a shortage of instructors and students. In the Internal Statute of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government of late 1942, it was stipulated, however, that "in each diocese there must be a theological school under the supervision and direction of the diocesan bishop" (Par. 57). Of great national-religious significance was the teaching of religion in the public elementary and secondary Ukrainian schools of the Kholm region and Podlasie in the Ukrainian language.

We have already earlier (Chapter III, subsection 12) written that in the Kholm region and Podlasie, the problem of introducing the living Ukrainian language as the liturgical language was in the era of post-Versailles Poland in particular conditions generated by the historical life of the Orthodox Ukrainians on lands that had been for centuries the object of Catholic Polish expansion. Those conditions had the effect that in the churches of the Kholm region and Podlasie, the liturgical language under Polish statehood remained Church Slavonic. We cannot

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agree with the reproach directed at Archbishop Ilarion that "the low level of national consciousness of the Kholm region and Podlasie did not make it possible to introduce divine services in the living language." (V oboroni pravdy [In Defense of Truth]. Kholm. Manuscript of the Society of Ukrainian Theologians in Kholm.) The level of national consciousness cannot be measured by the introduction or non-introduction of the living language into the worship of a pious people; otherwise the level of national consciousness of Ukrainian Catholics could be qualified as "low," since they, as it were, pray not in the living Ukrainian language but in the ancient Church Slavonic. Does the Latin language in the public worship of the Catholic Church speak of a low level of national consciousness of Catholic nations?

On the other hand, the Orthodox faith, even with the Church Slavonic liturgical language, was a mark of the Ukrainianism of the Orthodox population of the Kholm region and Podlasie, and already at the beginning of the rebirth of Poland as a state, this population in the elections to the Sejm and Senate in 1922 cast its votes for Ukrainian candidates, not for Polish ones, and sent 6 Ukrainian deputies to the Sejm and one senator to the Senate, while from Polissia, the Ukrainians sent only two deputies.

Obviously, it was not the low level of national consciousness of the Kholm region and Podlasie — which after 1922 certainly rose during the years of Polish violence in the national-religious life of the Ukrainians of those lands — that was the cause of the quite insignificant success in the Ukrainianization of worship in the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese through the introduction of the living Ukrainian language. Those who reproached Archbishop Ilarion for this, pointing out that even in Warsaw now, under the Germans, worship was being celebrated in Ukrainian in the Metropolitan cathedral, had no grounds. Knowing the history of the Kholm-Podlasie land and understanding the conservative nature of piety in general, and in particular that of the Kholm people in their centuries-long resistance to the encroaching Catholicism that also brought Polonization to the people, Archbishop Ilarion in the question of the Ukrainianization of worship in this Ukrainian diocese took the position of the moderate resolutions on this question of the All-Kholm People's Congress of November 5–6, 1939, and the Peasant All-Kholm Congress of July 28, 1940. The first adopted a resolution on "the introduction of Ukrainian pronunciation in divine services of the Church Slavonic text (instead of the Russian pronunciation)" and on "the reading of the Holy Gospel at divine services in Ukrainian translation." The Peasant Congress resolved: "Divine services in the churches of the Kholm region and Podlasie are to be celebrated in the native Ukrainian language, and during the transitional period, until Ukrainian liturgical books are printed, divine services are to be celebrated in the Church Slavonic language with Ukrainian pronunciation and Ukrainian accents, but the Apostle and Gospel are to be read henceforth obligatorily in the Ukrainian language."

Thus, a few days after his enthronement, Archbishop Ilarion on November 12, 1940, issued an order concerning the liturgical language in the diocese: "All divine services in the Kholm-Podlasie

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Diocese are to be celebrated according to Church Slavonic texts with Ukrainian pronunciation, that is, in Old Ukrainian. Russian pronunciation is not permitted. The Hours, the Apostle, and the Gospel may be read everywhere in the living Ukrainian language. Where a parish so desires, it is blessed to celebrate divine services also in the living Ukrainian language, but each time with a separate blessing of the Archbishop."

The meeting of the deans of the diocese, which was taking place at that very time in Kholm, having heard this order of the Archbishop, expressed its view of this arrangement regarding the liturgical language: it was "the maximum of Ukrainianization work that can be introduced with benefit for the Church in the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese."

In December 1940 and February 1941, the Archbishop's Rada unanimously recognized Archbishop Ilarion's position on the matter of the liturgical language in the diocese as the only correct and feasible one; its resolution was signed by: Prot. Mykola Maliuzhynskyi, Fr. Dr. Semen Smereka, Fr. Ye. Barshchevsky, Eng. N. Kvitko, Dir. Pekarsky, Editor V. Ostrovsky, Inspector St. Skrypnyk, Adv. M. Bahrinivsky, Judge V. Soloviy, Former Deputy S. Liubarsky, Notary A. Pavliuk, Dir. I. Liutyi, Mr. M. Volosevych, Dr. T. Olesiuk, Dr. Sahayko, Prof. Harasymiuk, Prof. Matsiuk, Eng. A. Romanenko, V. Vrublevsky, and others.

Notwithstanding the fact that Archbishop Ilarion's moderate Ukrainianization orders regarding the liturgical language in the diocese were grounded also in the resolutions of the representatives of the population of the Kholm region and Podlasie at the All-Kholm people's and peasant congresses, there appeared, nevertheless, even at this time, "saboteurs" from among the "truly Russian," who waged a struggle even against the Ukrainian pronunciation of the Church Slavonic texts of worship in the churches of the Kholm region and Podlasie. Their evident intention was to retain for the Kholm peasant the Russian pronunciation of the texts, which "was heard in church by the grandfather, the father of the peasant, and by himself from childhood." Counting on this attachment to the "traditional garb of the liturgical language," the agitators for the Russian pronunciation advanced the liberal demand that in each individual case, in each parish, the language of worship should be established on the basis of the desires of the parishioners themselves, and not by order of the diocesan authorities.

Metropolitan Dionisiy, who in his Metropolitan cathedral in Warsaw had permitted the transition to divine services in the living Ukrainian language, on the matter of the liturgical language in the Kholm region and Podlasie found it necessary, under the influence, one must think, of those "saboteurs," to appeal even to the German occupation authorities. In a letter to the Government of the General Government dated November 30, 1940 (No. 2409), the Metropolitan precisely set forth the idea of the use of one or another language or pronunciation of the Church Slavonic liturgical language on the basis of the desire of individual parishes, and not by order from above, from the diocesan authorities. By this "order" was clearly understood the prohibition in Archbishop Ilarion's directive of the Russian pronunciation of Church Slavonic liturgical texts in the churches of the Kholm region and Podlasie, instead of which Ukrainian pronunciation

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was ordered.

The Government of the General Government shared Metropolitan Dionisiy's view and in a letter to him dated December 7, 1940, a copy of which was sent to Archbishop Ilarion with an accompanying letter: "I ask you to see to it that in your diocese, too, matters proceed in accordance with my fundamental position." How to proceed with the language of worship in those parishes where one group of parishioners would want the Church Slavonic liturgical language with Ukrainian pronunciation, another group Church Slavonic with Russian pronunciation, and a third — worship in the living Ukrainian language — the Governor-General in his letter did not indicate.

Archbishop Ilarion, in response to the directive of the German authorities on the matter of the liturgical language in the Orthodox Church, argued that the demand for the Russian pronunciation of Church Slavonic texts of worship in purely Ukrainian territories was a concealed political campaign aimed at the Russification of Ukrainians; as for tradition, the oldest tradition in these territories of the Kholm region and Podlasie was the Ukrainian pronunciation of the Church Slavonic liturgical language, which had been replaced by the Russian pronunciation on the orders of Russian governments. "To this day," the Archbishop wrote, "I have not received from my faithful a single complaint about the Ukrainian pronunciation, and this is the best proof that this pronunciation is native to all the faithful." (Letter of December 21, 1940, No. 526.)

The Diocesan Sobor of the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese, held in Kholm on the anniversary of the consecration as bishop of Archbishop Ilarion, October 19–21, 1941, resolved: 1) The liturgical language of the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese is the Old Ukrainian language, that is, the Church Slavonic language with Ukrainian pronunciation. 2) Where the majority of the parish so desires, it is blessed to celebrate divine services there in the living Ukrainian language. 3) All supplementary services (outside the Liturgy, Vespers, and Matins), as well as the Gospel, the Apostle, and all readings from the Psalter, are better read in the living Ukrainian language. 4) The Russian pronunciation of Church Slavonic liturgical texts is not permitted, as a means of de-nationalization. 5) The language of preaching is the living Ukrainian language.

This order was also codified, as presented above, in the "Internal Statute" of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government of 1942, accepted also by the Government of the General Government.

In the report of the Kholm Spiritual Consistory of 1941 on church work in the diocese, we read: "At a steady pace, preparatory work for the introduction of the living Ukrainian language in the entire diocese is moving forward. But we must not neglect or forget the Old Ukrainian language, in which our grandfathers and great-grandfathers prayed for long centuries, and in which thousands of our faithful of the older generation pray in their homes and churches even now... Children in schools and churches are learning to pray and sing in the living Ukrainian language." (Slovo Istyny, No. 2, 1949, p. 27.)

What results the preparatory work for the introduction of the living Ukrainian language in worship in the churches of the entire

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diocese produced, we have no data. In the Jubilee Book in Honor of Metropolitan Ilarion (Winnipeg. 1958), we find on this subject a general statement: "And the number of parishes with the living Ukrainian language in worship kept growing. And everything was done peacefully." (p. 196.) The time of the existence of the restored Kholm-Podlasie Diocese under Ukrainian church leadership headed by Archbishop Ilarion — not quite 4 years (the evacuation from Kholm took place in the second half of July 1944) — was too short for the churches of the diocese, given the church conservatism of the population, to quickly begin transitioning to the living Ukrainian language in worship; one heard that such parishes were few, and in particular services in the living Ukrainian language were celebrated in the cathedrals of Kholm and Hrubieshiv.

As for the language of church preaching, sermons in the Ukrainian language were not a novelty for the population of the Kholm region and Podlasie even in the times before the revolution of 1917 (this was discussed in subsection 12 of Chapter III of this work).

The German authorities in the General Government, as is evident from all that has been presented above, were not opposed to the Ukrainian character of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government, where that Church had a large majority of its members who were Ukrainians. Ukrainianism in church-Orthodox life was not frightening to the Germans here; on the contrary, it won them sympathies in their struggle with the Poles. The Ukrainian in its national composition Orthodox Church in the General Government preserved, as an institution of public law, all legal rights regarding the possession of church property; in its internal life it had the right to be guided by the holy canons of the Church; obligatory was the teaching of the Law of God to Orthodox children in all schools in their native language; the preparation of pastoral cadres at theological schools was guaranteed; a Ukrainian hierarchy was created; Sobors of Bishops and Diocesan Sobors could freely take place; the Ukrainian language in church offices and in church worship received full rights of use.

However, despite the recognition of the rights of the Orthodox Church and its Internal Statute, based on the holy canons, not everything was well in the life of the Orthodox Church in the General Government. This concerns above all the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese; the German government promised to right in it all the wrongs inflicted on the Orthodox people by Polish-Catholic chauvinism before the war of 1939. But during 5 years of its governance in the so-called General Government, the Germans did not fulfill those promises; even in the area of revindication of seized Orthodox churches, many persistent petitions from the hierarchy and the faithful were required to achieve the return of some of the holy places. Lands, homesteads, and church-parish buildings confiscated under Poland were nowhere returned. With great difficulty, as an exception, a parish priest could lease from the land administration for money 8–10 hectares of former church land; the German government also did not return the property of the Archbishop's cathedra (a farmstead) in the vicinity of Kholm. The clergy were burdened with large contingent

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quotas, and for the slightest failure to fulfill them, they were severely fined; even the Archbishop had to deliver contingent quotas from his small garden.

Church-religious publishing, while not entirely absent, was significantly restricted, especially in the later period. Divine services on feast days, outside of Sundays, were forbidden so as "not to take people away from work"; on Sundays, services were permitted in churches until 8–9 in the morning, after which people had to go to work. The Germans plunged the Kholm region into the whirlwind of fratricidal war. Partisan units were formed that destroyed Germans but often also fought among themselves. In this struggle, the local population suffered most, and among them the clergy, for the German authorities made them responsible for maintaining peace in the vicinity without providing any protection, and even suspecting them of contact with the partisans. In attacks on the clergy, Archbishop Ilarion always stood in their defense. He did not hesitate to speak the plain truth to the face of the Lublin Governor Zörner about all the abuses and violence that the Germans permitted against the clergy and the Ukrainian populace on the territory of his diocese. And when the authorities demanded proof, the Archbishop presented an entire martyrology with authentic evidence and data about the abuse by Germans and their Volksdeutsche (from among the Poles) of our people, about the torturing of priests, cantors, and the Ukrainian intelligentsia. (Jubilee Book... Op. cit., p. 198.)

Due to the extermination of the Ukrainian population (as, for example, in the Hrubieshiv district) and the terror against the Orthodox clergy, the number of Orthodox parishes in the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese, which had been so restored in 1940–1942, began to decrease again. In Yablochyn, the men's St. Onufriy Monastery was burned; the monks had to leave it; at that point, the vicar Bishop Tymofiy also moved from there to Kholm. From the spring of 1944, evacuation began in the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese as well. On July 18, 1944, an order came from the Germans for the evacuation of Kholm, including the institutions of the Diocesan Administration of the Kholm-Podlasie Diocese. Metropolitan Ilarion (the title of Metropolitan was conferred on Archbishop Ilarion by the resolution of the Sobor of Bishops of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government on March 16, 1944) departed for the town of Krynica in Poland.

2. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Western Volyn during the alliance of the USSR with Germany, September 1, 1939 – June 22, 1941. The Church's loss of its Ukrainian character. The disintegration and destruction of church life at the grassroots by the proven Soviet system. Cases among the clergy of abandoning the priesthood and renouncing their rank; flight to the West. Soviet terror for national-civic work in former Poland. The "mission" of Archbishop Sergiy (Voskresenskiy) of Dmitrov to "gather the lands" under the single authority of the Moscow Patriarch. Penitential declarations by bishops to the Moscow Patriarchate. Appointment of Exarch Archbishop Nikolai Yarushevich for Western Ukraine and Belarus. Consecration in Moscow of the Galician Russophile Archimandrite Panteleymon

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Rudyk as Bishop of Lviv. Consecration in Lutsk of Archimandrite Veniamin Novitsky (Belarusian) as Bishop of Pinsk, with the retirement of Archbishop Oleksandr of Polissia and Pinsk. Arrest and deportation to Ternopil of Archbishop Oleksiy on the day the German-Soviet war began.

The year and 9 months of Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine during the alliance of Hitler with Stalin managed to leave a considerable mark on the life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, especially in Volyn, where the Ukrainians in church life under Poland already had, as we know, significant national achievements. Obviously, all kinds of "Catholic revindication campaigns," with the outbreak of war on September 1, 1939, immediately ceased, and people forcibly converted on the border to Catholicism returned to the Orthodox Church. But a sign of the change of political authority in the region was also the immediate cessation in Volyn's churches of divine services in the Ukrainian language where such had existed. It seems that only Bishop Polikarp in Lutsk in the Holy Cross Brotherhood church continued to celebrate in the living Ukrainian language. No one gave any order about the language of worship; only the instinct of self-preservation told priests to now hide the Ukrainian character of their parish and return to the Church Slavonic language of worship with its Russian pronunciation.

With the arrival of the Exarch from Moscow, the Ukrainian language also disappeared from church governance, as did Polish; even peasants began to address the bishop with requests written in the Russian language. In the disintegration and destruction of church life, the Soviet authorities quickly applied their proven methods — the chief being the taxation of parish churches and clergy with exorbitant taxes. The responsibility for their payment was placed first and foremost on the priests. In the event of non-payment, not only was the property of the "servant of the cult" sold, but priests were also arrested and brought to trial as "saboteurs," and the court penalty for "sabotage" was severe: several years of imprisonment. This measure most contributed to priests' abandonment of pastoral service. Church lands that had been in the use of the church personnel were confiscated from them in the spring of 1940, passing to kolkhozes where such appeared, or to the "poor peasants." Priests who were "unwanted" by the parish, or by that part of the parishioners that now, under the "people's government," had come to have a voice, began to be evicted from church homesteads, with church buildings being confiscated for "cultural-national institutions."

There were cases of renunciation of the priesthood, with published announcements in the familiar form — that one had now come to realize that one had been fooling the people, clouding their minds with religion, and the like... But such cases were very, very few. Predominantly, they abandoned the priesthood by notifying their bishop in the grief of their soul that "they were compelled by difficult circumstances to do so, that they grieved for the misfortune of their families, and that if things continued this way, probably all would be forced to leave the priesthood."

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Churches began to close, for there was no one to serve in them. Pious people went to the bishop, implored him to give them a priest, but the bishop had no one to give and in his powerlessness could only shed tears with the delegation sent to him. Soon political persecutions began of the Ukrainian clergy who had been active during the Polish period in national and civic work. Those among such priests who had no immediate doubt about what kind of "liberation from the Polish yoke" the new authority was bringing hastened to leave their homeland, heading west to the established General Government; some priests managed to take advantage for legal departure of the German-Soviet "Commissions" through which, at the Germans' demand, the resettlement from Volyn of German families was organized; thus Protopresbyter Fr. Pavlo Pashchevsky left Lutsk as a "German."

Of those who remained in place, many experienced Soviet terror for their national, church-civic work in former Poland: they were arrested and imprisoned locally, transported to prisons in the east — their fate remaining unknown — or exiled to distant regions of the USSR.

While at the grassroots the work of destroying the Church and religion in Western Ukraine was being carried out by the standard methods adopted in the USSR (to the above must be added the expulsion of religious instruction from all schools and anti-religious propaganda in schools and outside of school), at the top of the church hierarchy, the authorities employed a different policy. During the Great Lent of 1940, Archbishop Sergiy (Voskresenskiy) of Dmitrov appeared from Moscow in the lands occupied, by agreement with the Germans, by the Soviet authorities — and not Archbishop Nikolai Yarushevich, as A. Svitich incorrectly states (Op. cit., p. 194). The "mission" of Archbishop Sergiy of Dmitrov, who was the "Manager of Affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate," consisted in proposing to the Orthodox bishops and persuading them to submit to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, renouncing the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in former Poland, headed (the Church) by Metropolitan Dionisiy. This same Archbishop Sergiy then traveled with the same "mission" to all the newly occupied lands under Soviet authority: to Bessarabia, Bukovyna, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Naturally, this "mission" was not initiated by the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne himself, Metropolitan Sergiy of Moscow (later, in August 1943, Patriarch of Moscow), but was ordered by the godless Soviet government, which even while separating Church from state in the Soviets and persecuting the Church, used it for political purposes: the subordination of Orthodox bishops to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarch in all the newly occupied countries led to the subjugation of those countries to Moscow also in church relations, aided in "the gathering of lands under the strong hand of Moscow," as had been the case in the history of the Orthodox Church in the Slavic East of Europe in the distant centuries past. (See Vol. I of this work, pp. 100–119.)

Archbishop Sergiy of course, during his travels to the occupied countries, dealt only with the bishops, but in his reports to

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the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, he wrote about the desire for "reunification with the Mother Church" (as the Moscow Church considered itself) by all the clergy and the people. As a result of such "reunifications," Archbishop Sergiy himself eventually settled on the cathedra in Lithuanian Vilna with the title of Metropolitan of Lithuania and Exarch of the Moscow Patriarch for Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. During the war between Germany and the USSR, he betrayed Moscow, remained under the German occupation of those countries in Vilna, and in 1944 was killed on the road from Riga (Latvia) to Vilna and was solemnly buried by the Germans as a "victim of Bolshevik terror."

In Moscow it was held that the subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate of the bishops of one or another Church entailed the subordination to Moscow of that entire Church, and therefore the consent of neither the clergy nor the faithful was asked, and no sobors were convened for the resolution of the question of changing church jurisdiction. Archbishop Oleksiy (Hromadsky) of Volyn was the first, following the visit to him by Archbishop Sergiy of Dmitrov, to travel in June 1940, having obtained permission from the NKVD, to Moscow via Kyiv. There he was destined to address the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Sergiy and ask for "filial" acceptance into "prayerful-canonical union with the Mother Church of Moscow." The request was granted, and Bishop Oleksiy had to sign a submissive declaration, in which he now testified that "the Polish hierarchs submitted to autocephaly under the compulsion of the Polish government," and that "the rupture with the Mother Church was always experienced by him (Archbishop Oleksiy) with grief and with a consciousness of guilt"... Such a declaration was now made by Archbishop Oleksiy to the very same Metropolitan Sergiy of whom, in polemical works under Poland — rejecting the validity of Moscow's claims on the Orthodox Church in Poland — he had written: "Now Metropolitan Sergiy has fallen away from the salvific church unity and has joined with the enemies of Christ and the Holy Church, with the abominable blasphemers-communists... Now he has departed from the Orthodox Church, a servant of godlessness"...

The information brought from Moscow by Archbishop Oleksiy indicated that on the entire territory of the USSR at that time there were only 4 active Orthodox bishops in the Moscow Patriarchate: the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Sergiy of Moscow (Stragorodskiy), Metropolitan Aleksiy of Leningrad (Simanskiy, now Patriarch of Moscow), Archbishop Sergiy (mentioned above), and Archbishop Nikolai (Yarushevich) of Peterhof; in all of Eastern Ukraine there was not a single active bishop. On Western Ukraine occupied by the Soviet army, however, there were 5 Orthodox hierarchs consecrated in the Orthodox Church in Poland: Archbishops Oleksandr and Oleksiy, and Bishops Antoniy (Martsenko), Symon (Ivanivsky), and Polikarp (Sikorsky) — the first two diocesan, the last three vicar. And yet to these five, Metropolitan Sergiy assigned a sixth from among those four for the entire USSR — Archbishop Nikolai, granting him the title of Archbishop of Volyn

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and Lutsk and Exarch of the Moscow Patriarchate for the Western Provinces of Ukraine and Belarus; in March 1941 he was elevated to the rank of Metropolitan (of Volyn), with his seat in the same Lutsk. Clearly, this appointment of Archbishop Nikolai was not called for by the needs of the Church but was of a purely political character, made on the orders of the Soviet authorities.

In connection with this appointment, Archbishop Oleksiy of Volyn was left from the Volyn Diocese with only the Kremenets district, with the addition of the 9 Orthodox parishes that existed in Eastern Galicia, and was ordered to title himself not "of Volyn and Kremenets" but "Archbishop of Ternopil and Kremenets." And when Exarch Nikolai of Volyn and Lutsk occupied the Lutsk cathedra, Bishop Polikarp of Lutsk was ordered from Moscow to style himself Bishop (Vicar) "of Volodymyr-Volynskyi" — a title conferred on him by the Moscow Patriarchate.

On August 20, 1940, in Moscow, Archimandrite Damaskyn (Maliuta), the former Vice-Abbot of the Pochayiv Lavra — removed from that position by the Synod of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland — was consecrated as bishop with the title of Zhytomyr. Bishop Damaskyn after his consecration did not go to Zhytomyr but returned to Kovel, where he lived, and was later delegated by the Moscow Patriarchate to occupied Bukovyna.

On February 22–23, 1941, Exarch Nikolai visited Lviv, after which he submitted to the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergiy a "report" dated March 8, 1941. In this report, the Exarch wrote that "there are grounds to continue the Apostolic work of uniting the Uniates in Galicia with the Orthodox Church, that both he and the representatives of the Orthodox parish in Lviv asked for the appointment to the Lviv cathedra of an Orthodox bishop for that purpose, by which appointment the prestige of the Orthodox Church would also be raised." The "most worthy candidate" for the Orthodox episcopal cathedra in Lviv, in the Exarch's view, was Archimandrite Panteleimon (in the world Petro Rudyk, a native of Galicia, born 1898), Vice-Abbot of the Pochayiv Lavra, who even in the times of former Poland "more than others served the cause of the Orthodox mission in Galicia."

On the basis of this report by Exarch Nikolai, the Moscow Patriarchate resolved, by decree No. 22 of March 26, 1941, that "the Vice-Abbot of the Pochayiv Dormition Lavra, Archimandrite Panteleimon Rudyk, shall be Bishop of Lviv..., while retaining the position of Vice-Abbot of the Lavra until the Lviv cathedra is provided with its own maintenance." In the same decree it was added that as Galicia (9 parishes) was passing to the Bishop of Lviv, Archbishop Oleksiy of Ternopil was to receive additional parishes from the Rivne region and to style himself "of Rivne and Kremenets."

The consecration of Archimandrite Panteleimon Rudyk as Bishop of Lviv took place solemnly in Moscow at the end of April 1941, where, at the summons of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergiy, 12 hierarchs from the lands annexed to the Moscow Patriarchate — Western

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Ukraine and Belarus, Bukovyna, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia — arrived. Only Archbishop Oleksandr of Polissia and Bishop Polikarp of Lutsk did not go to Moscow, nor did they sign the declaration of subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate. A. K. Svitich wrote an untruth when he stated: "All of them (Archbishops Oleksandr and Oleksiy, Bishops Antoniy, Symon, and Polikarp) repented of the sin of 'autocephaly' and were received into the membership of the Moscow Patriarchate." (Op. cit., p. 194.)

The bishops who arrived in Moscow for the consecration of Archimandrite Panteleimon were all accommodated in the finest hotel, two to a room, but arranged so that bishops from the same country were not placed together; they received rich nourishment, and when, upon departing, they asked about the bill, they were told not to worry, as everything had already been settled. On the day of Bishop Panteleimon's consecration, a formal dinner was held at the Patriarchate. Among other things, Archbishop Oleksiy on this second trip to Moscow had his state tax of 25,000 rubles reduced, at his request, to 5,000 rubles. (Metropolitan Nikolai of Volyn paid 4,000 rubles.)

In May 1941, Archimandrite Pankratiy Gladkov was sent from Moscow to the Pochayiv Lavra as Vice-Abbot (its Sacred Archimandrite being Exarch Nikolai), and Archimandrite Nektariy was sent as treasurer of the Lavra. The former treasurer in the Spiritual Rada of the Lavra, Archimandrite Veniamin (Novitsky, a Belarusian by origin), became the third of the Russophile candidates for the episcopate. His consecration as bishop was connected with the insubordination to the Moscow Patriarchate of Archbishop Oleksandr of Polissia and Pinsk (Inozemtsev), who was placed "on the retired list" by the Patriarchal Synod, which then commissioned Exarch Nikolai to consecrate Archimandrite Veniamin as Bishop of Pinsk — a consecration that took place in Lutsk on June 15, 1941, one week before the start of the German-Soviet war on June 22, 1941.

Immediately after this consecration, Metropolitan Nikolai left Volyn and departed for Moscow, and on July 15, 1941, was transferred by order of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens to the long-"vacant" cathedra of Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia, Exarch of All Ukraine.

The newly consecrated bishops during the occupation of the western Ukrainian lands by the Soviet authorities up to the beginning of the German offensive against the USSR on June 22, 1941 — Orthodox Bishops Damaskyn, Panteleimon, and Veniamin — remained in Western Ukraine, but neither Bishop Panteleimon nor Bishop Veniamin proceeded to fulfill the tasks for which they had been consecrated, and Bishop Panteleimon did not go to Lviv, nor Bishop Veniamin to Pinsk.

During the Bolshevik occupation of Western Ukraine in 1939–1941, the Lord preserved Bishop Polikarp of Lutsk; had this occupation lasted longer, the Ukrainian Bishop — a long-time Ukrainian activist and emigrant from the Government of the Ukrainian People's Republic — would not have escaped severe repressions. From the accounts of Archbishop Oleksiy after his second trip to Moscow, it was known that in the Moscow Patriarchate there was great dissatisfaction with Bishop Polikarp for his disregard of the Moscow

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church authority. True, Bishop Polikarp concelebrated with Metropolitan Nikolai, who upon arriving in Lutsk established prayerful communion with him, as Metropolitan Polikarp himself recounted to the author of this work — but a declaration of renunciation of the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland, Bishop Polikarp did not make; he did not travel to Moscow when summoned, and did not style himself "of Volodymyr-Volynskyi," the title conferred on him by the Moscow Patriarchate.

The Volyn diocesan hierarch, Archbishop Oleksiy, who during this same Soviet occupation showed complete loyalty toward the Moscow Patriarchate, having atoned for the "sin of autocephaly" and subordinated himself to the "Mother Church" and twice traveling to Moscow, nonetheless suffered repressions (the requisitioning of the bishop's quarters in the monastery, the confiscation of his automobile), and on the night of June 22–23, 1941, was arrested at the Epiphany Monastery in Kremenets and transported to Ternopil. There his hair was cut off, his beard was also cut off, and he was thrown into prison; he was brought for interrogation before the head of the local NKVD. When the Soviet troops began retreating from Ternopil, along with thousands of prisoners they drove Archbishop Oleksiy, together with his personal secretary Protopriest L. Petropavlovsky, toward Pidvolochysk. Having collapsed on the road from exhaustion, Archbishop Oleksiy was thereby saved, for the guards left him to die in the field. Making his way to the Kremenets region — that is, to his own diocese — the Archbishop was brought to Kremenets in the middle of July.

3. Expectations and sentiments among the Ukrainian masses at the beginning of the German-Soviet war in the summer of 1941. Archpastoral letters of Metropolitan Sheptytsky and Bishop Polikarp of Lutsk about a new era in the life of the Ukrainian people. Swift disillusionment by the actions of the German administration with the Ukrainians' dreams of statehood. Plans of church leaders regarding the building of Ukrainian church life. Sobor of Bishops at Pochayiv under the chairmanship of Archbishop Oleksiy on August 18, 1941, its resolutions and the beginning of the schism in the Orthodox Church on the liberated Ukrainian lands. "Canonical" justifications by Archbishop Oleksiy for the defection from the Kiriarch Metropolitan Dionisiy. The role of the German authorities in the emergence of the church schism. Actions of the autonomist bishops; their contact with Archbishop Ilarion of Kholm-Podlasie. Statements of the Volyn Church Radas. Appointment of Archbishop Polikarp of Lutsk and Kovel as Administrator of the Orthodox Church on the liberated Ukrainian lands. Consecration at Pinsk on February 8–10, 1942, of Ukrainian bishops.

Western Ukraine was occupied in the autumn of 1939 and its regime began to be imposed by the godless Soviet authorities as a consequence of Hitler's agreement with the USSR government in Moscow. Notwithstanding this, from that same Hitler, the broad masses continued to hope for liberation from Soviet rule, in order to build thereafter an independent Ukraine. And therefore, when on June 22, 1941, the German forces began their offensive to the East, the anticipated German-Soviet war commenced, and together with it came the news of the formation of a Ukrainian Government in Lviv — enthusiasm seized the masses. People greeted one another as on Pascha, with the salutation —

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"Christ Is Risen!" With the march of the German armies to the East, "Festivals of Statehood" were held across all of the liberated Volyn throughout July and August 1941. The Church did not stand apart from these festivities — an expression of the sentiments, desires, and hopes of the Ukrainian people, who were then organizing local National Committees that in cities and districts took power into their own hands. Thanksgiving services, sermons, cross processions at the "Festivals of Statehood," public memorial services with the participation of thousands of people for the thousands of victims shot by the Bolsheviks during their flight eastward — in the prisons of Dubno, Lutsk, Kremenets, and Rivne — the heaping up of common graves for the victims of Bolshevik terror in cities and villages — all these were acts in which the clergy joined with their Ukrainian flock in feelings, sentiments, and thoughts.

The Archpastoral epistles of that time to the Ukrainians serve as historical documents of the exaltation experienced, evoked by the awakened faith in the rebirth of Ukrainian Statehood. Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, in an epistle dated July 1, 1941, wrote: "By the will of the Almighty and All-Merciful God, One in Trinity, a new Epoch has begun in the life of the Sovereign, United, Independent Ukraine. The People's Assembly, which took place yesterday, confirmed and proclaimed that historical event. Informing you, Ukrainian People, of such an answering of our supplicatory prayers, I call upon you to express gratitude to the Most High, faithfulness to His Church, obedience to the Authorities... The Ukrainian People must in this historical moment show that it has sufficient sense of authority, solidarity, and vital strength to merit such a position among the peoples of Europe as would enable it to develop all the God-given powers... The victorious German Army we greet as liberator from the enemy. To the established authority we shall render due obedience. We recognize as Head of the Regional Government of the Western Provinces of Ukraine Mr. Yaroslav Stetsko... May God bless all your labors, Ukrainian People, and may He grant all our Leaders holy wisdom from heaven."

Bishop Polikarp of Lutsk, addressing "all Ukrainians dwelling in Volyn," wrote in an epistle dated July 10, 1941: "Beloved children! Great Divine mercy and justice have drawn near to us. For long years our long-suffering Ukrainian People endured insults and abuse against the holy Orthodox faith and against its national feelings, against its human dignity. In the state of the Bolshevik antichrist, terror and horror reached hitherto unheard-of dimensions, in comparison with which the persecutions of Christians in the times of the Roman emperors Nero and Diocletian pale... Behold, before our eyes, the justice of God has been fulfilled. Across our liberated Ukrainian land resounds a joyful clamor: the people from their aching souls send sincere prayer of thanksgiving to the Most High... Before

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us, in the brilliant rays of the rising sun, shines our great idea: One God, one nation, and a common better future. Our eternal dream has been fulfilled! In the city of Prince Lev, from the radio transmitter there resounds over our cities, fields, and meadows, over our land abundantly watered with blood, the joyful news: an Independent Ukrainian State has been proclaimed. Reborn in a free Ukrainian State, the Ukrainian free Orthodox Church will be with the people one inseparable whole... In this great time, all Ukrainians must unite, all must work together, for in unity is strength, and we must demonstrate that unity in deed... May the Merciful Lord help you, my People, and you, our Government, to build an Independent Ukrainian State, and my prayer for all of you before the Throne of the Most High will be forever"...

In Bishop Polikarp's Archpastoral letter, our attention is drawn to the fact that the Germans as liberators of the Ukrainian people and the German army as liberator of Ukraine are completely passed over in silence. Did not the late Bishop Metropolitan belong to those very few at that time who did not forget that the same Hitler had given Western Ukraine to the USSR, nor the theories of racism, National Socialism, Nietzsche's superman (Übermensch), Hitler's Mein Kampf, and therefore had no faith that Hitler would "build Ukraine"?

The Germans did not prohibit the solemn "Festivals of Statehood," observed the demonstrations, the parades, photographed them, and... were silent. The troops marched and marched eastward, and the population joyfully received them...

Then in the first days of September 1941, Erich Koch, appointed by Hitler as Reichskommissar of Ukraine, arrived in Rivne with his administrative apparatus. I happened to be part of the Ukrainian delegation that at the front doors of the building occupied for the Reichskommissar's office (the former "Realschule," and under Polish rule the office of the "Volyn School Curator") received Koch with his "entourage." And I still remember Koch's squinting gaze of contempt at the delegation as he listened to the brief welcome from the head of the delegation, to which he made no reply and "proceeded" into the building. Soon after, Gebietskommissars with their administrative apparatuses appeared in the districts and counties, and then General Commissars heading General Commissariats, into which Right-Bank Ukraine was divided (Eastern Galicia was attached to the General Government).

The German administration quickly laid its hand on the entire life of the Ukrainian territories liberated from Soviet rule. The "Festivals of Statehood" ceased, for they proved premature. Political life outwardly froze. Agricultural life, industry, cooperatives, trade, the postal service, communications, finances — all of this, which had begun to be organized through the self-activity of the Ukrainian regional, district, city, and county institutions and organizations, was seized by the German administration. Its task was to extract as much as possible from the occupied lands in various "contingent quotas," in the

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delivery of which, not trusting Ukrainian institutions, the Germans used the technical-executive apparatus of these institutions under the control and direction of their commissars, directors, Sonderführer, and the like, behind whom stood the gendarmerie, various divisions of police, and the Gestapo. The labor force, predominantly youth, from the Ukrainian lands began to be forcibly and en masse deported to Germany by the Germans.

It would seem that, extracting both physical labor and material resources from the Ukrainian people, the Germans would leave the cultural-spiritual life of that people in peace. But the German administration also began to lay its hand on this life. In education, this hand was devastating across all of Ukraine; during the 1941–1942 school year, secondary general-education schools were closed, followed by vocational ones. Higher schools could not function because the German authorities seized male and female students for deportation to Germany for labor. Finally, from September 1, 1942, only elementary public schools remained with a declared four-year course of instruction, for a slave destined to work for the higher race needed only this much education. Extracurricular cultural-educational life — cultural-educational organizations, libraries, theater, the press — was all under strict German control and censorship.

Obviously, the Church too was destined to become an object of the occupation authority's interference and German administration of it. But the Church's turn came last. For an entire year, the German administration almost did not interfere in church life, only to then, from the summer of 1942 onward, cause much harm in it through its interference and restrictions.

In the first months of the German-Soviet war, when the "Festivals of Ukrainian Statehood" were being held, the church-civic leadership in Western Volyn — the center of the Ukrainian church movement also under Poland — took the position that the legal-state act regarding the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was the Law on Autocephaly of the said Church, issued under the Directorate by the Government of the Ukrainian Republic on January 1, 1919. This conception of resolving the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was at that time closely tied to the faith that the rebirth of Ukrainian Statehood had arrived. For the state factor in establishing the autocephaly of national Orthodox churches always, as history testifies, played a primary role. Now, pending the convocation, on the basis of the Law of January 1, 1919, of an All-Ukrainian Church Sobor, it was considered necessary to create a Temporary Administration of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, independent of both the Moscow Patriarchate with its Exarch for all of Ukraine, Metropolitan Nikolai, and of the Warsaw Metropolia. The Temporary Administration, conducting the affairs of the Church, would prepare the convocation of an All-Ukrainian Church Sobor in Kyiv.

But these plans of the Ukrainian church-civic leadership soon proved unrealistic because their foundation — the faith in the onset of the rebirth of the Ukrainian State with the help

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of the German "liberators" — proved unrealistic: it became known that the Ukrainian Government headed by Mr. Yaroslav Stetsko, which had not even begun its work, no longer existed, and in its place, following the German army, came a German administration whose appearance and actions completely negated the Ukrainians' dreams of statehood. Having oriented themselves in this political situation, the Ukrainian church-civic leadership was compelled to rest at the present moment of the struggle for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on purely church-legal foundations. They therefore established contact with Warsaw Metropolitan Dionisiy as the Primate of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church on the northwestern Ukrainian lands before the Second World War. The behavior of the majority of Orthodox hierarchs in Volyn, who, having also seen that the Germans had no intention of "building Ukraine," led a hostile campaign against the Ukrainianization of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, most contributed to this.

This campaign was led by Archbishop Oleksiy — under Poland, of Volyn; under the Soviet occupation, of Ternopil and Kremenets; then of Rivne and Kremenets; and now once again of Volyn. From Archbishop Oleksiy, a Ukrainian by origin from Podlasie, who on the Volyn cathedra after Metropolitan Dionisiy (from April 15, 1934) had pursued a Ukrainian line, there was now expected, after what he himself described as his "Passion Week" in the Ternopil prison, firm and broad work in building Ukrainian national-church life. The senior hierarch in Volyn by consecration, with a higher theological education, with long pastoral experience (since 1908) and archpastoral experience (since 1922), Archbishop Oleksiy could unquestionably have led authoritatively, without any resistance from the vicar bishops, a national-Ukrainian course in church life, with the broad support of the entire active Ukrainian community.

These expectations were not fulfilled. Not long after Archbishop Oleksiy's return from prison did his cooperation with Ukrainian church leaders last, in which a plan was being outlined for the organization of governance of the Orthodox Church on the liberated Ukrainian lands without subordinating it to Moscow or Warsaw. "The circumstances have changed," as he now, already Metropolitan Oleksiy, wrote in a letter to Bishop Polikarp dated June 1, 1942; the change this time was chiefly that the prematurity of the Ukrainian "Festivals of Statehood" on the lands occupied by the German armies became ever clearer — with the Ukrainian dreams deceived by Hitler, one could no longer reckon.

Already on August 18, 1941, Archbishop Oleksiy, secretly from the Ukrainian community, convened a Sobor of Bishops at the Pochayiv Lavra, in which, under his chairmanship, the following participated: Archbishop Symon and Bishops Panteleimon Rudyk and Veniamin Novitsky. The chief matter of this "Regional Sobor of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine," as it styles itself in its "Acts," was to establish first of all the canonical position at the given time of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. In deciding this question, this "Ukrainian

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Sobor of Bishops" did not at all reflect on the fact that its flock was Ukrainian by nationality, nor did it mention anything about the fact that its flock in the Western provinces of Ukraine had been in the jurisdiction of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Poland, which membership had been abruptly interrupted in September 1939 by the occupation of these provinces by Soviet troops. Nor did the Sobor reflect on what had happened in the church life of Eastern Ukraine after the Bolsheviks seized power there in 1919. The thought of the Sobor, directed by Archbishop Oleksiy, immediately flew to the Moscow Sobor during the revolution of 1917, at which "the Orthodox Church in Ukraine was recognized as Autonomous."

Having recalled this resolution of the Moscow Sobor and linking to it the fact that "the Orthodox bishops of Western Ukraine in 1940 returned to the membership of the Moscow Patriarchate," the Sobor of Bishops at Pochayiv resolved: 1) Until a Local Sobor of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, composed of the hierarchy, clergy, and laity, to consider the Ukrainian Church and its hierarchy in canonical dependence on the Russian Church; 2) to restore to the Ukrainian Church the rights of autonomy and autonomous governance; 3) to confer upon the senior of the available hierarchs of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, Archbishop Oleksiy, in accordance with Apostolic Canon 34, the rights of Regional Metropolitan; 4) to consider the Exarchate in Western Ukraine as having ceased to exist, and the Exarch, Metropolitan Nikolai, who abandoned his Exarchate, the Volyn Diocese, and the Sacred Archimandriteship of the Pochayiv Lavra in a time of great danger, as having lost his authorization both for the Exarchate and for the Diocese and the Lavra. ("Act No. 4 of the Regional Sobor of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine at the Pochayiv Lavra, August 5/18, 1941.")

Having recognized themselves as canonically dependent on the Moscow Patriarch, these bishops had no right to abolish the Exarchate — which they had not established — or to dismiss the Exarch — whom they had not appointed. Moreover, this Exarch Nikolai, after leaving Lutsk, had been transferred by the Kiriarch of those bishops — the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergiy — to the vacant cathedra of Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia, with appointment also as Exarch of all Ukraine, by order of July 15, 1941. (Zhurnal Moskovskoy Patriarkhii, No. 1, 1962, p. 17.)

Thus the Sobor of Bishops at Pochayiv, in conferring the rights of Regional Metropolitan of Ukraine on Archbishop Oleksiy, entered into conflict with the Moscow Patriarchate authority that it itself recognized: in Ukraine there was already, a month earlier, an Exarch who enjoyed the rights of regional Metropolitan. It is unknown how the Sobor of Bishops under the leadership of Archbishop Oleksiy would have proceeded had it been aware of the order of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens of July 15, 1941, appointing Exarch Nikolai as Metropolitan of Kyiv. But the resolutions of the Sobor of Bishops at Pochayiv, being in disagreement (on points 3 and 4) with the decrees of the canonical authority recognized by these bishops, were at the same time the beginning of a schism in the Orthodox Church on the

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lands of Ukraine. Not to mention the fact that the bishop-participants of the Sobor at Pochayiv — and later the absent Archbishop Antoniy (Martsenko) and Bishop Damaskyn also joined them — resolved to consider the Ukrainian Church canonically subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate without asking the Church itself (neither the clergy nor the faithful), but even among the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Church itself, Archbishop Oleksandr of Polissia and Bishop Polikarp of Lutsk did not recognize this resolution.

Archbishop Oleksandr was not invited at all by Archbishop Oleksiy, who was junior in episcopal consecration, to the Sobor at Pochayiv, on the grounds that the Moscow Patriarchate had placed Archbishop Oleksandr on the retired list for his insubordination. Bishop Polikarp, not having attended the Sobor, sent in a letter dated August 3, 1941, his opinion regarding the question of the canonical position now, after liberation from Soviet authority, of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, laconically expressed in the words: "That which was forcibly imposed must be rejected." In other words: "The forcibly imposed jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate must be rejected, and the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church in the Western provinces of Ukraine must return to its Kiriarch, Metropolitan Dionisiy." This letter was read at the Sobor of Bishops, but the bishops, led by Archbishop Oleksiy, did not follow Bishop Polikarp's view.

Meanwhile, Metropolitan Dionisiy himself, when with the liberation of the territories of Western Ukraine from Soviet authority communications between Warsaw and those areas became possible, sent a letter dated August 11, 1941, to Archbishops Oleksandr and Oleksiy and Bishop Polikarp, by which official communications of the Primate with the parts of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in former Poland severed by the Soviet occupation were restored. In this letter, Metropolitan Dionisiy, having announced the early convocation of a Sobor of Bishops at Pochayiv, established on the liberated Ukrainian lands 4 dioceses: Polissia, headed by Archbishop Oleksandr; Kremenets, headed by Archbishop Oleksiy; Lutsk, headed by Bishop Polikarp; and Zhytomyr, which was to be organized. In the same decree, Bishop Polikarp was elevated to the rank of Archbishop with the title "of Lutsk and Kovel." The letter evidently reached Archbishop Oleksiy after the Sobor of Bishops of August 18, but that decree of the Metropolitan did not restrain the Archbishop in his "pro-Moscow" line of conduct: in a circular to the Volyn clergy dated September 18, 1941, No. 479, Archbishop Oleksiy reported on the resolutions of the Sobor of Bishops at Pochayiv and simultaneously spread the false information that Metropolitan Dionisiy had left the Metropolitan cathedra.

In a later letter (dated January 20, 1943), Metropolitan Dionisiy wrote about this conduct to Archbishop (by then Metropolitan) Oleksiy: "You have sinned very, very greatly. You took the wrong path from the very beginning. You renounced your lawful Kiriarch and began to build church life not on canonical foundations

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... And whatever you may write, whatever you may say in your own justification, in whatever light you may present what has happened — one thing remains clear: You departed from your Kiriarch without having from him not only any permission for this, but even contrary to his clearly expressed will. This apostasy of yours became the cause of misfortunes, being the first impulse for the fall of discipline and the beginning of disorder in the church life of Ukraine"... In another letter (dated September 28, 1941), Metropolitan Dionisiy pointed out to Archbishop Oleksiy the striking contradiction with himself, when under Poland he, in the pamphlet The Uninvited Intercessors, or About the Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland (1929) and in the monograph Toward a History of the Orthodox Church in Poland over the Decade of the Leadership of His Beatitude Metropolitan Dionisiy (1935), affirmed, following "the Hierarchical Synod of the Russian Church Abroad," the uncanonicity of the authority of Metropolitan Sergiy — and now, knowing the history and the state of the matter, "dares to assert that he is in canonical connection with the Moscow Church."

How then did Archbishop Oleksiy justify his renunciation of Metropolitan Dionisiy as the Kiriarch of him and the other bishops in the Western Ukrainian provinces of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland, and how did he explain the striking contradiction in his canonical views? In a letter to Archbishop Polikarp (dated June 1, 1942), Archbishop Oleksiy wrote: "I have not changed, but the circumstances have changed, which require different paths for the good of our Church... If the Warsaw autocephaly existed, I would also, as before, uphold its independence from Moscow. You think in vain that we are not now deprived of that autocephaly which existed in Poland... The Warsaw Autocephaly, with the fall of Poland, ceased to exist, and you should not cling to it, lest you thereby harm the Ukrainian Church"...

The starting point in justifying the departure from the Kiriarch for Archbishop Oleksiy is the fact of the fall of the Polish state, with which the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church within it also fell. Canon 17 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council and Canon 38 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council speak of changes in the church order in dependence on political changes, but Orthodox canon law has never and nowhere taught that each and every change in political, state life (especially during an unfinished war) immediately, automatically or mechanically, brings about a change in the fate of the Church in the country and its governance. And therefore Metropolitan Dionisiy quite rightly pointed out that "there was no church-canonical act by the force of which a part of our Holy Autocephalous Orthodox Church (in former Poland) would have had to be joined to another church organism or another church jurisdiction." (Letter to Archbishop Polikarp dated November 13, 1941.)

As we have already written above (subsection 2), the subordination to Moscow in 1940 of parts of the Orthodox Church in former Poland occurred by coercion, and not by any legal canonical act. True, in the "Open

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Letter to Archbishop Polikarp" dated June 1, 1942, Metropolitan Oleksiy wrote: "We all voluntarily subordinated ourselves to the Moscow Patriarchate, sent our declarations there, commemorated Metropolitan Sergiy at divine services, and carried out the decrees of the Patriarchate without question"... On behalf of the entire episcopate of the Orthodox Church of Western Ukraine, Metropolitan Oleksiy spoke an untruth, for neither Archbishop Oleksandr nor Bishop Polikarp sent declarations to the Patriarchate or traveled there when summoned. And as for the voluntariness, if it was indeed present in Archbishop Oleksiy's own case, then it means he sincerely wrote in his declaration about the coercion of the Polish government in the matter of implementing the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland. And then — how could he canonically defend such a forcibly implemented autocephaly and reject the pretensions of the Moscow Patriarchate in the above-named works of his from the Polish period? Then his words (cited above) would also be deceitful — that he "would have upheld, as before, the Warsaw autocephaly (that was imposed) and its independence from Moscow, if that Autocephaly existed"...

The inconsistency of Archbishop Oleksiy's canonical argumentation lay also in the fact that he considered the change of church jurisdiction — that is, the defection from Metropolitan Dionisiy and the subordination to the Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergiy — justified by the fall of Polish authority and the arrival of the political authority of the USSR on the territory of Western Ukraine. But when this latter authority ceased to exist on this territory with the German occupation of it in the summer of 1941, on what basis was the Moscow church authority to remain? Would it not have been consistent for Archbishop Oleksiy to consider that with the arrival on the Ukrainian lands of the German political authority, the church jurisdiction of Metropolitan Dionisiy, who headed the Autocephalous Orthodox Church on territories under that same German political authority, should also have returned?

And indeed, in Metropolitan Dionisiy's "Memorandum" of July 15, 1942, to the German civil authorities on "the matter of the organization of the Orthodox Church on the eastern lands occupied by the German army," in which the Metropolitan protested against the restriction of his church-canonical activities to the borders of the General Government — there was a reasonable plan for the governance of the Orthodox Church on those lands during the transitional period of life upon them. At the basis of this plan were the following historical and canonical considerations. The sole Autocephalous Orthodox Church on the liberated Ukrainian, Belarusian, and partly Lithuanian lands was the Orthodox Church in former Poland, whose autocephaly was affirmed by the Tomos of the Patriarch of Constantinople of November 13, 1924, and recognized by the Heads of the Eastern Autocephalous Churches (except only Moscow). Historically, this Church was the successor of the former Kyiv Metropolia in its canonical role before 1686, when it was subordinated to Moscow. Therefore, to this Church should now church-legally belong the Orthodox dioceses on the said lands until life upon them stabilized, for it was impossible to establish church autocephalies during military operations.

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This would be a transitional stage, but through the head of this Church, its Primate Metropolitan Dionisiy, the canonical connection of the dioceses with all the Eastern Patriarchs and other heads of Autocephalous Churches in the southeast would be preserved. In view, moreover, of the strengthening at this moment of national aspirations also in church life on the lands liberated from Bolshevism, the Metropolitan proposed in the "Memorandum" to place at the head of church governance on those lands "Sobors of Bishops" — Ukrainian in Ukraine, Belarusian in Belarus, and possibly Lithuanian in Lithuania; all these bishops would at that time be under the canonical jurisdiction of Metropolitan Dionisiy.

But the German occupation authorities did not accept this plan of church governance by Metropolitan Dionisiy, thereby contributing to a shameful role as an accessory in the emergence and deepening of the schism in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Immediately after the liberation of Western Volyn from Soviet rule, Metropolitan Dionisiy wanted "to enter into direct communion with the hierarchy, clergy, and people there, drafted a special appeal to the flock," and was to arrive at the Pochayiv Lavra so that on the day of the annual great feast of the Venerable Iov (September 10, 1941), to which thousands of pilgrims came, he could lead this church celebration. The German authorities did not give the Metropolitan permission for this journey. The Metropolitan wanted to convene a Sobor of Bishops of the Eastern lands, summoning them to Warsaw. The German authorities did not permit it. Archbishop Oleksandr from Pinsk and Polikarp from Lutsk wanted to travel to Metropolitan Dionisiy in Warsaw for a consultation on church affairs; the Germans did not let the Orthodox hierarchs through.

There is no doubt that if the helm of governing the Orthodox Church on the liberated Ukrainian lands, with the consent of the military or civil authorities, had been taken into his hands by the Primate, Metropolitan Dionisiy, no schism in the Orthodox Church in Ukraine would have occurred: neither Archbishop Oleksiy, and even less so his vicar bishops, despite their Russophilism, would have said a word either about the "canonicity" of the Moscow church jurisdiction imposed on them or about "autonomy" for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The resolutions of the Sobor of Bishops at Pochayiv on August 18, 1941, chiefly concerning the continued membership, with the retreat of the Soviet army and authority, of the Orthodox Church on the Ukrainian lands in the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, marked the beginning of a schism in that Church. For, firstly, the Polissia Diocese headed by Archbishop Oleksandr, as soon as the Soviet authority vanished from Polissia, returned to the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Dionisiy, and in that diocese the commemoration of Metropolitan Dionisiy at divine services began. In the Volyn Diocese the matter was more complicated, inasmuch as Archbishop Oleksiy wanted to be its diocesan hierarch; he had been the Volyn Archbishop before the Second World War under Poland; during the Soviet

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occupation he became, as we have seen, of Ternopil and Kremenets, then of Rivne and Kremenets, and now, without returning to the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Dionisiy, he would nevertheless govern, as had been the case under that jurisdiction, the Volyn Diocese. Only the Ukrainian intelligentsia and its church-civic leaders resolutely opposed these designs, in view of the resolutions of the Sobor of Bishops at Pochayiv, which were received with indignation. The entire Ukrainian press in Volyn called upon parishes not to submit to those resolutions, so harmful to Ukrainian national interests.

The decree of Metropolitan Dionisiy of August 11, 1941 (presented above) came entirely to the aid of this protest campaign; the Lutsk-Kovel Diocese, separated in Volyn, was entirely canonically headed, in accordance with this decree, by the former vicar, now Archbishop, Polikarp, under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Dionisiy. But at the basis of the church schism over belonging to different jurisdictions — Metropolitan Dionisiy or Metropolitan Sergiy of Moscow — lay the national factor. Therefore, already at this time (autumn 1941), disorder arose in Volyn from the standpoint of canonical rules: there were no boundaries between the Lutsk-Kovel and Rivne-Kremenets dioceses carved from the former Volyn Diocese, for Archbishop Oleksiy did not recognize Metropolitan Dionisiy's decree about this division. With him, the Russophile priests from the Lutsk-Kovel Diocese likewise did not recognize the division and submitted with their parishes to Archbishop Oleksiy; on the other hand, Ukrainian priests and, even more so, nationally conscious Ukrainian parishes from the Rivne-Kremenets Diocese, especially from the Rivne region, crossed over to the jurisdiction of Bishop Polikarp of Lutsk. In parishes under the governance of Archbishop Oleksiy, only he was commemorated in the churches, while the Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergiy was commemorated at divine services only by Archbishop Oleksiy himself; thus the Moscow church jurisdiction was concealed from the people. In parishes under the governance of Archbishop Polikarp, besides him, Metropolitan Dionisiy was also commemorated, as was the case in Polissia.

But as further liberation of Ukrainian territories from the godless Soviet authority, on which territories church life was beginning to be revived, the "autonomist" bishops also carried the idea of subordinating Ukrainian church life to the Moscow Patriarchate, just as covertly as with the commemoration of Metropolitan Sergiy in Volyn.

In the second half of November 1941, Archbishop Oleksiy decided to visit Kyiv, where, as was evident from an article in the Kyiv newspaper Ukrainske Slovo (of October 9, 1941, No. 25, under the headline "The Church Question in Ukraine"), the believing community was oriented toward Archbishop Oleksiy. Via Berdychiv, where he celebrated a hierarchical Divine Liturgy in the presence of some 150 persons (from Archbishop Oleksiy's own account), he arrived in Kyiv, where his reception was not at all solemn, for, as Metropolitan Nikanor writes to us (letter of July 25, 1956), "his (Archbishop Oleksiy's) orientation regarding the subordination of the Ukrainian Church to Moscow became apparent." Archbishop Oleksiy did not celebrate

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any divine services there either; instead, as he himself recounted, he had to visit the offices of the German Gestapo and soon leave Kyiv. Under the impression of the Kyiv reception, Archbishop Oleksiy went directly from Kyiv, without returning to Kremenets, via Zhytomyr and Rivne, where he obtained a pass from the Germans, to Kholm, to Archbishop Ilarion (Ohiienko) of Kholm-Podlasie.

Archbishop Oleksiy was in Kholm at the beginning of December 1941; with him came from Rivne also the lawyer I. F. Kornoukhov, Chairman of the Volyn Church Rada. After conversations with Bishop Oleksiy, Archbishop Ilarion invited for tea the lawyer I. Kornoukhov, Dr. St. Baran, Judge V. S. Soloviy (now Bishop Varlaam of the UAOC), and Dr. T. Olesiuk (a relative of Bishop Oleksiy). At this tea, "Bishop Oleksiy rose and delivered a toast to the host, adding that 'the future of the Ukrainian Church, following this meeting and hospitality, will be in certain and experienced hands.' All (present) took this statement as a declaration of complete agreement between the bishops. Before our departure from the bishop's residence, Dr. Olesiuk and I had a conversation with Bishop Oleksiy in a separate room. We urged Archbishop Oleksiy to travel to Metropolitan Dionisiy, but he replied that this was contrary to the wishes of Bishop Ilarion and their agreement. The bishop asked our opinion on what title to give Ilarion upon his election to the Kyiv cathedra. We emphatically spoke against the metropolitan title, considering it premature until a Sobor of the Ukrainian Church"... (From a letter of recollections by Bishop Varlaam to the author of this work, dated October 27, 1960.)

At the time when Archbishop Oleksiy was conducting negotiations in Kholm with Archbishop Ilarion about the latter's assumption of the Kyiv cathedra, Bishop Panteleimon of Lviv had already arrived in Kyiv, evidently with instructions from Archbishop Oleksiy; representatives of the clergy and laity solemnly received him in the building of the Kyiv Church Council; Bishop Panteleimon was to be for the time being the Administrator of the Kyiv Diocese, and in that capacity to seize the Kyiv holy places and the organization of church life in Kyiv. Archbishop Oleksiy returned from Kholm to Kremenets; the lawyer I. Kornoukhov also came with him. The Volyn Church Rada assembled. Ivan Kornoukhov made a report to the effect that, thank God, everything had been arranged: Archbishop Oleksiy had taken his stand on Ukrainian ground, had reached agreement with Archbishop Ilarion, and everything would go well... Archbishop Oleksiy even announced, as he stated to a delegation that came to him, that he intended to retire, to have a "small cell" somewhere in a monastery and devote himself there to theological scholarly work.

The assurances from Archbishop Oleksiy that, with the appointment of Archbishop Ilarion Ohiienko to the Kyiv episcopal cathedra, the building of church life in Ukraine would be entirely imbued with a Ukrainian character had a calming effect on the Ukrainian community. But suddenly the community learned that during these assurances, Archbishop Oleksiy had consecrated at Pochayiv as bishop Archimandrite Ioann Lavrynenko, a notorious Ukrainophobe, and moreover with the title "of Kovel" — a title already held by Archbishop

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Polikarp "of Lutsk and Kovel" in his diocese. Furthermore, news emerged of a Sobor of Bishops at Pochayiv under the chairmanship of Archbishop Oleksiy, whose resolutions were far from testifying to a "new line of conduct" by Archbishop Oleksiy.

The "calling" of Archbishop Ilarion of Kholm and Podlasie to the Kyiv cathedra was recorded by the Sobor in the following resolution:

"Act No. 34 of the Regional Sobor of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine at the Pochayiv Holy Dormition Lavra, dated December 8/November 25, 1941. Heard: The report of the Most Reverend Chairman of the Sobor about his stay in Kyiv and the impressions he brought back. Church life in the capital of Ukraine is slowly being established, but it is noticeable that the self-consecrated [followers of the 1921 UAOC hierarchy] are gaining the upper hand in that life. They have taken seats in the Church Council, they have seized the St. Andrew's Cathedral, and are preparing to seize, at a favorable opportunity, the other historical holy places of the city of Kyiv. From conversations with representatives of the municipal Ukrainian authorities, as well as with the self-consecrated, it became clear that the Authorities do not want a church split (schism), and the self-consecrated themselves would agree to a settlement if there now appeared on the Kyiv cathedra a bishop permeated with national feelings to the highest degree and known for his long years of work for the benefit of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as well as bearing the name of a scholar known to all Ukraine. The Most Reverend Chairman of the Sobor of Bishops considers the most suitable person for this role to be the Most Reverend Ilarion, Archbishop of Kholm and Podlasie, who should be immediately invited to the Kyiv cathedra. After a lengthy exchange of views, attention was drawn to the fact that this cathedra is a metropolitan one, but inasmuch as in the August deliberations of the Sobor of Bishops it was clarified that the Metropolitan of Kyiv and of all Ukraine would be elected by a Local Sobor composed of bishops, clergy, and laity of Ukraine, and also taking into consideration that the position of Metropolitan of all Ukraine has great political significance, so that the election of the Highest Dignitary of the Orthodox Church cannot take place without the participation of the state authority — until the appropriate time, the Kyiv Diocesan Hierarch would bear the title of Archbishop of Kyiv and Pereiaslav and would be until the Local Sobor a full member of the Sobor of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, and in due course also the Deputy Chairman of the Sobor of Bishops. Inasmuch as furthermore the Most Reverend Archbishop Ilarion is presently under the jurisdiction of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government (former Poland), it is obvious that his calling to Kyiv could take place only with the consent of the Head of that Church. In the event of consent to the calling of Archbishop Ilarion, both from his side and from the side of His Beatitude Metropolitan Dionisiy, the Right Reverend Panteleimon, presently in Kyiv, could be appointed to the vacant cathedra of the Poltava diocesan hierarch, with the title of Bishop of Poltava and Lubny.

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Resolved: 1) To recognize the Most Reverend Archbishop Ilarion Ohiienko as a worthy candidate for the vacant cathedra of Archbishop of Kyiv and Pereiaslav; 2) To commission the Most Reverend Chairman of the Sobor to call the Most Reverend Ilarion to this cathedra, as well as to request from His Beatitude Metropolitan Dionisiy the blessing and permission for the Most Reverend Ilarion to assume the Kyiv cathedra; 3) In the event of the consent of Bishop Ilarion and permission from the Head of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government, to consider the Right Reverend Panteleimon of Lviv as appointed to the Poltava Episcopal Cathedra with the title of Bishop of Poltava and Lubny." Signed: Archbishop Oleksiy, Members of the Sobor — Bishop Damaskyn, Bishop Panteleimon, Bishop Leontiy, Bishop Ioann, Secretary Bishop Veniamin. (The underlinings in this "Act," in the copy received by me from the late Metropolitan Oleksiy, are all mine.)

In the Jubilee Book in Honor of Metropolitan Ilarion (Winnipeg. 1958), in the article by Eng. A. Nesterenko, "The Election of Bishop Ilarion to the Kyiv Cathedra" (pp. 201–210), this resolution of the Sobor of Bishops under the leadership of Archbishop Oleksiy about the calling of Archbishop Ilarion to the Kyiv episcopal cathedra is not given textually. There we read: "In Volyn, Archbishop Oleksiy convened a Sobor of Bishops of the Ukrainian (?) Orthodox Church in the city of Pochayiv on November 25 (old style) 1941. This Sobor, at which there were 8 bishops (6, not 8), took into consideration the general desire of the population of Ukraine and unanimously elected Bishop Ilarion of Kholm as Archbishop of Kyiv and Pereiaslav — with the proviso that when he arrives at his See in Kyiv, he will immediately also be proclaimed Metropolitan of Kyiv and of all Ukraine." (p. 205). The last underlined words of the author are pure fantasy, for which there is no basis whatsoever in the conciliar resolution cited above, which states that the Metropolitan of Kyiv and of all Ukraine would be elected by a Local Sobor and moreover with the participation of the future Ukrainian state authority. Nothing in the conciliar resolution is said about a "general desire of the population of Ukraine" either: Bishop Oleksiy, it says there, spoke in Kyiv with representatives of the municipal Ukrainian authority (the magistrate of the city of Kyiv) and of the "self-consecrated," as the Sobor of Bishops of the "Ukrainian" Orthodox Church calls the adherents of the UAOC hierarchy of 1921. On the other hand, entirely passed over in silence in that article of the Jubilee Book is the indisputable fact that Bishop Ilarion was elected to the Kyiv Diocesan Cathedra by bishops who voluntarily remained in the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, being hostile to the Ukrainian church idea. A more detailed and documented account of all those "fantasies" — now no longer relevant for Ukrainian church life — which, however, to the detriment of the history of our Church, were repeated in 1958 by Eng. A. Nesterenko in the Jubilee Book, was provided by the author of this work in the article "How It Was with the Election to the Kyiv Cathedra of Archbishop Ilarion (Ohiienko) in

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of 1941" (Tserkva i Narid [The Church and the Nation], April–May 1949, pp. 17–32). In a letter dated December 26, 1941, No. 5112, Bishop Ilarion thanked Archbishop Oleksiy and the entire Sobor of Bishops for the great honor they had bestowed upon him by electing him Archbishop to the "Throne of the Kyiv Cathedra," and wrote that he was eager to join them and would come as soon as he received a travel permit. Given the enormous communication difficulties of the time, Archbishop Ilarion, when writing this letter to Archbishop Oleksiy, did not know that during the 18 days since his election by the autonomist bishops to the Kyiv Hierarchical Cathedra, the further maneuvers of the church policy of Archbishop Oleksiy and his vicar bishops-autonomists had created a situation in which, for the nationally conscious Ukrainian public in Volyn, the matter of Archbishop Ilarion's election for an active role in Ukraine's church life had entirely receded into the background.

Already on the very next day after the resolution concerning the Kyiv cathedra for Archbishop Ilarion, on December 9, 1941, the same sobor of autonomist bishops in Pochayiv proclaimed Archbishop Oleksiy as Metropolitan of Volyn and Zhytomyr and Exarch of All Ukraine. Instead of retiring to some monastery for quiet scholarly-theological work, Archbishop Oleksiy, who had earlier (August 18, 1941) been granted at the Sobor the rights of a regional metropolitan, now received the rank of metropolitan and the full authority of Exarch of All Ukraine (under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate). To this act of the Sobor were added further appointments to diocesan bishoprics: in addition to Bishop Panteleimon to the Poltava diocese — Bishop Symon as Bishop of Chernihiv, and Bishop Damaskin as Bishop of Podillia.

The striking facts of Archbishop Oleksiy's insincerity in his negotiations with representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox public reached their culmination in these acts of the "new Ukrainian course" of Metropolitan-Exarch Oleksiy. Equally clear became the great danger to Ukrainian interests posed by the church diversion of the autonomist bishops in Eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian church-civic leadership in Volyn could not underestimate this danger. From Kremenets, a delegation was immediately dispatched to Lutsk, composed of Archpriest Mykola Maliuzhynskyi, former Sejm Deputy B. M. Kozubsky, and the author of this work. There, a meeting took place with Bishop Polikarp and the Archiepiscopal Rada under him. It took much effort to persuade Archbishop Polikarp to agree to assume the position of Administrator of the Orthodox Church in the liberated Ukrainian lands, an appointment for which the Council decided to petition Metropolitan Dionisiy, the Kiriarch of Bishop Polikarp. Archbishop Polikarp conditioned his consent on the fullest support from the Ukrainian public in this difficult and responsible position.

After this, in the city of Rivne on December 13, 1941, a meeting of representatives of church radas of Volyn took place, at which the representatives resolved: "To decisively oppose the uncanonical and extremely harmful to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church activities of Archbishop Oleksiy of Kremenets

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and the bishops surrounding him, and to appeal to Metropolitan Dionisiy with an explanation of the entire matter and the grave state of church life, requesting His Beatitude to appoint as Administrator of the Orthodox Church in the liberated lands of Ukraine the sole bishop-Ukrainian on this side of the Bug River — Polikarp, Archbishop of Lutsk and Kovel."

At this same meeting in Rivne, it was also resolved "to establish fraternal contact with the church radas of the Ukrainian eastern lands, first and foremost with the VPCR in Kyiv." On December 15, 1941, a letter was sent to it, signed by the Authorized Representatives of the Church Radas of Volyn — I. Kornoukhov, I. Wlasowsky, and B. Kozubsky — in which the current situation of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine was explained, the decision regarding the appointment of Bishop Polikarp as Administrator was communicated, and a request was made "to support this position of Volyn, not to accept bishops — emissaries of Bishop Oleksiy, giving them a proper dismissal, and to await Archbishop Polikarp and the consecrated bishops, Ukrainian patriots, candidates of the public."

The Memorandum to His Beatitude Metropolitan Dionisiy from the Church Radas of Volyn, requesting the appointment of Archbishop Polikarp of Lutsk as Administrator of the Orthodox Church in the liberated Ukrainian lands, was delivered to Bishop Dionisiy in Warsaw by the former Minister of the UNR, Yevhen Arkhypenko. Metropolitan Dionisiy fully shared the views of the clergy and laity united in the Church Radas of Volyn, and by Decree of December 24, 1941, appointed Archbishop Polikarp of Lutsk as "Temporary Administrator of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in the Liberated Lands of Ukraine," with the Decree further stating that this appointment was made "at the request of the Ukrainian community organized into Church Radas in Volyn, which well understands the Truth of God."

Upon receiving the Decree of December 24, 1941, Bishop Polikarp commenced his work of organizing Ukrainian Orthodox church life in the liberated Ukrainian territories, since until that time he could direct this life only within his own Lutsk-Kovel diocese.

On January 24, 1942, Archbishop Polikarp formalized his new position before the civil authorities in the region when he was received at the Reichscommissariat in Rivne by Koch's deputy, Landeshauptmann von Wedelstädt. At this audience, Archbishop Polikarp emphasized that his appointment as Administrator came from the Head of the Orthodox ecclesiastical authority in these lands, Metropolitan Dionisiy. A month later, on February 25, 1942, Metropolitan Oleksiy, as the head of the Autonomous Church in Ukraine under the supremacy of the Moscow Patriarch, also had an audience with the same von Wedelstädt. Taking note of the hierarchs' declarations, von Wedelstädt assured them that the German authorities recognized in principle the full freedom of the Church.

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The episode of calling Archbishop Ilarion to the Kyiv cathedra by the Sobor of autonomist bishops — aimed at breaking the unity of the Ukrainian front against them — ended in Volyn with the proclamation of Bishop Polikarp's Administration over the liberated Ukrainian lands. But in Kyiv and the eastern lands of Ukraine, even in January–February 1942, "there appeared, as Metropolitan Nikanor testifies (letter to the author of this work dated July 23, 1956), special emissaries distributing among the parishes subordinated to the VPCR (organized in Kyiv on October 19, 1941) thousands of printed 'Petitions' for bringing His Eminence Ilarion to Kyiv."

In these printed "Petitions" (To the Church Rada of the residents of the village of...) we read: "Thanks to the knightly victory of the German Army, the political Muscovite shackles have fallen, but the ecclesiastical-religious bonds still remain, because the Muscovite hierarchy, or those sympathizing with Moscow, still to this day governs our Ukrainian ecclesiastical-religious life to the great detriment of the Ukrainian people. The ecclesiastical-religious life in Ukraine now requires the speediest possible ordering, and such ordering can be carried out only by a person who possesses great authority among the Ukrainian people and who thoroughly, both academically and practically, knows all the needs of the independent Ukrainian Church. Such a person is the scholar-patriot, Ukrainian, known to the entire Ukrainian people, Archbishop of Kholm and Pidliashshia Ilarion (Ohiienko)"... Calling upon the Church Rada "to take all measures so that Archbishop Ilarion be immediately called as the leader of the Church in Ukraine," the residents of the village (such-and-such) further inform that they "have heard alarming rumors that certain Muscovite groups, and following them some Ukrainians from whose eyes the Muscovite scales have not yet fallen, are taking measures to call as the leader of the Church in Ukraine the well-known Moscophile Metropolitan of Warsaw Dionisiy, or his servitor Archbishop Paladiy... We earnestly implore your efforts so that such disgrace for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine does not come to pass."

"However, as Bishop Nikanor further testifies, those 'Petitions' were directed by the parishes 'for information' to the Church Council unsigned, with the inquiry of what to do with them. Inasmuch as the candidacy of His Eminence Bishop Ilarion was in substance entirely suitable, to that extent the fact aroused suspicion that those 'petitions' were distributed by the Muscovite group of Metropolitan Oleksiy and by certain persons hitherto unknown to anyone. The Ukrainian Church Council was at first inclined to treat the candidacy of His Eminence Bishop Ilarion seriously, and in this spirit the UChRada composed a letter to the Blessed Metropolitan Dionisiy dated January 22, 1942, No. 126. The letter was signed by the Council Chairman P. Rudenko, members of the Presidium R. Melnychenko, F. Koval, and member-secretary V. Marchenko, but was not sent to the Metropolitan and remained in the archive, because events occurred that rendered it irrelevant. Namely: at the insistence of the group of Bishop Panteleimon, on November 12, 1942, the VPCR was dissolved by the occupation

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authorities ('for spreading atheism and disrespecting Orthodox Bishop Panteleimon,' as stated in the notification); its property and premises were confiscated... The closing of the Church Rada was also hastened by the fact that it had sent a delegation (P. Rudenko and the deputy chairman, Archpriest P. Kasianchuk) to Volyn to Archbishop Polikarp, in order to obtain a bishop for the liberated territory of Ukraine" (Ibid.).

A very important, historic act by Metropolitan Dionisiy Valedynsky was his blessing — simultaneously with the appointment of Archbishop Polikarp as Administrator of the Orthodox Church in the liberated Ukrainian lands — for the consecration of bishops for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which he granted to Bishops Oleksandr of Polissia and Polikarp of Lutsk. In early February 1942, Archbishop Polikarp traveled to Pinsk, the cathedral city of Bishop Oleksandr, picking up along the way in Kovel the candidates for the episcopate — Volynn archpriests Nikanor Abramovych and Ivan Huba. In Pinsk, on February 8–10, 1942, episcopal consecrations took place. On February 8, Archimandrite Yurii (Korenastov) was consecrated Bishop of Brest — vicar of Bishop Oleksandr of Polissia; on February 9 — Archimandrite Nikanor, who in monasticism retained the name Nikanor, as Bishop of Chyhyryn (Kyiv region); and on February 10 — Archimandrite Ihor (the monastic name of Archpriest Ivan Huba) — as Bishop of Uman (Kyiv region). The latter two Ukrainian bishops, by resolution of this Sobor of Bishops in Pinsk, were appointed temporary vicars of Bishop-Administrator Polikarp with residence in Kyiv.

Considering the great tragedy during the era of national revival of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 1917–21, when the Russian episcopate made it impossible to organize a Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchy on operative canonical grounds and led to the consecration at the Kyiv Sobor of 1921 of the first bishop, Archpriest Vasyl Lypkivsky, by the hands of presbyters according to the ancient, pre-Ecumenical Councils custom that had not been sustained in the Alexandrian Church — considering this, one can understand the great joy of the Ukrainian Orthodox public at the news of the historic event of the consecration of Ukrainian bishops in Pinsk by bishops of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church headed by Metropolitan Dionisiy. Archbishop Oleksandr had been consecrated on June 4, 1922, by Metropolitan Yurii and Archbishop Dionisiy; Archbishop Polikarp had been consecrated on April 10, 1932, by Metropolitan Dionisiy, Archbishops Feodosiy and Oleksiy, and Bishops Symon and Sava. Thus, no soundly thinking canonical mind could accuse the Ukrainian hierarchs now consecrated by the hands of Archbishops Oleksandr and Polikarp of being "uncanonical" or "graceless" — only someone of ill will and fanatical hostility toward the Ukrainian people and their Orthodox Church, for reasons predominantly political in character.

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For this reason, the Ukrainian Orthodox public was deeply grateful to Metropolitan Dionisiy and Archbishop Oleksandr, Russians by origin and upbringing, who did not follow the example of the late Metropolitan Mykhail Yermakov, of sorrowful memory, and other Russian bishops, but became Benefactors of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church through their Christian understanding of the needs and hopes of the Ukrainian faithful people.

4. Arrival of Bishops Nikanor and Ihor in Kyiv; joyful reception by the Ukrainian public. Consecration of Ukrainian priests. Beginning of the struggle between the Autonomous and Autocephalous Churches in the eastern oblasts of Ukraine. German administration in Kyiv on the side of the autonomists. Conference on matters of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, May 4, 1942, at the central office of the Reichscommissariat in the city of Rivne in Volyn. Consecration of Ukrainian bishops in Kyiv by the Sobor of Bishops, May 10–17, 1942. Resolutions of this Sobor. Intensification of the struggle between the Autocephalous and Autonomous Churches in Ukraine.

The communication difficulties for the population during those times of the German-Muscovite war were the reason that Bishops Nikanor and Ihor could reach Kyiv only a month after their consecration as bishops in Pinsk. On March 13, 1942, Ukrainian Kyiv joyfully welcomed the long-awaited Ukrainian Orthodox bishops.

On March 15, both hierarchs, concelebrating with the clergy, served the Divine Liturgy in St. Andrew's Cathedral, which could not contain all the faithful who had long yearned to hear a hierarchical Divine Liturgy in their native language. Following this prayerful communion, the Ukrainian church community of Kyiv formally recognized the arriving bishops as their hierarchy, forming part of the Sobor of Bishops of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church headed by Archbishop Oleksandr of Polissia, with the Administrator of the Church in the liberated Ukrainian lands, Archbishop Polikarp. Externally, this recognition was formalized in the act of March 19, 1942, according to which representatives of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, recognized as such after the dissolution on February 11, 1942 of the VPCR by the German authorities — archpriests of Kyiv Yurii Peleshchuk, Mykola Sarancha, and Fedot Shpachenko — transferred the representation and authority in said Church, on the basis of the faithful's desire, to the Representative of Administrator Bishop Polikarp, Bishop Nikanor of Chyhyryn. At its foundation, this act of March 19, 1942 was based on Resolution No. 9 of the Sobor of Bishops in Pinsk of February 10, 1942, regarding the acceptance into its jurisdiction of the clergy and faithful of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church that had been headed since 1921 by Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky. (Archpriest A. Dubliansky, Ternystym shliakhom. Zhyttia mytropolyta Nikanora Abramovycha [By a Thorny Path: The Life of Metropolitan Nikanor Abramovych]. London, 1962, pp. 32–33).

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News of the arrival in Kyiv of the newly consecrated Ukrainian bishops spread widely across the Kyiv and other oblasts of Ukraine. As Bishop Nikanor writes to the author of this work (in a letter dated August 6, 1956): "Upon the bishops' arrival in Kyiv, the doors of the hierarchical residence never closed due to the unceasing delegations from parishes that had stubbornly waited for the arrival of Ukrainian bishops who would consecrate Ukrainian priests for them. Everything demanded priests immediately and refused to return home without a priest. 'Our children are unbaptized, marriages unblessed, parents unburied; we have not been to holy confession in 20 years. Pascha is approaching — shall the people again eat unblessed food?' So complained the delegates. And before the bishops in full height stood the problem of providing the people as quickly as possible with the spiritual comfort of which they had been deprived for several decades...

Already at the Sobor of Bishops in Pinsk, when the consecration of bishops took place (February 9–10, 1942), difficulties with the ordination of clergy in Eastern Ukraine during the restoration of church life — destroyed by the godless regime along with the annihilation by it of thousands of clergy — had been anticipated. There were to be many candidates for ordination, and in the usual course of the church year, the season of Great Lent was about to begin, during which according to church ustav the Divine Liturgy cannot be served every day, and it is during the Liturgy that ordinations of clergy are completed. At that time, at the Sobor, Bishop Yurii Korenastov of Brest, Russian by origin (now Archbishop, Deputy of the Metropolitan of Warsaw and All Poland), reminded the Sobor that in the ancient Ukrainian Orthodox Church there was the practice of ordaining at a single liturgy not just one deacon and one priest, but several candidates to the diaconate or priesthood; this custom had been condemned at the Moscow Sobor of 1666–1667, but 'since the Ukrainian Church has embarked on the path of independence from the Muscovite Church, are the bishops of that Ukrainian Church now obligated to observe the decisions of Moscow Sobors?' And the Sobor in Pinsk resolved that 'in cases of urgent need, the old practice of the Ukrainian Church of ordaining several candidates at a single liturgy may be restored.' This practice was indeed restored during Great Lent of 1942 in Kyiv by the Ukrainian bishops, in order to provide the Church with the urgently needed pastors during the restoration of church life destroyed by the Bolsheviks.

"I have certain information," wrote Metropolitan Oleksiy in a letter dated June 1, 1942, to Archbishop Polikarp, "that your 'vicars' are already ordaining presbyters and deacons in the Roman Catholic manner — several at a time... This is a departure from Holy Orthodoxy... The Sobor (of Moscow in 1667) called this practice 'lawlessness,' and you have permitted this lawlessness and thereby have ceased to be Orthodox"... Metropolitan Oleksiy made such fearsome assertions in an "open letter" to Archbishop Polikarp without verifying them either canonically or historically. The Moscow Sobor of 1667 interfered in this case in the life of a Church not subject to it

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(the Kyivan Metropolitanate was subordinated to the Moscow Patriarch only in 1686), and therefore the Ukrainian Church continued to maintain, when necessary, the "lawless" practice of ordination even after the resolution of that Sobor of 1667; moreover, the ordination of several candidates, not prohibited by the canons of the Ecumenical Orthodox Church, also occurred in Muscovy. (See Volume II of this work, pp. 237–238). The difference between this ordination practice and the "Roman Catholic manner" was that in the Western Catholic Church, several candidates are ordained as one group, simultaneously, whereas according to the Ukrainian custom, candidates were ordained at a single liturgy one after the other, separately.

During the first three months of Bishops Nikanor and Ihor's sojourn in the Ukrainian lands, they ordained 122 priests. Priests were immediately sent out as missionaries whose task was not only to serve the parishes entrusted to them, but also to organize church life in the surrounding areas. As church life developed, the territory was divided into church districts with deans appointed to oversee the proper implementation of all measures of the diocesan authority.

As was mentioned above, Bishop Panteleimon of Lviv was present in Kyiv, having been delegated as administrator of the Kyiv diocese by the Sobor of autonomist bishops already at the end of 1941. With the arrival in Kyiv of the Ukrainian Bishops Nikanor and Ihor, the Orthodox Church in the Eastern oblasts of Ukraine also appeared, as in Volyn, divided into the Autocephalous Ukrainian and the Autonomous — under Moscow jurisdiction. Between them a struggle began here as well. Objectively, it must be stated that the autonomists were the first to open the ecclesiastical struggle in the Eastern oblasts of Ukraine as well. For as soon as Bishops Nikanor and Ihor arrived in Kyiv on March 13, 1942, Bishop Panteleimon already on March 18 issued a proclamation against them to the faithful. In this proclamation he wrote: "Two bishops, Nikanor and Ihor, have come to you, to Kyiv, sent by the Lutsk Bishop Polikarp, without any canonical right to do so"... And further, having said that these bishops had entered into prayerful communion with priests of the hierarchical consecration of Metropolitan Lypkivsky, Bishop Panteleimon ordered the churches and parishes "not to receive the said self-consecrated (?) bishops... They are subject to excommunication from the Orthodox Church and deprivation of rank."

In the spirit and substance of this proclamation, the autonomists conducted their struggle against the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church throughout Ukraine. The principal weapon in this struggle was falsehood regarding the origin of the new Ukrainian episcopate — that it was supposedly the same "graceless hierarchy" established by the Kyiv Sobor of 1921, and the same Autocephalous Church founded under Metropolitan Lypkivsky. In order to clarify the first and true causes of the schism in the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, Bishop Polikarp issued to the clergy and faithful an Archpastoral Letter dated April 8, 1942, in which he wrote: "The essence of events in our Orthodox Church in the liberated

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Ukrainian lands comes down to the question of whether our Orthodox Church here shall be a truly Ukrainian National Church, with its own native language in worship, a Church enveloped by the conciliar traditions of the past and by all the national-cultural spiritual beauty, or on the contrary, whether that Church shall be a tool in the hands of a handful of Moscophile bishops for the domination over the Ukrainian people of Moscow and the Muscovite spirit"...

But the very fact of the schism, the existence of two hierarchies in the Orthodox Church — which had come from Western Ukraine for the great cause of Christian mission, the revival of religious life after the difficult times of persecution of the Church and religion in general by the godless regime in the East — deeply troubled those who had remained devout there since pre-revolutionary times, and undermined the successes of the Christian mission among those who wished to return to God or were only beginning to know God.

The unfavorable attitude of the German civil authorities in Kyiv toward the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, which had already manifested before the arrival of the Ukrainian bishops in the act of that authority's closure on February 11, 1942 of the VPCR, was immediately shown by the Germans also in their treatment of the arriving Bishops Nikanor and Ihor. The General-Commissar of the Kyiv Oblast, and after him the Stadtkommissar of Kyiv, rudely refused to receive the bishops who, as was customary upon their arrival in Kyiv, had requested an audience, and those representatives of the occupation authorities declared that they already had there for the population the Orthodox Russian Bishop Panteleimon and did not need any others. Thus immediately the German authorities in Kyiv — whom the Ukrainians had initially accepted as "liberators" — took in the church life of Ukraine's capital Kyiv the side of the opponents of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, who, under the leadership of the Moscophile Bishop Panteleimon, displayed great activity in their dealings with the authorities, creating very unfavorable circumstances for the Ukrainians.

The hostile actions of the German authorities toward the Deputy Administrator of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Bishop Nikanor, extended even to domestic matters, such as: all manner of difficulties regarding housing for him and the Church Administration, refusal to install a telephone and electric lighting, and denial of access to the water supply, and the like. More importantly: the Ukrainians were not given St. Sophia Cathedral for worship, nor the so-called "Small Sophia." The Ukrainians in Kyiv at this time had for services only three churches: St. Andrew's Cathedral, the Pokrova Church in Solomianka, and the church in Demiivka, while the Russians had 8 monasteries (the Pokrovsky Monastery was Bishop Panteleimon's residence) and, in addition, 14 churches — altogether, including monastery churches, 28 holy sites. In this state of affairs, a great share of blame lay with the Ukrainians themselves who served in the "Department of Cults" at the Kyiv City Administration and did not ensure that at least on a parity basis a number of Kyiv's holy sites be secured for the Ukrainian Church. Bishop Polikarp, as Administrator of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, repeatedly appealed

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to the General-Commissariat in Kyiv for the allocation of churches and monasteries to the Ukrainian Church, as well as for granting it St. Sophia Cathedral, but the occupation authorities did not even respond to these appeals.

On May 4, 1942, representatives of Archbishop Polikarp and Archbishop Oleksiy were summoned to the Reichscommissariat office in Rivne, Volyn, for a conference on church matters. Archbishop Polikarp's representatives were Archpriest Mykola Maliuzhynskyi and I. Wlasowsky; Archbishop Oleksiy's — Bishop Veniamin Novytsky (now Archbishop of Irkutsk in Siberia under the Moscow Patriarchate) and Fr. F. Yurkevych. In truth, what took place in Rivne was not a conference but a declaration to the delegates by the head of the Political Department, Nestler, in the presence of religious affairs referent Meynke.

In this declaration, the German authorities recognized that in the Orthodox Church on the territory of Eastern Ukraine there currently existed two "directions": the Autocephalous Orthodox Church, administered by Archbishop Polikarp, and the Autonomous Church, under Moscow's supremacy, administered by Archbishop Oleksiy. The authorities did not enter into canonical disputes between these churches, nor did they specifically support either one or the other; belonging to one or the other depended exclusively on the desire and free will of the church communities — that is, of the individual parishes — in which "both one and the other priest may freely preach" (of both "directions"), and the one whom the majority of the community's members preferred would remain. However, the expression of the community's will was to proceed in a cultured manner, without disturbances among the populace, without excesses. At the same time, it was ordered to cease polemics between the two churches in periodicals and in circulars to the clergy.

The autonomists were not satisfied with such a resolution of the church matter, whose representatives had demanded in Rivne that the German authorities recognize only their "direction" as the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Nevertheless, the conference of May 4, 1942, also had a great advantage for the autonomists: the prohibition by the authorities of covering the church matter and conducting polemics on church topics in the press. For the autonomists had in any case not had access to Ukrainian periodicals, whereas the autocephalists were indeed deprived of the printed word for defending their positions and explaining to the population the Moscophile designs of the autonomists. German censorship diligently enforced this ordinance and often did not permit even purely chronicle-type notices of church life to go to print.

After the conference in Rivne on May 4, 1942, from which it was evident that the fact of the church schism in Ukraine was advantageous for the German authorities, Bishop Polikarp decided to make one more appeal to Metropolitan Oleksiy in a letter (dated May 9, 1942), in which he called upon him, in view of "the gravity of the moment in the life of the Orthodox Church in the liberated Ukrainian lands," to abandon the disunity in the Church that he had created. "Can you possibly think," wrote Archbishop Polikarp,

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"that Muscovite supremacy in the Church, even if for now merely nominal, can be for the good of the Holy Orthodox Church and its faithful Ukrainian people? You cannot think so, if you serve the truth of the Church of Christ, if you love the Ukrainian people not only in words"... Calling upon him to join the Autocephalous Ukrainian Church, Bishop Polikarp wrote to Bishop Oleksiy: "Your step toward such unification would undoubtedly be blessed by the entire people; the future historian, too, shall bless it as a step that was ecclesiastically wise and patriotic."

There was as yet no response from Bishop Oleksiy to this letter of Bishop Polikarp when an event of extraordinary importance for the further church life in Ukraine occurred in the life of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church. In the period from May 9 to 17, 1942, in Kyiv, six persons were tonsured as monks, elevated to the rank of archimandrite, and consecrated as bishops of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, on the basis of the commission given by the Administrator of that Church, Archbishop Polikarp, to Bishops Nikanor and Ihor before their departure for Kyiv — to find suitable candidates for the episcopate, whose consecration as bishops was to be completed by them after consultation with the Bishop-Administrator. In the given case, the consecration of bishops was carried out hastily, without prior notification about the candidates to the Bishop-Administrator, of whom only Fr. Pylyp Tymoshchuk had been sent to Kyiv for consecration as bishop from Lutsk by Archbishop Polikarp.

The decisive step of consecrating six new bishops in a short time was prompted by news received by Bishops Nikanor and Ihor that the German authorities intended to prohibit the consecration of bishops, at a time when the further organization of the reviving church life in Ukraine required bishops, demands for whose consecration were also coming from the localities. The probability of this news was grounded in the negative attitude of the German authorities in Kyiv toward the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church and the bishops who had arrived in Kyiv. Thus, in the period from May 9 to 17, 1942, the following archimandrites were consecrated: Fotiy (Tymoshchuk) as Bishop of Chernihiv, Manuil (Tarnavsky) as Bishop of Bila Tserkva, Mykhail (Khoroshyi) as Bishop of Yelysavethrad, Mstyslav (Skrypnyk) as Bishop of Pereiaslav, Sylvestr (Haievsky) as Bishop of Lubny, and Hryhoriy (Ohiichuk) as Bishop of Zhytomyr.

The episcopal consecrations were conducted almost in secret in the lower church of St. Andrew's Cathedral in Kyiv, so that the German authorities would not find out. Indeed, soon after these consecrations, Archbishop Polikarp received on May 26, 1942, an order from the Reichscommissar of Ukraine that henceforth episcopal consecrations were not to take place without prior coordination with the Reichscommissariat Government of Ukraine, to which detailed biographical information about the candidate was to be submitted.

The Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Kyiv, May 9–17, 1942, by whose resolutions the above-named episcopal consecrations were carried out, also adopted the following principal resolutions: 1) In accordance

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with the directives of Blessed Metropolitan Dionisiy, to consider the Pochayiv pseudo-sobor of bishops of August 18, 1941, as illegitimate and non-existent, and its resolutions as not binding for execution. 2) Evaluating the subversive work of this Sobor as an expression of representatives of the Muscovite ecclesiastical orientation, to have no prayerful communion with its participants until they repent and return to their canonical metropolitan. 3) To call upon the clergy in the liberated Ukrainian lands and all the faithful people to unite in the One Holy Autocephalous Orthodox Church. 4) To consider the Most Blessed Metropolitan Dionisiy as Locum Tenens of the Kyivan Metropolitan Throne until the next All-Ukrainian Church Sobor. 5) To request Archbishops Oleksandr and Polikarp to accept the title of metropolitan. 6) To request His Grace Bishop Nikanor, vicar of the Bishop-Administrator, to assume direct leadership of the Kyiv cathedra and the title of Archbishop of Kyiv and Chyhyryn, and also Bishop Ihor — to accept the title of Archbishop.

The completed episcopal consecrations were approved by Bishop-Administrator Polikarp; the protocols of the consecrations of bishops in Kyiv were sent by him to Metropolitan Dionisiy, who also agreed to those consecrations in a letter to the Administrator dated June 16, 1942. Archbishops Oleksandr and Polikarp also concurred with the other resolutions of the Sobor of Bishops in Kyiv.

The news of the consecration in the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church of six new bishops for Ukrainian cathedras had an unsettling effect on the hierarchy of the Autonomous Church, although its own episcopate was also constantly growing through new consecrations. Metropolitan Oleksiy, over his signature and that of Bishop Veniamin as secretary, began disseminating a resolution of the Sobor of autonomist bishops dated April 30, 1942, in which that Sobor now qualified the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church as a "sect of Lypkivtsi" and proclaimed all the bishops, presbyters, and deacons of that Church "graceless." Simultaneously, Metropolitan Oleksiy, in response to Archbishop Polikarp's appeal to abandon the disunion in the Church in Ukraine, wrote a letter of 9 pages on a large sheet in typescript, which he cast in the form of an "open letter" and distributed in copies among the clergy as "Metropolitan of Volyn and Exarch of Ukraine."

It was later heard that Metropolitan Oleksiy regretted having published such a letter in irritation. Amid all manner of shallow historical excursions about "Muscovite Orthodoxy" and "Ukrainian Orthodoxy," amid slanders against Bishop Polikarp and distortions of contemporary events, the sole valuable element in it was perhaps Metropolitan Oleksiy's confirmation even now of the belonging of the autonomist bishops to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate (an assessment of Metropolitan Oleksiy's canonical arguments on this matter in the letter was made above in subsection 3). At the same time, Metropolitan Oleksiy, while accusing Archbishop Polikarp and the autocephalist bishops even of apostasy from Orthodoxy, asserted

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in his letter that he too, with his bishops, had embarked on the "path of autocephaly" of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, but an autocephaly "to which all the autocephalous Orthodox Churches will give their blessing, and along with them the Muscovite Church as well." It is obvious that such a letter only deepened the schism rather than leading to the pacification of the Church.

To calm the conscience of some and the indignation of others over the open letter of Metropolitan Oleksiy dated June 1, 1942, Archbishop Polikarp issued an Archpastoral Epistle to the clergy and faithful on July 1, 1942. In it, Bishop Polikarp wrote that "after the endured furious storm of Bolshevism and godlessness, it would seem that there would be a special feeling among pastors of the spirit of Christ's love and brotherhood," yet instead, from the side of the archpastors themselves of the so-called Autonomous Church in Ukraine there rained down all manner of "anathemas," accusations of "self-consecration," of "heresies," of "apostasy from Orthodoxy," and so forth, upon those bishops, clergy, and faithful who "do not wish to remain together with Archbishop Oleksiy and the other 'autonomists' in dependence on the Moscow Patriarch." And further, the Bishop-Administrator exposed all the falsehood of those accusations, charges, and slanders wielded by the autonomists during the German occupation of Ukraine in their struggle with the autocephalists, exploiting the population's ignorance in church matters.

Against the accusations of "self-consecration" and "gracelessness," the epistle pointed out that the bishops who arrived in Kyiv, Nikanor and Ihor, had the succession of episcopal grace from the very same ecclesiastical-hierarchical source as Archbishop Oleksiy himself, in whose consecration as bishop Bishop Oleksandr of Polissia — consecrated by Metropolitan Yurii and Archbishop Dionisiy — had participated together with those two bishops. In the consecration of Bishop Polikarp, Archbishop Oleksiy himself had participated, together with Metropolitan Dionisiy and other bishops. Therefore, if Bishops Nikanor and Ihor, consecrated by Archbishops Oleksandr and Polikarp, are self-consecrated, then Archbishop Oleksiy is also self-consecrated.

Against the autonomists' accusation that Bishops Nikanor and Ihor, upon arriving in Kyiv, entered in St. Andrew's Cathedral into prayerful and liturgical communion with the "deposed self-consecrated Lypkivtsi," and therefore the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, as "renewed Lypkivshchyna," had become "heretical," the epistle pointed out that "no one has yet called the clergy and faithful of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church with the hierarchy of 1921, destroyed by the Bolsheviks, heretics, except now Archbishop Oleksiy and his bishops." By heresy is understood a departure in some matter from the very dogmatic teaching of the Orthodox Church — but from which dogmas of faith, exactly, have the Ukrainian autocephalists departed? Archbishop Oleksiy and his bishops do not indicate those dogmas. The one-time forced consecration at the Kyiv Sobor of 1921 of bishops by presbyters is not a departure from the dogmas of the Orthodox faith and has its justification in the church-historical acts of ordination of bishops by presbyters in the Egyptian Church up to the fourth century, which ordinations no one has ever considered as acts "heretical

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" or performed by "heretics." Despite the differences between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic — the epistle further pointed out — in dogmatic teaching itself, the Orthodox Church nevertheless receives Catholic clergy "in their existing rank," yet it does not thereby become Catholic. Then why does the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church cease to be Orthodox when it receives "in their existing rank" priests ordained by the hierarchy of 1921, that is, of the former Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, with which there are no differences in dogmatic teaching?

And finally, the Epistle of July 1, 1942, from the Administrator of the UAOC pointed to the hypocrisy of the autonomist bishops when they, while hurling all manner of "heresies" at the autocephalists, at the same time resolved to receive "in their existing rank" clerical persons of the so-called "Living Church," which at a sobor on May 2, 1923, "annulled the anathema of Patriarch Tikhon against the godless Bolshevik government, abolished the patriarchate, called for support of the Soviet government, introduced a married episcopate, permitted second marriage for the clergy, resolved to close monasteries, adopted a review of church dogmatics, and so forth."

Thus, at this time, in the summer of 1942, the tension in church life in Ukraine reached a high degree. The Ukrainian episcopate was pained in spirit that such a holy cause as the revival of the Orthodox Church of the Ukrainian people, independent from Moscow, was once again being undermined by politicking, which had already occurred so many times in the history of that Church.

5. The internal church life of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church; the spiritual guardianship of Metropolitan Dionisiy over it. The structure and governance of the Church on the basis of the "Temporary Statute of the Holy Orthodox Autocephalous Ukrainian Church." Church Radas. Organization of church administration in Kyiv and other dioceses. An attempt by proponents of the "canons of 1921" to restore those canons to the life of the Church. Consecration of new bishops. The accession of Metropolitan Feofil Buldovsky in Kharkiv to the Autocephalous Church. The composition of the episcopate of the Autocephalous Church and the territories under their administration. Rebuilding of churches by the populace in the East; enthusiasm of the church-religious revival. Holy antimins for churches. On the number of parishes of the Autocephalous Church in Eastern Ukraine. The material situation of the clergy. Pastoral and cantor courses; church-religious publishing. Obstacles to both courses and publishing from the Germans. The severe interference in the internal life of the Church by the German administration after the issuance of the order of the Reichscommissar of Ukraine Koch dated June 1, 1942, on freedom of religion and the Church in Ukraine.

The disheartening circumstances amidst which the Christian mission of reviving the Church of Christ in the Ukrainian lands liberated from the godless communist regime had to proceed, creating great difficulties for that mission, could not, however, halt the church-religious movement among the people. It is understandable that in the internal church

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life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on the Western Ukrainian lands — which had been under godless rule for only one year and nine months — and on the Eastern Ukrainian lands — where the godless regime had destroyed church life over 20 years — there were great differences: in the West, Ukrainian church life required only revival and normalization after the temporary decline during the period of Bolshevik rule; in the East, the task was the Revival of church-religious life destroyed by the godless political regime.

As we wrote above (subsection 3), the German occupation authorities, having forbidden Metropolitan Dionisiy from exercising canonical-hierarchical functions beyond the borders of the General Government, contributed to the emergence and deepening of the schism in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and thereby also prevented the proper organization during this transitional period of church life and church administration in Ukraine. The jurisdiction of Metropolitan Dionisiy — under which Archbishop Oleksandr with the Polissia diocese and Archbishop Polikarp with the Lutsk-Kovel diocese and the newly consecrated bishops continued to remain — was essentially reduced after the appointment of Bishop Polikarp as Administrator. The newly consecrated bishops were considered vicars of Archbishop Polikarp as Administrator of the Orthodox Church in the liberated Ukrainian lands. With the blessing given to Bishops Oleksandr and Polikarp to consecrate Ukrainian bishops, Metropolitan Dionisiy's jurisdiction amounted to spiritual guardianship over the Ukrainian Autocephalous (de facto) Church.

Soon after the German authorities' recognition at the conference of May 4, 1942, at the Reichscommissariat in Rivne of two "directions" in the Orthodox Church in Ukraine — autocephalous and autonomous — the Administration of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church received an order from the Reichscommissar dated June 1, 1942, in accordance with which the Administration submitted to the Reichscommissar on July 28, 1942, the "Temporary Statute of the Holy Orthodox Autocephalous Ukrainian Church." The Statute, whose last article (No. 32) stated that it would remain in effect until the first Local Sobor (All-Ukrainian, composed of the episcopate, representatives of the clergy, and the faithful — articles 4–7 of the Statute) of the Holy Orthodox Autocephalous Ukrainian Church, established that "until the convocation of this Sobor, the highest organs of the Church shall be the Sobor of Bishops and the temporary Administrator of the Church, appointed to this position by the canonical head of the Church, the Most Blessed Metropolitan Dionisiy, by decree of December 24, 1941." Sobors of Bishops were to be held under the chairmanship of the Bishop-Administrator (or, correspondingly, his deputy — article 11), or the senior bishop by consecration (article 9).

Under the Bishop-Administrator there existed a Church Administration, under the name "Administration of the Holy Orthodox Autocephalous Ukrainian Church," composed of the Bishop as Chairman, his Deputy, and two members, one from the clergy and one from the faithful (article 12). Bishops of the Church were elected by the Sobor of Bishops from candidates nominated by members of the Sobor, as well as by church-civic organizations

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composed of clergy and faithful (article 15). The diocesan bishop, as the canonical successor of the Holy Apostles, was the head-representative of his diocese, or the territory entrusted to him (the establishment of permanent dioceses in Eastern Ukraine was to be carried out by the Local Sobor, article 14) and governed it on the basis of the holy canons (article 16). Diocesan bishops in all more important matters of their diocese turned to the Bishop-Administrator for counsel and approval (article 11). Under the bishop there existed a church administration composed of representatives of the clergy and faithful, from 3 to 5 members, as an auxiliary and executive body in the governance of the diocese (article 17). Under the bishop there also existed, as an advisory body, the Episcopal Church Council composed of representatives of the clergy and faithful, which convened as needed (article 18).

From the administrative-territorial standpoint, dioceses were divided into districts (deaneries), headed by deans appointed by the bishop (article 19), under whose chairmanship, as needed, district sobors — purely pastoral and general with the participation of lay representatives — took place (article 21). At the head of parishes stood rectors, who managed parish affairs with the participation of clergy members, the church warden, and with the assistance of the Parish Rada, which was composed of the rector as chairman, clergy members, the church warden, and representatives of the faithful delegated by parish assemblies (articles 22, 24). The Holy Orthodox Autocephalous Ukrainian Church as a whole, its bishoprics, monasteries, parish holy sites, and other institutions had the right, in accordance with binding church and state regulations, to own, acquire, and dispose of immovable and movable property (article 30).

Such, in their main features, were the structure and governance of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Eastern Ukraine on the basis of the "Statute," "founded on the canonical code of the Eastern Orthodox Church, accepted in the entire Orthodox world," as Bishop-Administrator Polikarp wrote in a letter to the Reichscommissar of Ukraine dated December 25, 1942, No. 460. In Western Ukraine, diocesan church administrations under the bishops remained, as they had been under Poland, under the name "Spiritual Consistory"; such an administration was also organized in Lutsk when Metropolitan Dionisiy by decree of August 11, 1941, divided the Volynn diocese into the Kremenets-Rivne and Lutsk-Kovel dioceses, appointing Bishop Polikarp to the latter with the rank of archbishop.

But in Volyn, with its liberation from Bolshevik rule in the summer of 1941, church radas also began to be organized, as we saw above (subsection 3). But already in January 1942, they began to be persecuted by some of the Gebietskommissars. Thus, the Kremenets Gebietskommissar issued an order dated January 22, 1942:

"On the basis of the general prohibition of assemblies, I hereby prohibit from the day of announcement the formation of church radas and similar organizations. Existing church radas are immediately dissolved. Whoever, despite this order, participates in church radas or secretly supports these councils shall, as a disturber of the peace, be immediately arrested.

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Gebietskommissar Müller, State Councillor." This closure by the German authorities already in January 1942 of church radas in the Kremenets region obviously occurred as a result of Archbishop Oleksiy's intervention. For the church radas in Volyn, which did not form part of the system of church governance but were organs of church-civic life and in their activities and resolutions expressed organized church-civic opinion, were supporters of the Autocephalous Church and everywhere fought against the Autonomous Church under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.

During the first half of 1942, the activity of those church radas, which were predominantly county-level, gradually died out under the repressions of the Gebietskommissars. The last meeting of the central Volyn Church Rada in Lutsk took place on August 23, 1942. The General-Commissariat government of Volyn-Podillia then demanded lists of its members — which was already dangerous — and it ceased its activity.

In Eastern Ukraine, when the Ukrainian bishops Nikanor and Ihor, consecrated in Pinsk, arrived in Kyiv on March 13, 1942, the VPCR in Kyiv, sometimes called the "All-Ukrainian" Rada, had already been dissolved by the German authorities at the insistence, evidently, of the autonomous-Muscovite direction in the Church, headed in Kyiv by Bishop Panteleimon, the emissary of Archbishop Oleksiy. (Archpriest A. Dubliansky, op. cit., pp. 31–32).

Although the "Temporary Statute of the Holy Orthodox Autocephalous Ukrainian Church," whose principal rules we have outlined above, was drafted by the Church Administration later and presented to the civil authorities at the end of July 1942 at the Reichscommissar's demand, Bishop Nikanor, as Deputy of the Bishop-Administrator, already soon after his arrival in Kyiv organized the church administration not on the basis of the "canons of 1921" with their "rada-rule" (radopravstvo) and "equal rights in Church governance for all its parts — bishops, clergy, and laity" (see Volume IV, Part 1 of this work, pp. 126–136; 254–260), but on the basis of the canons of the Orthodox Church, by which the aforementioned "Temporary Statute" was also guided. By Bishop Nikanor's order of April 1, 1942, a "Higher Church Administration" was established in Kyiv under the actual, not merely "honorary," chairmanship of the bishop himself, composed, as its core, of members of the VPCR dissolved by the authorities, and supplemented by qualified specialists. The Higher Church Administration was divided into four departments: Administrative, Educational, Legal, and Economic, with subdivisions under them.

From the side of the proponents of the "canons of 1921," there was an attempt to introduce discord into the church life of the UAOC being normally organized by the bishop. Their group, led by one "professor," pretending to be authorized representatives of the population of Kyiv, appeared before Bishop Nikanor and proposed to return to the canons of 1921 and reconcile himself with the role of advisor in church matters, handing the leadership of the Church over to the laity. "We," said the representatives, "declare you honorary chairman, and we ourselves shall govern; you

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may advise us as you wish, and we shall listen as we wish." — "And who will be responsible for the Church?" — asked the Bishop. "You, as bishop. For us, the Church has primarily national significance, not religious; among us there are those not interested in religion." — "Our bishops will not agree to this," — replied the Bishop and decisively rejected the proposal of the "representatives." The general body of the faithful, upon learning of this "delegation," expressed deep indignation at the interference of these laypeople in matters of church governance. (From the oral report of Archbishop Nikanor at the Administration of the UAOC in Lutsk. — Archpriest A. Dubliansky, op. cit., p. 43).

On the same canonical foundations as in the Kyiv diocese, codified also in the aforementioned "Temporary Statute of the Orthodox Autocephalous Ukrainian Church," church life was built in other dioceses as well, or on the territories to which the newly consecrated bishops of the Autocephalous Church were delegated. Everywhere, bishops stood at the head of the diocesan church administration; deanery districts were headed by deans or evangelists; parishes — by their rectors. No further reports of demands by local people to introduce the "canons of 1921" into Church governance were received from the bishops by the Church Administrator, Bishop Polikarp.

The episcopate of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, after the consecration in Kyiv of 6 bishops, was further augmented by 4 hierarchs, consecrated in the following order: on May 24, 1942, on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, in the Lutsk Cathedral, Archbishop Polikarp and Bishop Mstyslav consecrated Archimandrite Henadiy (Shypkevych) as Bishop of Sichoslav (Dnipropetrovsk, formerly Katerynoslav); on June 23, 1942, in St. Andrew's Cathedral in Kyiv, Bishops Nikanor, Mstyslav, and Sylvestr consecrated Archimandrite Volodymyr (Malets) as Bishop of Cherkasy; on August 2, 1942, in St. Andrew's Cathedral in Kyiv, Bishops Nikanor and Mstyslav consecrated Archimandrite Platon (Artemiuk) as Bishop of Zaslavl (Volyn); on September 13, 1942, in the Lutsk Cathedral, Archbishop Polikarp, Bishops Mstyslav and Platon consecrated Archimandrite Viacheslav (Lisnytsky) as Bishop of Dubno.

On July 27, 1942, in Kharkiv, an act was drawn up for the accession to the Orthodox Autocephalous Ukrainian Church of Metropolitan Feofil Buldovsky of Kharkiv (on Bishop Feofil Buldovsky, see Volume IV, Part 1 of this work, pp. 194–198). Bishop Mstyslav traveled to Kharkiv and conducted a conference in which, besides himself, Metropolitan Feofil, members of the Kharkiv Diocesan Administration — Protopresbyter Oleksandr Kryvomaz, Archpriests K. Pevnyi and M. Bankivsky, and Vasyl Potiienko (Chairman of the VPCR in 1924–26) — and the Chairman of the Poltava Diocesan Administration, Archpriest Oleksiy Potulnytsky, participated. (There was no Autocephalous Church bishop in Poltava.) At this conference, after information about the state of church life in Ukraine presented by Bishop Mstyslav, it was resolved: "To recognize that the parishes subordinated to His Most Reverend Eminence

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Bishop Feofil in the territory of the Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, and Kursk oblasts constitute a component part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Church headed by Administrator Archbishop Polikarp."

In September 1942, the Administration of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church received an order from the Reichscommissariat of Ukraine to cease further episcopal consecrations on the grounds that the number of bishops had been deemed sufficient by the German administration for the needs of that Church. Metropolitan Oleksiy received the same order; the episcopate of the Autonomous Church he headed had at that time 15 bishops in its ranks.

The matter of church governance headed by the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church was at that time as follows: Archbishop Polikarp, who was also the Administrator of the entire Church, governed the Lutsk-Kovel diocese in Volyn; the vicar of the Administrator in Volyn, Bishop Platon, was appointed from August 25, 1942, to administer the Rivne-Kremenets diocese and began to bear the title of Bishop of Rivne; the second vicar in Volyn was Bishop Viacheslav of Lubny, who was entrusted with overseeing the Czech Orthodox parishes in Volyn under the jurisdiction of the Autocephalous Church. Archbishop Oleksandr of Polissia, who had been placed "on the retired list" by the Moscow Patriarchate for insubordination, continued to govern the Polissia diocese. The Kyiv diocese was governed by Bishop Nikanor, who also served adjacent territories as Deputy Administrator; his vicar was Bishop Mstyslav of Pereiaslav. Bishop Ihor of Uman, having departed from Kyiv to Uman, governed the parishes of part of the former great Kyiv diocese; he was appointed to the Poltava cathedra but could not go there because the German authorities did not grant permission for the journey. Bishop Mykhail, with his seat initially in Yelysavethrad (Kirovohrad) and then in Mykolaiv, governed the Mykolaiv-Yelysavethrad diocese, with the assistance of his vicar of Cherkasy (later Novomyrhorod) Volodymyr. Bishop Henadiy of Sichoslav governed the Sichoslav (Katerynoslav) diocese. Bishop Fotiy of Chernihiv, having spent some time in Nizhyn in the Chernihiv region, returned and was delegated by the Bishop-Administrator to the Vinnytsia-Podillia diocese.

Thus, the Right-Bank Ukraine was covered by the hierarchical administration of the Autocephalous Church fairly fully, with the exception of Eastern Volyn (cathedra in Zhytomyr); Bishop Hryhoriy Ohiichuk, consecrated for the Zhytomyr cathedra, did not assume the cathedra initially due to illness, and then on September 25, 1942, was arrested by the Germans and sat in prison until March 16, 1943; the Administration was not informed at all by the Germans about the bishop's arrest or the reasons for it. On the Left-Bank Ukraine there were only two Ukrainian bishops: Metropolitan Feofil of Kharkiv and Bishop Sylvestr of Lubny; the Diocesan Administration of the Poltava diocese was headed by Archpriest O. Potulnytsky. Thus, the episcopate of the Autocephalous Church

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in the Ukrainian lands under German occupation in September 1942 numbered 14 hierarchs, while a 15th, Bishop Manuil Tarnavsky, consecrated in Kyiv in May 1942 as Bishop of Bila Tserkva, in July of that same year left the Autocephalous Church and went over to the autonomists.

In recounting the internal church life during the German occupation of the "liberated" Ukrainian lands and its achievements, the historian must not forget that that historical process which has been called "the spontaneous movement of the revival of religious life in Ukraine" (Metropolitan Nikanor) lasted a very short time in Eastern Ukraine — altogether two years, and if counted from the arrival in Kyiv of the newly consecrated Ukrainian Bishops Nikanor and Ihor, then only a year and a half, because on September 24, 1943, Archbishop Nikanor and the Higher Church Administration had already left Kyiv ahead of the Bolshevik advance. (Archpriest A. Dubliansky, op. cit., pp. 51–52).

Given such a short time for the revival of the Church and church life in Ukraine destroyed by the Bolsheviks, one must further not forget that even this short time was a time of terrible destructive war, a time — to great sorrow — not only of the revival of church life but also, as we have already seen and shall see further, of ecclesiastical struggle between those very people who were reviving themselves for church life after years of its persecution and destruction by the godless regime; a time, finally, in the second year of the German occupation of Ukraine, of such an attitude by the Germans toward the Church in Ukraine — especially toward the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church — that from the side of these "liberators" it was no better than what the "liberated" had experienced while under the godless communist regime.

Taking all this into account, one cannot but admire the enthusiasm with which the populace in Ukraine set about restoring church life after several years of its destruction by anti-religious propaganda, arrests, exiles, and the murder of bishops and clergy, by the closing and ruination of churches. "Simultaneously with the acquisition of priests," writes Ye. N. Chyhyrynsky, "the parishes perseveringly undertook to repair the surviving churches or to adapt premises for the celebration of Divine Services where the churches had been destroyed. Most of the churches had been turned into 'village halls,' which were now again converted back into churches. In many cases, both the liturgical vessels and the ecclesiastical vestments had been hidden by the faithful, although the Bolsheviks severely punished for this. Even holy antimins were hidden... At the appointed time for the consecration of a church, the churches gleamed like paintings — cleaned, washed, decorated and adorned with flowers right up to the cross on the cupola... And never were the churches so attended as after the return of this possibility to once again pray and unite with God. The people surrounded the priests with unprecedented warm care. People came in masses to receive the Holy Mysteries they had missed. They were married, baptized, and arranged Christian funerals for relatives who had long since departed this life. Carefully hidden holy icons appeared; demand for prayer books surged enormously. People thirstily absorbed with their whole being the Word of God, like parched earth absorbs life-giving dew"... (Op. cit., Ridna Tserkva, No. 49, p. 10).

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"A triumph of the people's spiritual joy," writes another eyewitness, Archpriest Demyd Burko, "were the days of the consecration of churches in cities and villages — those buildings where divine services were beginning. The populace, which for over 20 years had lived under a regime that strove to encase its soul in an icy crust of materialist ideology, and for more than ten years had not heard church services, had been deprived of the Holy Mysteries and rites of its ancestral faith, now in spiritual rapture reached a state of ecstasy"... True, as Fr. Burko writes further, "that human spiritual surge that 'thirsted for the Living God,' as the prophet said (Ps. 42:2), consisted predominantly of people of an older age; young people came to services considerably less than in pre-Soviet times; the Komsomol, anti-religious propaganda in schools and in all educational institutions of the USSR had indeed managed to poison many young souls with godlessness — one of the greatest crimes of the Soviet regime"... ("The Revival of the Ukrainian Church in 1941–43." Ridna Tserkva, October–December 1963, No. 56, p. 6).

But Metropolitan Nikanor, in a letter to the author of this work dated August 6, 1956, writes: "Worthy of attention is the enthusiasm of the populace with which they undertook to arrange the churches. The youth showed particular zeal, who under the guidance of older people exerted all their strength to put church buildings in order... In the system of 'de-faithing' the populace, the Bolsheviks apparently overplayed their hand, because while the older generation flocked to the Church out of pious sentiment, the youth began to flock out of protest against the brutal violence done to the human soul"... Archbishop Henadiy also testifies regarding the Dnipropetrovsk (Katerynoslav) region: "Almost everywhere it was noticeable that the younger generation inclined toward us (we were helped in this by a certain secular element), and after the young people, the elderly gradually inclined as well. Many parishes, upon receiving a priest from us, to their Slavonicists proposed to him a choice of the four cardinal directions"... (Letter to the author of this work dated May 27, 1964).

With the rebuilding of churches arose the necessity of providing them with holy antimins, without which priests could not celebrate the Divine Liturgy. Above we cited the testimony of Ye. N. Chyhyrynsky that the faithful had hidden through the times of Bolshevik rule, together with the ecclesiastical vestments, even the holy antimins. In Kyiv, a large number of old antimins that had been hidden in museums were obtained. In Poltava, during an inspection of the museum, it turned out that in the attic there had been stored antimins that the godless authorities had confiscated from the churches of the Poltava diocese. At the request of the Chairman of the Poltava Diocesan Administration, Archpriest O. Potulnytsky, the museum director K. K. Moshchenko, who generally rendered much assistance in the rebuilding of the Church in the Poltava region, permitted the selection of antimins fit for use; several hundred were taken; some contained holy relics, some

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without relics; Fr. Potulnytsky forwarded them for consecration to Metropolitan Feofil, Metropolitan Polikarp, Archbishop Nikanor, and Bishop Mstyslav.

In Dnipropetrovsk (Katerynoslav), the Diocesan Rada (Bishop Henadiy arrived at this cathedra in June 1942) established contact with Romanian military units that were interspersed within the German garrison of Dnipropetrovsk, and as a result, the Romanian Patriarch sent as a gift to the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church in Dnipropetrovsk 30 antimins, which were distributed by the Diocesan Rada (ten) and by Bishop Henadiy (twenty).

"The difficulties with obtaining holy relics for the holy antimins were, by God's help, also happily overcome," writes Metropolitan Nikanor to the author of this work. "After an unsuccessful attempt to obtain holy relics from the Pechersk Lavra, where the monastic community, at the suggestion of 'well-wishers,' received Archbishop Nikanor and Bishop Mstyslav in such a manner that they barely got out in one piece, Archbishop Vikentiy of Tavria and the Azov-Black Sea region of the Russian Church brought a large portion of the holy relics of the Venerable Anastasia the Deliverer from Tavria; sufficient relics of St. Afanasiy of Lubny were sent by Metropolitan Feofil Buldovsky of Kharkiv. Furthermore, as a result of the publicity surrounding the 'unfortunate reception' of the new bishops by the monks at the Lavra, Bishop Panteleimon of the Slavonic group himself offered Archbishop Nikanor the quantity of holy relics of St. Great Martyr Barbara that he needed... Holy Chrism was also found. The faithful brought to Archbishop Nikanor a large bucket-sized glass jar of holy Chrism that had been buried underground — probably a supply of the Metropolitans of Kyiv from the tsarist era." (Letter dated August 6, 1956).

We do not have precise data on how many parishes in Eastern Ukraine during the German occupation were opened in both the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church and the Autonomous Church; data are also lacking regarding the number of priests in Eastern Ukraine in those churches during that same period. Metropolitan Nikanor reports that when they arrived with Bishop Ihor in Kyiv, they "found in Kyiv a total of our clergy of 8 souls — 2 priests and 2 deacons at St. Andrew's Cathedral, one priest and one deacon in Demiivka, one priest and one deacon in Solomianka." Bishop Panteleimon (of the Autonomous Church) had "altogether in Kyiv 26 parishes with 71 clergy, not counting deacons and cantors." (Letter to the author dated July 25, 1956). With such a number of holy sites — St. Andrew's Cathedral, Pokrova Church in Solomianka, and the Ascension Church in Demiivka — the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church in Ukraine's capital Kyiv remained so until the end of the German occupation of Kyiv.

In Poltava, although its commandant was a Russified German, General Brodovsky, who particularly patronized the Moscophile autonomists, the Ukrainians nevertheless managed to open and serve with Ukrainian pastors the following churches: St. Nicholas, Holy Trinity, Pokrova, Samsonivska on the Swedish Mound, and in the suburbs of Poltava — St. George in Lower Mills and St. Andrew beyond the Southern Station. The Autonomous

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Church, led by Archpriest Binevsky and then Bishop Veniamin, had three churches in Poltava, among them the historically significant Spaska Church, in which the first Divine Liturgy after liberation from the Bolsheviks had been served by priests of the Autocephalous Church, but which, by order of Commandant Brodovsky, was taken from the Ukrainians and handed over to the autonomists through the Gestapo.

Especially in the provinces, the devout Ukrainian population flocked to the Autocephalous Church. In terms of number of parishes, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church was predominant — as had been the case in the 1920s under Metropolitans Vasyl Lypkivsky and Mykolai Boretsky — in the Kyiv region. Metropolitan Nikanor reports that "by September 1, 1942, 513 parishes had been organized; of these, 298 were in the Kyiv region proper, and 215 in other oblasts where our bishops had not yet arrived. During the same period, 136 priests were ordained, 93 priests were received from the hierarchy of Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky, and 226 priests from the Russian Church." (Letter dated August 6, 1956).

In the Poltava diocese, for which new priests were ordained primarily by Metropolitan Feofil of Kharkiv (Bishop Mstyslav ordained up to 20 course graduates in Poltava in July 1942), there were by 1943 up to 150 parishes, excluding the Lubny district, which belonged to Bishop Sylvestr. (Letter from Archpriest O. Potulnytsky dated May 28, 1964). In the Lubny district, under the jurisdiction of Autocephalous Church Bishop Sylvestr, there were, as F. Heyer reports, 102 priests. (Op. cit., p. 206).

When Bishop Henadiy arrived in Dnipropetrovsk in June 1942, there were about 30 Ukrainian parishes organized and registered with the Church-Diocesan Rada in Dnipropetrovsk; but after a month of the Ukrainian bishop's presence and work in the Dnipropetrovsk region, there were already 70 Ukrainian parishes, and before the Nativity of 1942, there were already over a hundred Ukrainian parishes registered with Archbishop Henadiy. The growth of Ukrainian parishes alarmed Bishop Dmytriy Mahan of the Autonomous Church, who arrived in Dnipropetrovsk shortly after Bishop Henadiy, and Bishop Dmytriy began, with his Slavonic clergy — greater in number than Archbishop Henadiy's — to seek support from the German authorities to halt the growth of Ukrainian parishes. After all, Bishop Dmytriy, having nowhere to place his Slavonic priests, was forced to assign two, and sometimes three, to a single parish with Church Slavonic as the liturgical language. The German authorities in the General-Commissariat of the Dnipropetrovsk region, given the general anti-Ukrainian policy of those authorities in Ukraine, devised a way to assist the Autonomous Church in the Dnipropetrovsk region: the General-Commissar issued an order on the "stabilization" of church jurisdictions in the Dnipropetrovsk region; under this order, registered parishes could no longer change their jurisdiction. There was no danger of Ukrainian parishes transferring to the Autonomous Church; however, Bishop Dmytriy achieved the result that parishes registered with him could not transfer to Archbishop Henadiy. It is true that with the pressure from the East on the

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Germans beginning in the spring of 1943, the German civil authorities no longer had the capacity to enforce that "order" requiring parishes to remain in the church jurisdiction of the time the "order" was issued. During Bishop Henadiy's incomplete year and a half of heading the Sichoslav cathedra, he ordained 83 priests; and by the day of the evacuation of Dnipropetrovsk in 1943, there were over 150 Ukrainian parishes in the Dnipropetrovsk region. (Letter from Bishop Henadiy dated May 27, 1964).

Archbishop Mykhail, who together with his vicar Bishop Volodymyr tended to the church life of the Ukrainian south (Mykolaiv-Yelysavethrad and Odesa oblasts), reports that "by approximate count, he and Bishop Volodymyr together had over 100 parishes." The autonomists began operating in that territory (Archbishop Antoniy Martsenko) after the German authorities refused to recognize the "Act of Unification of October 8," 1942, and this position of the authorities "compelled parishes to incline toward the autonomists." (Letter from Archbishop Mykhail to the author dated May 25, 1964).

The material situation of the clergy itself, equally of both the Autocephalous and the Autonomous Churches, did not interest the German authorities at all. The matter of church-parsonage land — which in Western Ukraine during the Soviet occupation had already been confiscated, or remained, due to the brevity of that regime, in an unclear state — was now raised by the Administration of the Autocephalous Church at the Reichscommissariat of Ukraine. However, the Administration received no response whatsoever. The matter remained in a chaotic state; it depended on the parishioners themselves whether to restore the former state of affairs as it had been under Polish rule, or not. For the German authorities, the only thing that mattered was to receive the "contingent" (quota of produce) allotted from a given area of land; who paid it was of no concern to them.

Obviously, in Eastern Ukraine, there could be no question of allotting land to churches. However, the German administration at the district and regional levels interfered in the matter of clergy support, prohibiting payment for their work in the villages in kind (the same applied to schoolteachers), and in some parishes in the East, there were instances of the Germans confiscating bread brought by people to the church even for memorial services. The German administration also did not allow churches to conduct charitable activities. This particularly applied to aid for prisoners of war, for whom it was forbidden to collect either money or provisions. Requests to provide spiritual care for prisoners were rejected, and priests were not permitted to visit prisoner-of-war camps. But despite the German administration's concern regarding material means of subsistence — solely about how to extract the maximum of all manner of products from Ukraine "nur für Deutsche" — the population itself, especially in the East, was very solicitous at this time about providing for the clergy. "People surrounded the priests," writes Metropolitan Nikanor, "with unprecedented warm care." "I had to continue ordaining candidates; they did not sit idle and without bread," testifies Archbishop Henadiy.

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With the revival of the Church in Eastern Ukraine — and even in the church life of Western Ukraine after the Soviet occupation of 1939–41 — there was a great shortage of both priests and cantor-choir directors. In Kyiv, under the Educational Department of the Church Administration, Bishop Nikanor organized an Examination Commission composed of several theologians with academic education; this Commission conducted the verification of knowledge of 71 candidates for the priesthood who had applied themselves to the Church Administration or had been chosen by parishes from among former students of theological schools closed by the godless regime.

The principal means of remedying the shortage of priests, however, could be short-term pastoral and cantor courses. Such six-month courses, which concluded in December 1942, were conducted in Lutsk; five-month courses (May–September 1942) took place in Poltava, from which 34 candidates were graduated and ordained as priests; in Kyiv, pastoral courses lasted three and a half months, with those ordained as priests after examinations in the main subjects having to pass tests in other subjects of the program while already engaged in pastoral practice; at the Katerynoslav Diocesan Administration, pastoral courses were organized in the city of Kamianske, from whose students over 30 priests were ordained; in the Mykolaiv diocese, after lengthy petitions for permission, one-month pastoral courses were held, but only people no younger than 50 years of age could be students in those courses.

In general, the German authorities not only did not assist in any way with the organization of courses for preparing candidates for the priesthood, but — as the example of the Mykolaiv diocese shows — actually obstructed this vital matter for the Church. Eventually, they simply began to prohibit the conducting of pastoral and cantor courses after the completion of the first graduating classes in Poltava and Lutsk (F. Heyer, The Orthodox Church in Ukraine, 1953, p. 197). The reasons for the prohibition were the same as for the closure of higher and secondary schools in Ukraine: "workers are needed for victory in the war." These workers were hunted from among the youth and shipped en masse to Germany. In the Mykolaiv diocese, the German authorities even ordered that the number of choristers in a church choir not exceed 20.

The Orthodox Church in the East, especially the Autocephalous Church with the living Ukrainian language of worship, needed books of Holy Scripture, liturgical books, prayer books, and religious literature after years of anti-religious propaganda and godlessness. We know how dire the situation of church publishing in the UAOC was under Soviet rule (see Volume IV, Part 1 of this work, pp. 211–214). During the German occupation of Ukraine, the state of this matter remained the same. The German administration in Ukraine did not grant permission for literally a single church publication, not even permitting the printing of a church calendar for the year 1943. In the endless correspondence with the Reichscommissariat regarding this calendar, the Church Administration in Lutsk kept receiving responses from the authorities that there was no paper for church publications, although in almost every county seat the Germans

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provided paper for the printing of Ukrainian newspapers with identical content. If anything from church books was printed, it was done illegally or in territories under military, not civilian, authority. Thus, in Kyiv, the "Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom" was printed using the text of the edition by the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw, as well as a second edition using the text of the VPCR edition (the translation of Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky); also printed were the "Gospel" in the translation of Pylyp Morachevsky, and a "Prayer Book" edited by Archbishop Nikanor. "Vespers and Matins" in Ukrainian translation were also printed in Kyiv, but when this became known to the Germans, they confiscated and burned the entire print run of this edition issued without their permission. The Poltava Diocesan Rada published the "Gospel" in the Ukrainian language (20,000 copies) and a "Prayer Book" (25,000 copies). In Lutsk in 1941, it was possible to publish the "Psalter" in the Ukrainian language using the text of the edition by the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw from the Polish era; the publications of Holy Scripture and liturgical orders by the Ukrainian Scientific Institute and the Theological Section of the former Society named after Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, which were in storage at the chancery of Bishop Polikarp, were transported to Kyiv, but these supplies were very modest, unable to meet the needs of the UAOC in Greater Ukraine.

It must be acknowledged that the church leaders in the Orthodox Church in Poland, including those who were active participants in the Ukrainian national-church movement in that Church, had not expected the Christian mission to which historical events would call them so soon, and were not prepared for that mission either in candidates for pastoral service or in supplies of books of Holy Scripture, liturgical books, and church-religious literature for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Eastern Ukraine.

On June 1, 1942, the "Order of the Reichscommissar of Ukraine on the Legal Relations of Religious Organizations" in Ukraine was issued, according to which freedom of religion and of religious unions and institutions was proclaimed, with an order to submit to the Reichscommissariat the statutes of the Church and religious communities. But, paradoxically as it was, it was precisely from the proclamation of that "Order of June 1, 1942" on religious freedom that the interference of the German authorities in the internal life of the Church began to broaden and intensify, the facts of which interference completely contradicted the principles of religious tolerance.

In the summer of 1942, the German authorities everywhere began to interfere with the church ustav of the Orthodox Church regarding the celebration of divine services. Fearing that Ukrainian peasants would spend too much time in prayer during the harvest and fail to gather the Ukrainian grain so needed by the Germans, an order was issued not to conduct divine services on feast days other than Sundays, even if these were great feasts such as the Transfiguration of the Lord or the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos; it was ordered that these feasts be transferred to Sundays. In many localities of Ukraine, Gebietskommissars ordered peasants to work even on Sundays; as for Sunday divine services, they were either completely prohibited, or ordered to conclude by 8 a.m., or permitted only from 6 p.m. onwards. When people

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tried to resist such orders and went to church — for example, on the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, a patronal feast day in many villages — Sonderführers with weapons in hand dispersed the people and ordered the priest to lock the church. There were instances of priests being beaten for conducting divine services on Sundays.

Even the Administrator of the Ukrainian Church himself, Archbishop Polikarp, when he traveled on the feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul (July 12, 1942) to the village of Piddubets in the Lutsk district, where from time immemorial there had been a great church procession for this feast, was forbidden by the Sonderführer from celebrating divine services, and the people were dispersed by the Germans.

Nothing availed — the complaints of the diocesan hierarchs against those Gebietskommissars and Sonderführers to the General-Commissars, Bishop Polikarp's appeals to the Reichscommissar of Ukraine, and even a memorandum to the Ostministerium (Ministry for the Eastern Territories). The German higher authorities either did not respond, and when they did, they wrote that "there is a war now — everything for victory; the Ukrainians are lazy and work too little." Eventually, the peasants themselves, in order not to expose the priests to insults and danger from the "Führers," told the priests not to conduct divine services since it was forbidden.

By letter dated July 24, 1942, No. IIa-3, the Reichscommissar of Ukraine addressed Archbishop Polikarp with a demand to remove Bishop Nikanor from Kyiv and to transfer Bishop Mstyslav to one of the cities of his choice: Rostov-on-Don, Stalino (Yuzivka), or Voroshilovhrad (Luhansk); the letter emphasized that Bishop Mstyslav "cannot be in a territory with a majority Ukrainian population." The demand was not motivated in any way but was clearly aimed at harming the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church and supporting the Autonomous Church, whose leadership was in the hands of Moscophiles; the German Hitlerite policy was clearly unfavorable to the Ukrainian national cause and did not seek support from Ukrainians in the war with the USSR.

Bishop Mstyslav's activity on the Left-Bank Ukraine (Poltava region, Kharkiv) in the cause of national-church consciousness-raising among the Ukrainian masses had undoubtedly displeased the Germans, and they decided to expel him from territories populated predominantly by Ukrainians. As for Bishop Nikanor, besides the Russophile influences of the autonomists in the German administration, the intrigues of those among the Ukrainians who demanded of the Bishop the restoration of "people's rule" (narodopravstvo) in church governance may also have contributed to the demand to remove the Bishop from Kyiv. Bishop Nikanor himself suggested this in his report to Archbishop Polikarp, for upon the refusal to restore the "canons of 1921," the "delegates," upon departing, declared to Bishop Nikanor: "Well, then we shall remain, and you will leave Kyiv"...

Archbishop Polikarp, having written to the bishops to remain at their posts, defended them before the Reichscommissariat, pointing out that he saw no reasons why they should be removed from the cathedras they occupied; he especially emphasized that the removal from Kyiv of Bishop Nikanor, while Bishop Panteleimon of the Autonomous Church remained there, would be an overt favoring by the German authorities of the autonomous Moscophile direction in the Orthodox Church

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in Ukraine, which would provoke great dissatisfaction among the Ukrainian people. Bishop Polikarp proposed to assign Bishop Mstyslav to Kharkiv to assist the aged Metropolitan Feofil, or to the Simferopol cathedra in the Crimea.

As for the matter of transferring Bishop Nikanor from Kyiv — who refused to leave Kyiv at the Gestapo's demand — the German authorities fell silent, having only beforehand evicted him and the Higher Church Administration from the Metropolitan Palace, into the premises of which, renovated by the Kyiv City Administration, they had moved on July 10, only to be forced to vacate on July 28. Bishop Mstyslav, however, was to pay, as we shall see further, for his "disobedience" to the German administration.

A special task of the Church was the religious education of youth. In the Ukrainian lands under Poland, as we know, religious instruction in schools was mandatory. During the Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine, religious instruction in schools was abolished but was restored at the beginning of the 1941–42 school year, when the Germans had not yet interfered with school curricula. The Diocesan Administrations in Eastern Ukraine also began to work on introducing religious instruction in schools during that same school year. But in the second school year under the Germans, 1942–43, religious instruction in elementary schools (there were no secondary or higher schools) was already absent; the German authorities prohibited it, interfering in this great matter of the Church's life — the religious education of youth.

It is difficult even to say what guided the occupation German authorities in this case, having "forbidden the access of religious instruction in schools" (F. Heyer, op. cit., p. 199), but the pupils' parents became increasingly convinced that there was almost no difference between the atheistic worldviews of Hitlerism and Communism. The Diocesan Administrations, after the prohibition of religious instruction in schools, issued instructions to parish priests to gather children at the church, or at their own residences, no less than once a week for religious teaching. Bishop Nikanor writes that this "private instruction had its positive side, because in addition to children, adults could also attend the lectures."

Cases of brutal German interference in the national-religious education of Ukrainian youth even outside the school are illustrated by the following incident. In September 1942, in Poltava, the Ukrainian community decided to honor the memory of the Father of new Ukrainian literature, the Poltava-born writer Ivan Kotliarevsky, and to serve at his grave — on which the Bolshevik authorities had removed even the cross, replacing it with a small pyramid — a great public memorial service (panakhyda). Everything had been prepared in advance. Permission for this ceremony had been obtained from the burgomaster of Poltava and the German Gebietskommissar. The grave had been decorated. Bishop Sylvestr of Lubny had been invited... Students from all schools of Poltava had been gathered at the writer's grave. Thousands of people assembled. But a few minutes before the beginning of the memorial service, the all-powerful Gestapo appeared, prohibited everything, and dispersed all the people and schoolchildren...

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6. Difficulties of the Christian mission in the East; the intention of the Administration of the Autocephalous Church to hold a Sobor of Bishops of the Church in Lutsk on October 2–9, 1942. Prohibition of the Sobor of Bishops by the German authorities. Arrival of bishops in Lutsk; church ceremony in the Lutsk Cathedral on October 4, 1942. "Private conversations" of the bishops on the main topic of unification of the Autocephalous and Autonomous Churches in Ukraine. Delegation from the episcopate to Metropolitan Oleksiy. The "Act of Unification" of October 8, 1942 at the Pochayiv Lavra. Joyful reception of the "Act of Unification" by the people. Non-recognition of this "Act" by the German authorities and the protest, in connection with this, against unification by bishops — members of the Synod of the Autonomous Church. Metropolitan Oleksiy's interpretation of the "Act of Unification" as merely a "project of unification." The journey of Metropolitan Polikarp to Metropolitan Oleksiy in November 1942. Metropolitan Oleksiy's conference at the Reichscommissariat on November 27, 1942; postponement of the matter of church unification to its resolution at a Sobor of Bishops of the Autonomous Church after the end of the war and pacification in Ukraine. Persecution of Bishop Mstyslav by the German authorities.

The Christian mission in Eastern Ukraine was not easy. The Church and faith, after 20 years of their destruction among the people by the Soviet regime, had indeed been fundamentally forgotten there. And among many older people, their conception of the Church and church life was bound up with dreams of returning to the old times before the October Bolshevik revolution; such people were particularly impressed by Church Slavonic in the divine services, and they did not want divine services in the living Ukrainian language.

But the most important factor causing difficulties for the mission and provoking great dissatisfaction among the population was the appearance on the Ukrainian lands of two Orthodox hierarchies — the Autocephalous and Autonomous Churches. Among religious people, bitter memories remained of the church struggle in Ukraine in the 1920s, and therefore they were so dismayed that the revival of the Church had once again come accompanied by disunion and struggle, after everything those people had endured under the Soviet regime. The autonomists skillfully exploited those moods of disillusionment, spreading the falsehood that the newly arrived autocephalous hierarchy was the very same hierarchy — "graceless, self-consecrated, heretical"...

The Administration of the Autocephalous Church decided to convene a Sobor of Bishops of the Autocephalous Church, at which, apart from questions of a church-organizational character, the main question would be the discussion and determination of ways to end the church schism in Ukraine. It was also planned to present from the Sobor of Bishops a memorandum to Reichscommissar Koch on the legal status of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine and its most important needs.

For permission to hold a session of the Sacred Sobor of Bishops of the Autocephalous Church on October 2–9, 1942, in Lutsk, the Administration applied to the Reichscommissariat a month before the scheduled date of the Sobor, also submitting the program of the Sobor's sessions. The prohibition against convening the Sacred Sobor of Bishops was received by the Administration from the Reichscommissariat

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(without stating any reasons for the prohibition) only on the eve of the Sobor's scheduled date, when the bishops, under the difficult communication conditions of the time, were already on their way to Lutsk.

The following arrived for the Sobor: Archbishop Oleksandr, Bishops Nikanor, Ihor, Mykhail, Mstyslav, Sylvestr, Henadiy, Platon, and Viacheslav, and from the Poltava diocese Archpriest O. Potulnytsky. Later, after the departure of those named above, Metropolitan Feofil arrived from Kharkiv accompanied by Protopresbyter Oleksandr Kryvomaz and Protodeacon V. Potiienko.

Officially, in view of the prohibition by the civil authorities, the Sobor could not take place; however, the authorities did not venture to forbid the bishops from spending several days in Lutsk and discussing and resolving the most important matters in "private" conversations, nor from holding a solemn church ceremony.

The church ceremony took place on Sunday, October 4, 1942, in the Lutsk Cathedral. Before the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy, in the presence of all the bishops, clergy, and faithful, Bishop Nikanor addressed Bishop-Administrator Polikarp and, on behalf of the Sobor of Bishops that had taken place in Kyiv on May 10–17, requested him to accept the title of metropolitan, as recognition of his merits in the cause of the revival of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Then Bishop Nikanor addressed Bishop Oleksandr and, having recalled that in June of this year 1942, the 20th anniversary of Archbishop Oleksandr's service in the episcopal rank had been reached, and having pointed to his historic role in the consecration of the Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchy of 1942 ("Had it not been for you, there would not be us either," said Bishop Nikanor), requested, on behalf of the Sobor of Bishops, that Bishop Oleksandr also accept the title of metropolitan. From that time, Bishops Oleksandr and Polikarp began to be titled metropolitans, and Bishop Nikanor — archbishop, as had been resolved at the Sobor of Bishops in Kyiv in May 1942.

The most pressing topic of the "private" conversations of the hierarchs who had arrived for the Sobor in Lutsk was the topic of the church schism in Ukraine and the necessity of taking decisive steps toward unification. A commission was formed under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Oleksandr, whose membership, besides bishops, also included Archpriest M. Maliuzhynskyi and Prof. I. Wlasowsky as members of the Administration — representatives from the clergy and faithful. The commission developed the foundations for an understanding and liquidation of the church schism and proposed to delegate Archbishop Nikanor and Bishop Mstyslav for negotiations with Metropolitan Oleksiy. The bishops agreed with the commission's proposals, and Archbishop Nikanor and Bishop Mstyslav immediately departed for the Holy Pochayiv Lavra, where Metropolitan Oleksiy was then residing.

Already in a letter dated June 29, 1942, Metropolitan Oleksiy had written to Bishop Polikarp: "If the characteristic of a Ukrainian is quarreling and discord, then both sides have already passed the test of being 'Ukrainian,' and it is time to stop dividing into Ukrainians and Muscovites. The latter no longer exist, for we all know how to quarrel, and therefore we must show that we also know how to live in harmony. I propose to gather somewhere for a joint conference, three, let us say, from each side. At that conference, everything can be discussed and some kind of order reached. Going to this conference, one should not think of subordinating one to the other: if need be, one can renounce what one has now, if only it be of benefit to the Holy Church"... Thus, psychologically, Metropolitan Oleksiy was prepared for conciliatory discussions.

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His negotiations with Archbishop Nikanor and Bishop Mstyslav, delegated by the episcopate of the Autocephalous Church, quickly concluded with the signing of the following document of historic importance:

ACT. In the Year of Our Lord 1942, on the 8th day of October. The Holy Pochayiv Lavra. We, the undersigned, His Most Reverend Eminence Metropolitan Oleksiy and the representatives of the Sobor of Bishops of the Holy Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Church, authorized by resolution of the Sobor of Bishops — Archbishop Nikanor and Bishop Mstyslav — have drawn up this Act concerning the following:

Having taken into consideration that the existing division of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine into two directions is fatally affecting the life of the Church and the Ukrainian people, and is having a demoralizing effect on the faithful and indirectly a negative effect on the cause of peace and order, we have resolved to put an end to the church disunion on the following principles:

1) We recognize that de facto the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church already exists.

2) The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church has communion with all Orthodox Churches through His Beatitude, the Most Blessed Metropolitan Dionisiy, who until the Ukrainian Local Sobor serves as Locum Tenens of the Kyivan Metropolitan Throne.

3) The supreme organ of governance of the UAOC until the All-Ukrainian Local Sobor shall be the Sacred Sobor of Bishops of Ukraine, which governs the church life of Ukraine through the Sacred Synod.

4) The Sacred Synod shall consist of the five senior bishops of Ukraine, namely: His Most Reverend Eminence Oleksandr, Metropolitan of Pinsk and Polissia; His Most Reverend Eminence Oleksiy, Metropolitan of Volyn and Zhytomyr; His Most Reverend Eminence Metropolitan Polikarp, Archbishop of Lutsk and Kovel; His Most Reverend Eminence Symon, Archbishop of Chernihiv and Nizhyn; and His Most Reverend Eminence Nikanor, Archbishop of Chyhyryn. The duties of Secretary of the Sacred Synod, as well as of Deputy for an absent Member of the Synod, shall be performed by His Grace Mstyslav, Bishop of Pereiaslav.

5) The Sacred Synod at its first session shall consider all questions connected with the unification, such as: the distribution of dioceses and cathedras among all existing bishops, and shall definitively resolve all matters not provided for by this Act.

6) The first session of the Sacred Synod shall be convened by the senior metropolitan by consecration, indicating the day and place of the session.

7) All differences of a canonical character that had caused the disunion have been examined by us and no longer exist.

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8) A copy of this Act shall be immediately distributed to all bishops of the united Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church by Their Most Reverend Eminences Oleksiy and Polikarp, with an order for the immediate announcement of this Act in all churches of Ukraine and an order to immediately cease the prayerful disunion. After the reading of this Act in all churches of Ukraine, a thanksgiving moleben to the Lord shall be served for the gift of mutual understanding and unification.

Signed at the Holy Pochayiv Lavra on the 8th day of October 1942. Oleksiy, Metropolitan of Volyn and Zhytomyr. Nikanor, Archbishop of Chyhyryn. Mstyslav, Bishop of Pereiaslav.

After the signing of the "Act of Unification," Metropolitan Oleksiy crossed himself, wept, and said that a heavy burden had fallen from his soul; he then invited the hierarchs to the Dormition Lavra Cathedral, where vespers happened to be in progress, and ordered the service temporarily suspended; the hierarchs entered the altar, venerated the holy throne; Metropolitan Oleksiy ordered that the icon of the Pochayiv Mother of God above the royal doors be lowered; all three venerated the holy icon, and then also the Footprint of the Most Pure on the stone in the cathedral. Through these joint prayerful acts, the hierarchs of the Autonomous and Autocephalous Churches entered into prayerful communion, testifying to the unification of the Churches into one Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

From Pochayiv, Archbishop Nikanor returned to Lutsk with the joyful news that "there is no longer an Autonomous Church." Metropolitan Polikarp immediately issued an epistle to the clergy and faithful of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, in which he shared the great joy over the cessation of the disunion in the Church in Ukraine and ordered thanksgiving molebens to the Lord to be served in all churches. On October 12, he sent notification to the Reichscommissar of Ukraine about the unification of the Churches accomplished on October 8, 1942, into one Ukrainian Autocephalous Church.

In the cathedral of the city of Lutsk, the Act of Church Unification was announced and a moleben served on October 18. From all parts of Ukraine, reports began arriving to Metropolitan Polikarp about the great joy that filled the hearts of the faithful when they heard about the church unification from the Act announced by the clergy of the Autocephalous Church. The Ukrainian press abroad (Nova Doba, Ukrainska Diisnist, Ukrainsky Visnyk) joyfully greeted the church unification in Ukraine; in the local Ukrainian-language press, however, German censorship did not permit publication of either the Act of Unification itself or even a chronicle notice about the church unification.

From Warsaw, Metropolitan Polikarp received congratulations from Metropolitan Dionisiy, Archbishop Paladiy, Protopresbyter P. Pashchevsky, and others. Metropolitan Dionisiy also congratulated Metropolitan Oleksiy, expressing hope that he would soon receive his epistle to the clergy and people on the occasion of the Act of Unification.

The Act of Unification was also joyfully received among many of the clergy of the Autonomous Church, but soon general astonishment

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was caused by the fact that in the churches of the Autonomous Church, the Act of October 8, 1942, was not announced, thanksgiving molebens were not served, and not even any notification about this act was sent by the bishops of the Autonomous Church. Only at the end of October did the Kremenets Spiritual Consistory circulate a notice (dated October 29, 1942, No. 3127), in which it informed "all the most reverend clergy of Ukraine" that on October 8, 1942, two delegates from the "Lutsk orientation" had appeared before Metropolitan Oleksiy, with whom an act was signed "which must be regarded as an act of a commission for the unification of the two directions, because according to the 34th Apostolic Canon and the 2nd Canon of the Second Ecumenical Council, such important matters as unification can be accomplished only with the consent of the entire episcopate of the church region"; therefore "the commission's act has been distributed to the bishops (of the Autonomous Church) so that each may express his view and conclusion upon it." "Until the act of unification is confirmed by our hierarchs," the circular concluded, "the position of our holy Church remains in its previous state."

As it turned out, the act of church unification of October 8, 1942, met with a negative response both from the bishops of the Autonomous Church (not all of them) and, most importantly, from the German administration. The bishops ostensibly proceeded from "canonical" motives. A memorandum submitted to Metropolitan Oleksiy by Archbishop Symon, Bishop Panteleimon, and Bishop Veniamin spoke of "indignation among the faithful" and the "oppressive impression and even scandal" that arose because Metropolitan Oleksiy, by signing the "act," had "thereby entered into communion with the Lypkivtsi, whom he had previously rightly recognized as heretics." Therefore, the Synod of the Autonomous Church, composed of the three named above (without its chairman Metropolitan Oleksiy), resolved to request Metropolitan Oleksiy to withdraw his signature from the so-called "Act of Unification," to inform the flock of this by a special epistle, and also resolved to propose that Metropolitan Oleksiy resign his title of Exarch of All Ukraine, and that the higher church governance of the Autonomous Church be concentrated in the Synod, which "until now had been unable to commence its work for unexplained reasons."

The brief seventh article of the "Act of Unification" — "All differences of a canonical character that had caused the disunion have been examined by us and no longer exist" — reduced to nothing all the clamor of the autonomists about "heresies" and "heretical contrivances" of the hierarchy of the Autocephalous Church. For his bishops, who had themselves, having fallen into a church schism, most extensively wielded in the church struggle in Ukraine these accusations of the Autocephalous Church of "heresy" for receiving Lypkivtsi priests "in their existing rank," Metropolitan Oleksiy in a letter dated October 12, 1942, now delivered a lecture on the practice of the ancient Church of Christ, when — the metropolitan wrote — even heretical Arians and Iconoclasts were received in their existing rank, when even hierarchs such as Meletius of Antioch and Cyril of Jerusalem, who had been consecrated by Arians, after being received in their existing rank were members of the Second Ecumenical Council, and Saint Meletius was even Chairman of that Council.

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There can be no doubt that if the German authorities had taken note of the notifications from both Metropolitan Polikarp and Metropolitan Oleksiy about the pacification of the churches in Ukraine and that henceforth there was only one Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine, none of the autonomist bishops would have dared to protest against the Act of Unification of October 8, 1942. But as soon as the Germans, by immediately prohibiting the press from publishing even a report about the accomplished church unification in Pochayiv, revealed their negative attitude toward the matter of unification, this attitude emboldened the bishops of the Autonomous Church — fanatical Moscophiles like Panteleimon Rudyk, Russians like Archbishops Symon and Antoniy — and they came out against their own metropolitan and exarch Oleksiy, who until that time had been for them the highest canonical authority, after whom they merely repeated all manner of canonical "contrivances" about "heretical Lypkivtsi."

Thus Metropolitan Oleksiy overestimated his strength and authority in the Autonomous Church when, in such a decisive form, he signed on October 8, 1942, the liquidation of that Church by uniting it with the Autocephalous. Metropolitan Oleksiy did not take into account the position of the German authorities — or rather, did not suppose that this regime so feared any centralized strong organization in the Ukrainian people, even if it were the One Church — and based its danger in Ukraine on the old imperialist principle: "divide and rule."

Seeing his mistake, Metropolitan Oleksiy soon after the signing of the "Act of Unification of October 8, 1942" gave it a different interpretation than what was written in it, sending copies of the act to his bishops only for their "approval or any remarks or amendments," while writing that he had also declared to the delegates from the episcopate of the Autocephalous Church: "I must forward the conversation of October 8, as well as the Act of Unification itself, for the approval of the Reverend bishops of our sobor of bishops"... (Letter dated October 12, 1942, No. 3024). Neither Archbishop Nikanor nor Bishop Mstyslav had heard of any such declaration by Metropolitan Oleksiy; on the contrary, in letters from Kyiv to Bishop Polikarp, Archbishop Nikanor on October 11 and Bishop Mstyslav on October 12 advised "absolutely not to delay the announcement of the 'Act of Unification' in the churches," because "time is critical."

Having been summoned, apparently, in the matter of church unification to the Reichscommissariat in Rivne, Metropolitan Oleksiy was received there on October 23 by the chief Paltso, to whom the matter of unification was also represented as not yet concluded: the act of October 8, 1942, was said to be only an "act of a unification commission" containing a "project" of terms for unifying the two church directions in Ukraine, which "project requires for its realization the consent of the entire unifying episcopate." Chief Paltso ostensibly welcomed such a "step" toward unification, declared that the church must be apolitical, that more important matters should henceforth be decided "in understanding with the authorities," and that the content of responses received from the bishops of the Autonomous Church was to be reported by the metropolitan personally at the Reichscommissariat. About this

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audience at the Reichscommissariat, Metropolitan Oleksiy informed his bishops by letter dated October 29, 1942, with an order to expedite their responses; on the same date, the aforementioned circular of the Kremenets Consistory was distributed to the clergy of the Autonomous Church, explaining that the Act of October 8, 1942, was supposedly merely a project of a unification commission.

Only rumors were reaching the Administration in Lutsk about the new interpretation by Metropolitan Oleksiy of the Act of Unification he had signed, not verified facts. In this situation, Metropolitan Polikarp, guided by the lofty idea of church peace for the good of the Ukrainian people, decided to make a journey to Kremenets for a personal meeting with Metropolitan Oleksiy. In the cold autumn weather, in a simple peasant cart — for he had no other means of transportation — the nearly 70-year-old Archpastor made this journey from Lutsk to Kremenets and back.

The meeting with Metropolitan Oleksiy at the Kremenets Epiphany Monastery took place on November 11–12. From the personal conversations, it became clear that the Act of Unification, drafted, as is evident from its text, in categorical and definitive form, was indeed now being interpreted by Metropolitan Oleksiy only as a "project of unification." Despite this, Bishop Polikarp came away from the conversations with the impression that Metropolitan Oleksiy "firmly stood on the ground of unification," was awaiting the remaining responses from his bishops in order to present the entire matter to the German authorities. "Although some bishops had already spoken against the unification (Bishops Panteleimon, Leontiy, Ioann Lavrynenko), there was nevertheless the impression that the majority of the autonomist bishops would be for unification."

The report to the German authorities at the Reichscommissariat took place on November 27, 1942. In a letter to his bishops dated December 15, 1942, No. 3605, Metropolitan Oleksiy wrote: "On November 27 of this year, my conference with a representative of the highest civil authority in Ukraine on the matter of unification took place. I reported the content of the responses of all our Reverend bishops to the known act of October 8 of this year, and also emphasized the almost universal desire of our episcopate to resolve the unification matter at a Sobor of Bishops of the Exarchate. In the further conversation, it turned out that a Sobor of Bishops of the Exarchate cannot take place until the end of the war, when all of Ukraine is liberated and peace reigns there. Thus, the canonical resolution and formalization of the matter of unification is suspended until the end of the war, and the act of October 8 of this year is suspended until its consideration at the first post-war Sobor of Bishops of the Exarchate... One must think," Metropolitan Oleksiy concluded regarding the unification, "that the Lord is giving time to worthily prepare and sacredly complete the great idea of church unification." (Emphasis ours).

Later, the "Explanation" became known which, following the wishes of the German authorities, Bishop Oleksiy presented to the representative of the authorities at that same conference of November 27, 1942: "Only out of courtesy did I accommodate Metropolitan Polikarp's attempt to unite the two church directions. In the position of a prince of the Church and a Christian, I felt it incumbent not to reject this proposal. I had no doubt at the moment

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of the protocollary unification that the majority of the bishops subordinate to me would not approve the unification and would reject it. Until now, the majority of bishops have demanded the convening of a Sobor... At present, I am firmly convinced that at a Sobor there would certainly not be a majority for the project of unification, and for this reason I am of the opinion that the convening of a Sobor would yield no positive results. I consider the convening of such a Sobor undesirable, in order to avoid further church disagreements. By such a disposition of the matter, the good intentions regarding unification in the interest of church order will not be damaged, but only postponed until the time when Ukraine is liberated and brought to a time of peace. Oleksiy, Metropolitan of Volyn and Zhytomyr, Exarch of Ukraine."

Metropolitan Polikarp, in a letter to the bishops of the Autocephalous Church dated January 6, 1943, No. 6, wrote: "I am hereby sending for your information a copy of Metropolitan Oleksiy's letter to the bishops of the Autonomous Church dated December 15, 1942. As you can see, this letter is currently the last word of the episcopate of the Autonomous Church regarding the Act of Unification of October 8, 1942. For us, who were the first to take steps to end the schism in the Orthodox Church in Ukraine — which arose in Western Ukraine as a result of the Muscovite-Bolshevik occupation — it remains to be faithful to the idea of autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and to instill this idea in the clergy and faithful, and this will simultaneously be the removal from our Church of the politics by which, for centuries, Moscow has engaged in it for the purpose of Russification of our people through the Church. Obviously, with opponents of this idea, whatever they may call themselves — whether autonomists or exarchists — we shall not find a common language, but whoever among them desires unification with us not in word but in deed, for the sake of church peace and the good of the faithful people, with them we shall gladly cooperate, without waiting for the former 'sobor of bishops of the exarchate'"...

Metropolitan Dionisiy, regarding the sad fate of the "Act of Unification," wrote to Metropolitan Oleksiy in a letter dated January 20, 1943: "The so clear Pochayiv act is now being arbitrarily and strangely interpreted, especially by you, which becomes simply eerie... Of course, one cannot underestimate external factors (meaning the German authorities — I.V.) that sometimes impede our very good intentions and plans... But in any case, you yourself should in no way have departed from the correct path that you chose in Pochayiv on October 8"...

The matter of the unification of the Autocephalous and Autonomous Churches in Ukraine, which the German authorities took care to prevent, provoked even greater distrust from the occupation authorities toward church circles in Ukraine, especially toward the hierarchy of the Autocephalous Church as a national Ukrainian one. It turned out that the Germans were outraged that the bishops of the Autocephalous Church dared, without prior consultation with them, to initiate conciliatory steps for establishing church peace — especially when permission from the German authorities to hold a sobor of those bishops had not been granted.

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Seeking to determine who could be the chief initiator of this "political," as representatives of the authorities put it, action of unification, the authorities directed their full odium first of all against Bishop Mstyslav, who had already earlier "disobeyed" and had not departed for Rostov-on-Don, nor for Stalino (Yuzivka), nor for Voroshilovhrad (Luhansk). The head of the political department in the General-Commissariat of Volyn-Podillia directly declared to the Bishop-Administrator that Bishop Mstyslav had been consecrated as bishop, supposedly, in order "to make politics for him in the Church." His participation in the delegation to Metropolitan Oleksiy confirmed the German authorities in this conviction.

Soon after Archbishop Nikanor, upon his return to Kyiv, was summoned to the Gestapo, where he was informed that the authorities did not recognize the unification of the Churches carried out without consultation with the authorities, Bishop Mstyslav was summoned to Rivne, where the Deputy Reichscommissar Dargel made a whole series of accusations against him. This conversation ended with Bishop Mstyslav being arrested.

From this began the travails of Bishop Mstyslav, which lasted nearly a year, until the Germans' departure from Kyiv during their retreat westward. The bishop was transported to Chernihiv, and from there, after two and a half months, to the city of Pryluky in the Poltava region, where he remained in exile for four months, obligated to report at all times; the German authorities forbade him from conducting divine services. Hieromonk Ivan (in the world, Platon Chyrva, former cell-attendant of Bishop Polikarp) accompanied the bishop and voluntarily remained with him in exile.

When, with the approach of the Soviet front, remaining in Pryluky became dangerous, Bishop Mstyslav was permitted to travel to Kyiv, where he was obligated at first to report daily, and then twice a week, to the Gestapo. Metropolitan Polikarp appealed, demanding Bishop Mstyslav's release, to Reichscommissar Koch, to the main Gestapo command, and to Minister Rosenberg for the entire occupied East, taking the bishop — so dangerous to the Germans, apparently — under his personal surety; he particularly protested against the prohibition of the bishop from conducting divine services, which according to the canons of the holy Church can be imposed only by ecclesiastical, not secular, authority. The Bishop-Administrator received no response whatsoever from the German authorities to these letters. That authority did not even consider it necessary to inform the metropolitan even once about where and for what offenses it had transported the bishop of the Autocephalous Church in Ukraine. Only the Germans' flight from Ukraine put an end to Bishop Mstyslav's sufferings.

Such was the history of the failed Church Unification in Ukraine in the Year of Our Lord 1942. The historian cannot fail to see in it once again the fateful role of the hostile interference by the Ukrainian people's German occupation administration in the cultural-spiritual life of Ukraine.

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7. Interference of the German administration in the internal structure of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The case of Bishop Fotiy Tymoshchuk; the decree to him of the Zhytomyr General-Commissar. The letter of Metropolitan Polikarp to the Reichscommissar of Ukraine dated December 7, 1942. Violation by the German authorities of the fundamental canons of the Orthodox Church regarding Church governance. The chasm between the German authorities and the Ukrainian people. Unworthy attacks by the Muscovite church hierarchy against Metropolitan Polikarp. Responses to these attacks by Orthodox hierarchs in Ukraine. Did Bishop Polikarp subordinate himself to the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergiy?

The German administration's fear of any centralized organization among the Ukrainian people — even if such an organization were the One Church — dictated to the German authorities the prohibition of the unification in Ukraine of the autocephalists and autonomists into one Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. This same fear, combined with the intensification of distrust not only toward Metropolitan Polikarp but also toward Metropolitan Oleksiy, provoked further steps by Koch's administration to reorganize the church governance of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

As it turned out, even before the departure of the bishops of the Autocephalous Church for Lutsk for the planned Sobor of Bishops of October 2–9, 1942, Bishop Nikanor in Kyiv had been presented with a demand that he not subordinate himself to Archbishop Polikarp as Administrator of the Autocephalous Church, but to the General-Commissar of Kyiv. Bishop Nikanor rejected this demand (Archpriest A. Dubliansky, op. cit., p. 43).

A month later, already after the "Act of Unification of October 8, 1942," not recognized by the Germans, Archbishop Mykhail (the rank of archbishop was conferred upon Bishop Mykhail by Metropolitan Polikarp at the beginning of November 1942) was summoned on November 12, 1942, to the General-Commissariat in Mykolaiv. With great difficulty, riding on freight car brake platforms — since the Germans provided no means of transportation — the Archbishop made his way to Mykolaiv; at the General-Commissariat, he was received by some referent; from this referent he heard the declaration that the authorities "do not recognize the Act of Church Unification of October 8, 1942" and that the authorities themselves would unite the churches after the end of the war.

After this, the referent gave Archbishop Mykhail a written order from the Mykolaiv General-Commissar to the effect that Metropolitans Polikarp and Oleksiy were deprived of the right to interfere in the church life of other general-commissariats beyond their own where they had dioceses, and bishops of those general-commissariats were forbidden to carry out the directives of Metropolitans Polikarp and Oleksiy; the bishops were answerable only to the general-commissars.

At the same time, Archbishop Mykhail was ordered to move from Kirovohrad to Mykolaiv no later than December 12, 1942, and on November 20, 1942, Archbishop Mykhail received a letter from the General-Commissariat informing him that the General-Commissar did not recognize his title of "archbishop," because the title had been conferred by the metropolitan, who had no right to administer in the Mykolaiv general-commissariat;

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to confer the title of archbishop "can only be done by the General-Commissar as a reward for merit."

At that time, the German authorities did not yet directly inform either Metropolitan Polikarp or Metropolitan Oleksiy about the prohibition against their ecclesiastical administration beyond the General-Commissariat of Volyn-Podillia.

Archbishop Mykhail informed the Bishop-Administrator about the action of the Mykolaiv General-Commissar, and toward the end of that same November 1942, the Administration learned of a similar action by the Zhytomyr General-Commissar, whose administration also included the Vinnytsia oblast with the city of Vinnytsia. To Vinnytsia, as was already mentioned above, Bishop Fotiy Tymoshchuk had been delegated by Bishop Polikarp, having been consecrated as bishop on May 10, 1942, in Kyiv, as a candidate for the episcopate sent by Bishop Polikarp.

But some two months after his consecration as bishop, unfavorable rumors began reaching the Administration about Bishop Fotiy's past — that he had been deprived of the sacred rank already in 1934 by the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland. The rumors found full confirmation in the records of the Holy Synod in the case of Priest Pylyp Tymoshchuk, sent to the Administration from Warsaw by Metropolitan Dionisiy.

As Metropolitan Dionisiy later wrote (on January 20, 1943) to Metropolitan Oleksiy, Tymoshchuk "deceitfully attained the episcopate," for the reason that "you (Metropolitan Oleksiy) arbitrarily and unlawfully restored him in his sacred rank... The case of the deprivation of the sacred rank of Fr. Tymoshchuk could have been entirely unknown to Metropolitan Polikarp. You should have remembered this"...

Indeed, Metropolitan Oleksiy had an excellent memory, and it is hard even to suppose that he, through whose hands — as chancellor of the Holy Synod and also as Volynn hierarch from mid-April 1934 — the entire Tymoshchuk case had passed, could have forgotten it.

The matter was as follows: Priest Pylyp Tymoshchuk, who in the spring of 1932 had illegally crossed the Polish-Soviet border from Eastern Volyn, ostensibly fleeing from the Bolsheviks, received in Poland an appointment to a parish first in the Vilnius region and soon after in Volyn. In December of that same year 1932, he was arrested by the Polish authorities as suspected of military espionage on behalf of the USSR. The preventive detention during the investigation lasted a year and a half, during which Tymoshchuk sat in the Rivne prison. In May 1934, Tymoshchuk was tried, together with his accomplices, by the Rivne District Court; Pylyp Tymoshchuk was sentenced to 12 years of penal imprisonment "for espionage activities on behalf of the USSR, for which purpose he had come to Poland"; the sentence simultaneously deprived Tymoshchuk of civil rights. The Prosecutor's Office of the Rivne District Court sent a copy of the Tymoshchuk case to the ecclesiastical authorities of the Orthodox Church, and as a consequence of the above court sentence, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland stripped Tymoshchuk of his priestly rank.

Tymoshchuk served his sentence in the Drohobych prison, from which he was released by the Soviet authorities in November 1939, when the latter, under the German-Soviet agreement, occupied Western Ukraine. That same November, Tymoshchuk appeared before Archbishop Oleksiy

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in Kremenets and, evidently as one who had "suffered" under Poland and was "meritorious" before the current Soviet authorities, began to demand the restoration of his priestly rank and appointment to a parish. The Consistory was compelled to annul the resolution of the Holy Synod and restore Tymoshchuk's priestly rank, and under the same fear of the new authorities, Archbishop Oleksiy confirmed the Consistory's resolution on November 17, 1939, and appointed Tymoshchuk to a parish first in Volodymyr-Volynskyi and then in the town of Olyka, where he also entrusted him with the duties of dean.

In this position Bishop Polikarp found Tymoshchuk when, with the arrival of the German authorities, he became — by virtue of Metropolitan Dionisiy's decree of August 11, 1941 — from a vicar the diocesan hierarch of the Lutsk-Kovel diocese.

Having received from Warsaw the documents in the case of Bishop Fotiy from 1934, as well as new information about his second (civil) marriage, Metropolitan Polikarp, having suspended Bishop Fotiy from sacred ministry on the basis of the resolution of the bishops at the gathering in Lutsk on October 6, 1942, placed him under the judgment of the bishops of the Church. Bishop Fotiy, however, did not obey the metropolitan's prohibition; he continued in Vinnytsia both to celebrate divine services and to administer, embarking on an anti-canonical path that leads, according to the 28th Apostolic Canon, to excommunication from the Church.

About his directives regarding Bishop Fotiy, with a detailed explanation of when and for what Fr. Tymoshchuk had been deprived of his rank, the Metropolitan-Administrator informed, by letter dated November 4, 1942, both the Reichscommissar of Ukraine and the Zhytomyr General-Commissar.

At the end of that same November, Bishop Fotiy sent from Vinnytsia a brief note to the Administrator, in which he called the Metropolitan a "traitor of Ukraine" and himself a "fighter for the Ukrainian Church," and attached a copy of the "decree" addressed to him, Bishop Fotiy, from the Zhytomyr General-Commissar Leyser, "for the information" of the Administrator.

The main content of this lengthy "decree" was the same as what had been presented to Archbishop Mykhail in the Mykolaiv general-commissariat. "The Reichscommissar," writes General-Commissar Leyser in the decree to Bishop Tymoshchuk, "informs you through me that henceforth you, as bishop, are subordinate directly to the General-Commissar and will receive directives that pertain to you only from me. The Reichscommissar has never recognized the administration of Metropolitan Polikarp. You, Bishop, are thereby the highest representative of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in my general district... By the authority of the General-Commissar, I temporarily appoint you to the office of bishop and can assure you that after the completion of a year, I will give you a permanent appointment, provided it finds justification in your activities and is met with approval by the Reichscommissar... In all your actions, you are responsible only to the General-Commissar as the highest representative of the German Reich in the General District, and to your own conscience. I wish you in your activities and in the interests of the German and Ukrainian peoples complete

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success... Pray with the flock entrusted to you for the success of German arms"...

After a meeting at the Administration, Metropolitan Polikarp sent to the Reichscommissar of Ukraine a letter dated December 7, 1942, in which he resolutely protested against the violation by the German authorities of the sacred canons of the Orthodox Church, against the shattering of the unity of the Church along general-commissariat lines, when this Holy Ukrainian Orthodox Church, since the time of its organization under Holy Prince Volodymyr the Great, had been one Church under a Metropolitan and had been governed in its administration by its own church law, its own canons — instead of which, the authority of general-commissars was now being established...

As for the person of Bishop Fotiy, repeating all the data about him already sent earlier, the Bishop-Administrator wrote that he, the metropolitan, was now placed in a position where one must obey God rather than men (Acts 4:19), and therefore could not agree to Bishop Fotiy remaining on the cathedra and would not cease the church-judicial proceedings against him.

There was no response to this letter of December 7, 1942, from the Reichscommissariat. Metropolitan Polikarp, notwithstanding the "decree" of the Zhytomyr General-Commissar that granted Bishop Fotiy independence from any ecclesiastical authority, did not cease the canonical proceedings against Bishop Fotiy. Given the prohibition by the Germans of convening Sobors of Bishops, the questionnaire method was employed, in the spirit of Canon 19 of the Council of Antioch, and by their signatures the bishops of the Autocephalous Church rendered and confirmed the resolution on the deprivation of Fotiy's episcopate and on his excommunication from the Church; the clergy and faithful of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church were informed of this by an Archpastoral Letter of the Administrator of the Church dated January 6, 1943, No. 7.

He attempted to join the Autonomous Church, but they did not accept him. "I acknowledge that the deprivation of Tymoshchuk's sacred rank in Lutsk was carried out entirely correctly," wrote Metropolitan Oleksiy to Bishop Dionisiy (April 15, 1943). Despite all this, the German authorities kept the completely excommunicated former Bishop Fotiy on the cathedra in Vinnytsia throughout January and February 1943; only at the beginning of March of that year he disappeared, and where he went remained unknown. In mid-March, the German authorities released from prison Bishop Hryhoriy Ohiichuk of the Autocephalous Church and installed him on the cathedra in Vinnytsia.

On January 11, 1943, the Bishop-Administrator Metropolitan Polikarp was invited to the General-Commissariat in Lutsk, where the deputy general-commissar, Landrat, in the presence of the head of the political department, Krause, finally gave the Administrator of the Church (orally) the order of Reichscommissar Koch on the new organization by the German authorities of the structure of the Orthodox Church and its governance in Ukraine. The main points of this order were written down by the member of the Administration, Archpriest Mykola Maliuzhynskyi, who accompanied Metropolitan Polikarp at the visit to the General-Commissariat, namely:

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"In view of the present time of war and transportation difficulties, church governance is limited to the general-commissariats. The activity of the Metropolitan-Administrator himself is limited only to the general-commissariat of Volyn-Podillia. There can no longer be a Sobor of Bishops of the entire Church. There can be a Sobor of Bishops, where there are several of them, only within a general-commissariat. If there are several, then the general-commissar appoints one of them as the 'senior bishop.' In the general-commissariat of Volyn-Podillia, the General-Commissar designates Metropolitan Polikarp as such 'senior bishop' of the Autocephalous Church. The consecration of anyone further as bishop may take place only with the consent of the General-Commissar. Priests to parishes are appointed by the senior bishop only with the consent of the Gebietskommissar for a particular person. The dismissal from parishes of disloyal priests is carried out, on the motion of the Gebietskommissar, by the general-commissar, who informs the 'senior bishop' thereof. In accordance with the stated principles, a new Statute of the Autocephalous Church in the general-commissariat must be revised and submitted to the authorities. I expect," the Deputy General-Commissar concluded, "that on these new foundations the life of the Church will come to a normal state."

With this declaration by the representative of the German authorities, the audience concluded, for Metropolitan Polikarp, after what he had written to the Reichscommissar on the subject of the German reorganization of church governance in letters of December 7 and 25, 1942 (to which no responses had been received), considered it senseless to enter into any conversations or disputes regarding the anti-canonical decisions of the German occupation authorities, which so brutally trampled the principles of religious freedom and tolerance that those same authorities had deceptively proclaimed in the Order of the Reichscommissar for Ukraine of June 1, 1942.

On January 12, 1943, Metropolitan Oleksiy was summoned to the same General-Commissariat in Lutsk; he was likewise informed about the same new order of church structure and governance in the Autonomous Church, and he was stripped of his exarchate in Ukraine and appointed merely the "senior bishop" of the Autonomous Church in the general-district of Volyn-Podillia.

Thus, instead of the unification in Ukraine of the two Churches — Autocephalous and Autonomous — into one Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, the Hitlerite German authorities created, according to the number of general-commissariats — Volyn-Podillia, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Mykolaiv — five "autocephalous" and five "autonomous" general-commissariat churches, at the head of whose administration stood German general-commissars. This was an arrangement unheard of even under the caesaropapism adopted by Peter I from German Protestants in the Russian Orthodox Church, where governors (who were not of a foreign faith, as the general-commissars were) did not stand over diocesan hierarchs and did not oversee the consecration of bishops or the appointment of priests.

Thus did the Orthodox Church in Ukraine begin its life in the year 1943, the last year of the German presence in Ukraine. As we have seen,

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the German occupation authorities dug an ever deeper chasm between themselves and the Ukrainian people. Having prohibited all public assemblies, closed secondary and higher schools in Ukraine, the German authorities would not have been averse to closing the churches as well: they prohibited pastoral courses for the preparation of priests, church radas, sobors of bishops; they interfered in the celebration of church services; they did not permit the liquidation of the schism in the Orthodox Church in Ukraine that had arisen with the Germans' arrival, but on the contrary — further shattered the unity of the Church by closing the central organs of its governance in both the Autocephalous and Autonomous Churches; they utterly degraded the authority of the church hierarchy, subordinating Orthodox bishops, archbishops, and metropolitans in their governance of the Church to their barely literate — not only in matters of church policy — general-commissars...

In the light of this historical reality, these striking facts testifying to the unspeakably difficult position in which, after half a year of German occupation, the Orthodox Church — especially the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church — was placed on the "liberated" Ukrainian lands, how untruthfully, unjustly, and unworthily of hierarchs of the Church of Christ appear the acts of the hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate, headed by the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Sergiy, Metropolitan of Moscow, directed throughout 1942 against Archbishop (later Metropolitan) Polikarp, Administrator of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church.

Already dated February 5, 1942, Metropolitan Sergiy of Moscow addressed an epistle to the "Orthodox flock of Ukraine." In this epistle, the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne shared with his flock information received by him in distant Ulianovsk (in the Urals), where the metropolitan had retreated from Moscow during the war, about the actions in Ukraine of "Bishop Polikarp Sikorsky of Volodymyr-Volynskyi" — actions "of a purely political, not church character," made by him "on the orders of a political party." This was the Petliurite party; it had "in the Polish General Government called itself the 'Homeland Association of Ukraine' and proclaimed itself one of the dioceses of the Orthodox Ukrainian Autocephalous Church; a German court in Berlin, with the support of Metropolitan Dionisiy, registered this diocese." At the head of this "newly appeared group of autocephalists" stood Bishop Polikarp. The "Ukrainian autocephaly" proclaimed in an unprecedented manner "is intended to follow in the wake of the German armies, with whose help the autocephalists will subjugate the Ukrainian people to their autocephaly whether they want it or not."

"As is known," says Metropolitan Sergiy, "our Patriarchal Church, following the apostolic teaching on the origin of state authority, requires from its clergy loyalty to the Soviet government. Those who disagreed left quietly for retirement, and some fled abroad. Such irreconcilability cannot, of course, be justified from the standpoint of Christ's teaching, but it cannot be denied a certain frankness or a certain decency. Sikorsky availed himself of neither one nor the other course. He remained in our service (1939–41 — I.V.), that is, he renounced the Polish autocephaly, prayed for the Soviet government, or at least did not refuse such prayer. (Emphasis ours). Now, however, we see that Sikorsky, in so acting, was only waiting for a change in politics so as to exploit his episcopal

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office for a treasonous performance." Metropolitan Sergiy concludes his epistle to the Ukrainian flock with a call "not to be tempted by any speeches of the tempter (Bishop Sikorsky), to have no communion with him whatsoever, to hold firmly to Mother Orthodox Church and to follow the path she indicates." "And the Most Reverend archpastors of Ukraine," Metropolitan Sergiy appeals, "I fraternally beseech to stand cheerfully and prayerfully on guard and not to surrender the flock entrusted by God to wolves for destruction." By these "archpastors of Ukraine," Metropolitan Sergiy could have meant only the autonomist bishops headed by Metropolitan Oleksiy, since no others remained in the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine at that time: the "God-established" Soviet government had sent them into "retirement" in prison dungeons, camps on the Solovki Islands, and the tundras of Siberia.

The next epistle of Metropolitan Sergiy of Moscow was dated March 28, 1942, addressed to the "Orthodox archpastors, pastors, and flock in the oblasts of Ukraine still occupied by Hitlerite armies." It was a Paschal epistle, but devoted entirely to placing Bishop Polikarp Sikorsky under "canonical" judgment. Metropolitan Sergiy Stragorodsky, once a profound Orthodox theologian, but now in his old age a political marionette of the Church in the hands of the godless Soviet government, had forgotten that already under Moscow Patriarch Tikhon there had existed the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church; he had forgotten that 15 years earlier he himself, placing himself at the service of the Soviet government, had included in the price for which he sold the Church to the godless regime the liquidation of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church as well.

The Declaration of Metropolitan Sergiy to the Soviet government, in which he called upon all Orthodox clergy and faithful to "recognize the Soviet Union as our fatherland, whose joys and achievements are our joys and achievements, and whose failures are our failures," and proposed "to express the nation's gratitude to the Soviet government for its attention to the needs of the Orthodox faithful" — this shameful declaration, which outraged the Orthodox world, was issued by Metropolitan Sergiy on July 16/29, 1927 (Prof. I. M. Andreev, A Brief Survey of the History of the Russian Church from the Revolution to Our Days, 1952, p. 50). And already in October of that same 1927, at the Second All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Sobor, that Sobor "for objective reasons (i.e., at the demand of the government) removed from Metropolitan Lypkivsky the burden of metropolitan service" — from which began and soon ended the liquidation of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church before the very eyes of the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Sergiy of Moscow.

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Into the oblivion of Metropolitan Sergiy had passed this autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, and in his Paschal epistle of 1942 to the "flock in the oblasts of Ukraine," he again, as in the epistle of February 5, 1942, slanders some (nonexistent) "homeland association of Ukrainians in the German General Government in Poland" which, having created a "Ukrainian autocephaly without regard for either the canons or the rights of the lawful hierarchy (?), is breaking into Ukraine in the wake of the Germans, and while the latter, mocking unarmed people, destroy the economic and cultural life of Ukrainians, the former will destroy the age-old church order by imposing autocephaly."

"And what shall be said of the guilt of a hierarch who, having betrayed both his episcopal oath and his conscience, has placed his episcopate in the service of a criminal enterprise?"... And further, having evidently recalled his own treasonous act of 1927 against his episcopal oath in the Church, Metropolitan Sergiy slanders Archbishop Polikarp: "Now we hear that Bishop Polikarp Sikorsky has gone to the fascist authorities and repeated the long-spoken words: 'What will you give me, and I will deliver him to you' (Mt. 26:15)."

For "Bishop Polikarp's conspiracy with the fascists," which conspiracy is "treason against the people's cause" and therefore also against "the cause of Orthodoxy," Bishop Polikarp is subject, we read in Metropolitan Sergiy's Paschal epistle, to "deprivation of rank and monasticism with exclusion from the clerical estate." But pending a church trial on this matter, Metropolitan Sergiy imposes on Archbishop Polikarp a prohibition from sacred ministry as a pre-trial measure, which he proclaims in this epistle to Bishop Polikarp and to "the entire church community." If Bishop Polikarp "dares not to obey this prohibition of mine," says Metropolitan Sergiy in the epistle, then "he will have brought sentence upon himself." "Orthodox archpastors, pastors, and flock! If you see that Bishop Polikarp celebrates the sacred services or issues any episcopal directives, then know that before you is no longer Orthodox Bishop Polikarp, but the simple layman Petro Sikorsky, deprived of all priesthood and episcopal authority"...

Bearing the same date of March 28, 1942 as this Paschal epistle of Metropolitan Sergiy was also a published resolution of the Sobor of Russian Hierarchs under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Sergiy: "The conclusion of His Beatitude in the judicial case of Bishop Polikarp Sikorsky, given in the Paschal epistle of His Beatitude, is to be recognized as just and canonically correct, and confirmed by our conciliar vote." It was signed, besides the Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergiy himself and Metropolitan Nikolai Yarushevych of Kyiv and Halych, by eight hierarchs who had been installed on cathedras during the Second World War, all outside Ukraine.

Finally, bearing the same date of March 28, 1942, Metropolitan Nikolai of Kyiv and Halych, Exarch of Ukraine, who was not in Ukraine during the war and whose whereabouts were unknown, issued his own epistle to the "Orthodox clergy and God-loving Orthodox laity of the Church of Kyiv and other Ukrainian dioceses." In his

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epistle, the "Exarch of Ukraine," calling Bishop Polikarp such words as "party politician-Petliurite, not an Orthodox hierarch," "Hitlerite lackey," "renegade from the Orthodox Church," and the like, writes that he, having worked with Bishop Polikarp in Volyn in Lutsk in 1940–41, had seen how Bishop Polikarp "was saturated to the marrow of his bones with the aspiration to see Ukraine as quickly as possible under German dominion," that "his work of secret preparation to sell the Ukrainian people to German fascism, Bishop Polikarp carried out regardless of anything"... Although, while in Volyn in 1940–41, Exarch Nikolai "had seen with his own eyes how the faithful Ukrainians in all western oblasts joyfully welcomed in his person their return to the bosom of Mother Church" (the Muscovite Church), nevertheless he writes in his epistle: "I beseech all Orthodox clerics and Orthodox people of the Ukrainian dioceses to have no dealings with Polikarp, already condemned by the Locum Tenens, and to be faithful to our Holy Mother Church, lest your souls perish in eternal death."

Did these lamentations of the Muscovite hierarchy from the north reach the Ukrainian lands occupied in 1942 by German armies? The Administration of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church in Lutsk did not have them in their full texts, but the German Information Bureau (in Rivne, Volyn), which distributed reports for the German-published newspapers in the Ukrainian language, did inform about the content of the above-mentioned epistles of Metropolitans Sergiy and Nikolai — because abroad, in the West, England's information service, then an ally of the USSR, was disseminating the appeals of these epistles to Ukrainians. From the reports of the German Information Bureau, Ukrainian newspapers ran items under headings such as: "A Tool in the Hands of the Bolsheviks," "The False Game of Moscow Metropolitan Sergiy," "Sergiy's Hypocrisy Rejected with Indignation," and others.

There appeared in the newspapers statements — in response to the action against Bishop Polikarp inspired by the Bolshevik authorities through Metropolitan Sergiy — from both Archbishop Polikarp himself and from bishops of the Autonomous Church. Archbishop Polikarp, entirely not subject to Metropolitan Sergiy's jurisdiction, for he was not under his canonical jurisdiction but under that of Metropolitan Dionisiy, wrote that "the efforts of Metropolitan Sergiy to exclude me from church communion and his meddling in our church affairs prove once again how tightly he has grown together with Bolshevism and how little the church life of Ukraine lies on his heart"...

From the hierarchy of the Autonomous Church came a statement signed by Metropolitan Oleksiy and Archbishops Antoniy (Martsenko) and Symon (Ivanovsky), who, as we know, recognized themselves as being under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. But about their kiriarch, the current Metropolitan Sergiy, they wrote as follows: "Metropolitan Sergiy has long been a tool in the hands of Moscow's godless... The undersigned archbishops and bishops of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine declare before the entire world that the attacks of Metropolitan Sergiy on Archbishop Polikarp also concern us, even though we do represent a different direction within the framework of

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the Orthodox Church in Ukraine; that we also do not consider Metropolitan Sergiy a responsible spokesman for the sentiments of the Orthodox faithful in Ukraine. By his action, Metropolitan Sergiy today sanctions for Moscow the decades-long bloody Kremlin terror against the Christian religion, against the Church, and against all believers"...

It is obvious that the hierarchs of the Autonomous Church, treating Metropolitan Sergiy thus in the press, could not in their struggle with the hierarchy and clergy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church invoke the prohibitions and anathemas pronounced against Bishop Polikarp in the epistles of the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Sergiy. Thus, these epistles had no significance whatsoever in the cause of the Christian mission and the revival of the Church on the Ukrainian lands during the war years of 1942–43.

But having been subsequently published by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1943 in the book The Russian Orthodox Church and the Great Patriotic War: A Collection of Church Documents — from which the above-cited quotations from those epistles were taken — they introduced disorientation into the question of whether or not Metropolitan Sergiy and his bishops had the right to judge (even for "politics") Bishop Polikarp Sikorsky, all the more so since, in preparation for the condemnation of Bishop Polikarp, Metropolitan Sergiy muddied the waters and even drew in the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs — of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem.

Metropolitan Sergiy asserts in his epistle that Bishop Sikorsky renounced the Polish autocephaly and "remained in our service"; Metropolitan Nikolai in his epistle writes that Bishop Polikarp "served with him in the Lutsk cathedral, commemorated the Patriarchal Locum Tenens during the divine services, and participated in the consecration in Lutsk of Bishop Veniamin"; Metropolitan Oleksiy in a letter dated June 1, 1942, to Archbishop Polikarp wrote: "All of us voluntarily subordinated ourselves to the Patriarchate, sent our declarations there, commemorated Metropolitan Sergiy at the divine services, and obeyed without protest the directives of the Patriarchate"...

What the value of that "voluntariness" was for Bishop Oleksiy himself is clear from his above-cited statement about Metropolitan Sergiy, which he also had to sign "voluntarily" at the suggestion of the German Information Bureau. The prayerful communion, as well as the commemoration at divine services of the hierarchical head of the Local Church or diocese, in whose churches a clergyman of another jurisdiction celebrates, does not at all signify the subordination of that clergyman to the jurisdiction of that local head.

The most important thing in this matter is that Bishop Polikarp, as we presented above (subsection 2), did not submit a declaration of renunciation of the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland and did not travel to Moscow when summoned, just as Archbishop Oleksandr of Polissia did not, so that Metropolitan Oleksiy wrote an untruth about all the hierarchs of Western Ukraine, occupied by the Soviet authorities in 1939–41, having sent submissive declarations to Metropolitan Sergiy of Moscow.

But the surest witness to the canonical non-subordination of Bishop Polikarp to Metropolitan Sergiy of Moscow is Metropolitan Nikolai of Kyiv and Halych himself,

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who was also the Exarch of Ukraine, because he in his epistle, cited above, says: "In his time, I reported to the Most Blessed Sergiy, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, about Polikarp Sikorsky's evasion of expressing in writing his canonical obedience to the Moscow Patriarchate, seeing in this hidden special plans regarding his future church orientation. Now it has become clear that Polikarp Sikorsky was only waiting for the moment to betray the holy Mother Church." (The Muscovite Church).

Notwithstanding such a clear testimony from the now-deceased Metropolitan Nikolai Yarushevych, given to public knowledge as early as 1943, several years after the historical events of Ukrainian church life during the Second World War — when the hierarchy of the UAOC, headed by Metropolitan Polikarp, had already been forced to emigrate to the West — Ukrainian historians were found who, in the article on the history of the UPChurch sewn into the Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies published by the Shevchenko Scientific Society, allowed themselves the untruthful assertion that "Bishop Polikarp recognized the supremacy of the Moscow Patriarch" (Prof. M. Chubatyi, p. 618). A detailed scholarly analysis of this untruth by M. Chubatyi was given by Prof. Roman Smal-Stotsky in the article "In the Matter of the Blessed Memory of Metropolitan Polikarp," where he states, defending the honor of the Shevchenko Scientific Society, that "M. Chubatyi introduced into the NTSh Encyclopedia the uncritical communist thesis regarding the recognition of the Moscow Patriarch by the then Bishop Polikarp, as a thesis of objective Ukrainian scholarship operating in the free world; for this M. Chubatyi is personally responsible, and no one else." (Newspaper Svoboda, Nos. 10, 11, and 12, February 1955).

8. Further church struggle in Ukraine. The autonomists and the German authorities. The German authorities' dragging of hierarchs and clergy of the Autocephalous Church into politics. Memoranda to the authorities. The murder on May 7, 1943, of Metropolitan Oleksiy; Metropolitan Polikarp's epistle on the grave sin of murdering a hierarch; who killed Metropolitan Oleksiy. German terror in Western Volyn. The break in relations between the authorities and Metropolitan Polikarp; negotiations of the German government with Bishop Platon. Relations with the Autocephalous Church outside Volyn. The burning of churches in Volyn; victims of terror among the clergy; the martyric death of Fr. Mykola Maliuzhynskyi. The Germans' attitude toward the Church in Ukraine at the time of the consecration of bishops and the election of a patriarch in Moscow. Evacuation of the hierarchs of the Church from Ukraine during the retreat of the German armies from Ukraine. Conclusion.

It would have seemed that devout people, in whose convictions and hearts the Christian God and the Church of Christ reign above all, should have abandoned among themselves all disputes and struggle, since it had become so clear that the German side, in the form of Hitlerism, represented no Christian world in the fight against godless communism — that both these warring sides were alien and hostile to the Christian worldview and Christian morality. Especially after

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the last order of the German authorities — which applied equally to both Churches, Autocephalous and Autonomous, and testified to that authority's non-recognition of the Church as a divine institution possessing its own ecclesiastical-canonical law — one would have thought that the hierarchs of both Churches would understand the gravity of the moment and would in fact, since the Germans had not allowed formal-legal church unification, cease their enmity and struggle.

Reality showed otherwise. Far from all the princes of the Church were imbued with the Christian spirit. Separated as church units into general-commissariats, within those boundaries the autonomists, seeking and having the support of the German authorities, continued to fight the autocephalists. The population, however, considerably nationally conscious — especially in Volyn — increasingly abandoned the Autonomous hierarchy and transferred to the jurisdiction of the Autocephalous. In such a situation, the autonomous hierarchs and priests turned with complaints and requests for help to the very same German administration that had so destroyed the rights of the Church and the dignity of its servants.

The autonomous hierarchs complained to the authorities about the forcible removal in rural parishes of priests of the Autonomous Church, in which matter the heads of districts and village elders played a prominent role — who, wrote Metropolitan Oleksiy in a complaint to the General-Commissar for Volyn-Podillia (letter of April 15, 1943, No. 782), "in religious questions entirely side with Lutsk" (i.e., with Metropolitan Polikarp).

Presumably it was also clear to the German administration why the heads of districts and village elders in the church struggle sided with Lutsk and not Kremenets; for in those positions were usually nationally conscious Ukrainians, and they, obviously, could not support Moscophile priests who favored the autonomous direction. However, the German authorities supported them as enemies of everything nationally conscious in Ukraine, seeing in it a great danger to themselves. "The Autonomous Church cooperates more loyally with the German authorities than the Autocephalous Church," declared the head of the political department in the General-Commissariat of Volyn-Podillia, Krause, to Bishop Platon of Rivne. (Act dated August 16, 1943).

However, the complaints about coercion by the church authorities of the Autocephalous Church in appointing priests to parishes where a priest of the Autonomous Church was already serving were untrue. New priests were appointed only to those parishes from which petitions had been received stating that they wished to be in the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, and the priest did not agree with this will of the parishioners, opposed them, and "pulled toward autonomy." Coercion in such cases often came precisely from the German authorities, who kept the autonomist priest against the wishes and will of the parishioners.

The General-Commissariat's support for the autonomists in Volyn went so far that even to the cathedra of Metropolitan Polikarp himself, the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Lutsk, came an order to admit a priest of the Autonomous Church for the celebration of

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divine services for the autonomists in the cathedral (by alternating on Sundays and major feast days), even though the autonomists already had their own Pokrova Church in Lutsk (in the Lutsk district, this was the sole autonomous parish), which was entirely adequate for the number of Russian autonomists in Lutsk.

There were Gebietskommissars, such as those in the Shepetivka and Starokostiantyniv districts, who entirely refused to admit autocephalous priests to parishes in those districts, so that there was not a single parish there under the jurisdiction of the Autocephalous Church. On the other hand, dark figures from among the clergy ran rampant there, such as Fr. Khvedir Haidenko, who should have been deprived of his sacred rank still under Poland. Now he, in the capacity of a "district missionary" appointed by no one knew whom, "visited" parishes in the named districts and in the Zaslavl region, ordering priests to greet him "with glory," as hierarchs are greeted.

The support of the Autonomous Church by the German authorities, for which, evidently, orders had been given from the Reichscommissariat, took place in all general-commissariats. About Kyiv, from this perspective, we have already spoken. In the Mykolaiv general-commissariat, especially after the German authorities refused to recognize the "Act of Church Unification of October 8, 1942" and began wholly to favor the autonomists, parishes with mixed populations in the Mykolaiv and Odesa oblasts began to incline toward the Autonomous Church. (Letter from Archbishop Mykhail dated May 25, 1964). Archbishop Antoniy Martsenko of the Autonomous Church in that general-commissariat, supported by the German administration, even began to re-ordain priests from the Autocephalous Church when such persons were found who requested a parish from him.

With the spring of 1943, everything began to boil around. The retreat of the German armies from the East intensified the partisan movement in the rear, which gained great strength with the proclamation of the mobilization of certain age groups for transport to Germany for labor. The youth fled to the forests. The forested expanses filled with inhabitants who not only hid but acted actively, causing great damage to the occupier and making the nighttime presence of the German administration dangerous even in county towns.

Being unable to cope with the growing partisan movement, acts of sabotage, and the like, the German authorities now turned to the authorities of the Autocephalous Church — which they had only humiliated and broken apart — with demands that the Church — its episcopate and clergy — influence the turbulent sea, calm the populace, and persuade them of the necessity of carrying out the orders of the German authorities, especially regarding the departure of the youth to Germany for labor. At the same time, it was unambiguously implied that if the hierarchs, clergy, and Ukrainian intelligentsia failed to exert influence, they would bear the consequences...

Metropolitan Polikarp was the first who had to issue, at each-time orders from the General-Commissariat, epistles and appeals to the clergy and flock, knowing in advance the impotence of these calls, for the fundamental cause lay not in the ill will of the population but in the evil treatment of the population by the Germans themselves, in their foolish

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blinding by their own superiority and infallibility in politics. Presenting the drafts of these epistles and appeals at the Administration, one could more than once observe how, at news of terrible events all around, the soul of Metropolitan Polikarp was deeply troubled by the fate of the people being annihilated and bloodied as the German authorities applied the method of collective responsibility, the general liability of the population.

On the other hand, terrifying too was the fury and hatred growing among the people on the basis of current events and relations, poisoning the Christian soul of the nation. Therefore, in the metropolitan's appeals and epistles, no matter how German censorship always controlled them, there more than once passed through condemnations of cruelties not only Bolshevik but also German.

The dragging of the Church into politics proceeded not only through orders to the hierarchs to issue epistles and appeals; the clergy were also required to deliver sermons in churches in support of the evil occupiers. In the absence of national-political organizations or other institutions of the Ukrainian people in the Reichscommissariat of Ukraine (closed by the occupiers), the Church became in the eyes of the German administration the sole institution and center that represented the people and that was responsible for the attitude of the Ukrainian people toward the German occupiers.

And it was a very eloquent fact that this demand was directed by the Germans only toward the Autocephalous Church. The Germans evidently well understood and knew that the Autonomous Church, supported by them for combating the Autocephalous, had no weight or popularity in terms of its national value among the Ukrainian people. Metropolitan Oleksiy did not have to write epistles and appeals of a political character.

Nor did the German authorities turn to Metropolitan Oleksiy in the matter of conducting public assemblies, which the authorities — having earlier prohibited all assemblies — now recognized as necessary. At the demand of the General-Commissar for Volyn-Podillia, such assemblies of the Ukrainian intelligentsia had to be convened and chaired by Metropolitan Polikarp in Lutsk, and by Bishop Platon of the Autocephalous Church in Rivne.

At the assemblies, participants discussed the grave situation in the region and ways out of it. The assemblies produced memoranda submitted to General-Commissar Schoene on behalf of the Ukrainian public, signed by Metropolitan Polikarp in Lutsk and Bishop Platon in Rivne. In the memoranda, in a cautious but unambiguous form, it was stated that the current situation in the region was the result of German policy in Ukraine; that the attitude of the population toward the German army had been different when it entered the Ukrainian lands in the summer of 1941; further, the necessity was pointed out of abandoning the system of mass responsibility of the rural population for individual acts of sabotage, of a number of measures by the German authorities in the sphere of administering the law among the population, in agricultural life, of changes in school and church policy, of greater use of local Ukrainian forces in staffing administrations; all this, in the opinion of the intelligentsia, could have had a more or less calming effect on the turbulent

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moods, when it was no longer possible to think about restoring the former faith of the majority of the population in the Germans as "liberators of peoples" from Bolshevism and Communism.

On May 7, 1943, in Lutsk, under the leadership of Metropolitan Polikarp, a gathering of the Ukrainian intelligentsia was being held, at which the response of General-Commissar Schoene to the Lutsk memorandum was being read. During the reading of the response — which contained sharp criticism of the memorandum's ideas, attacked the Ukrainian autocephalous clergy sharply, and testified by its brazen tone to the hopelessness of improving relations with the Germans — the former deputy to the Polish Sejm, engineer-architect S. P. Tymoshenko, who was employed at the general-commissariat, entered the premises where the gathering was being held and quietly said something to Metropolitan Polikarp. The Metropolitan rose and announced the news received at the general-commissariat about the murder on the road from Kremenets to Dubno, in the forest near the town of Smyha, of Metropolitan Oleksiy Hromadsky. This news shook those present. There was no longer any point in deliberating over what further ideas to submit to the occupying authorities...

Metropolitan Polikarp, on the occasion of the tragic death of the Head of the Autonomous Church, Metropolitan Oleksiy, addressed an epistle to the archpastors, clergy, and faithful of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church:

"Beloved in Christ brothers and children. On May 7, 1943, on the road from Kremenets to Dubno, near Smyha, Metropolitan Oleksiy fell victim, together with his companions, to shots from a covert assassin's hand. The history of the Orthodox Church in the USSR from 1918, when the first to fall by the Bolshevik hand in Kyiv was Metropolitan Volodymyr, knows many murdered and tortured higher dignitaries of the Church at Bolshevik hands. But on the lands with Orthodox populations west of the USSR, the Orthodox Church in 25 years was shaken only once by the unheard-of crime of the murder of the blessed memory Metropolitan Yurii, in the passion of the struggle against the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church within the borders of the former Poland.

The radio (German) broadcast about the murder of Metropolitan Oleksiy reported on this crime as the work of a Bolshevik hand. But whatever that covert assassin's hand may have been, the very fact of an assault and the murder of a higher servant of the Church testifies to the impoverishment of faith in God and His truth, and to moral savagery. And therefore this fact must evoke in the Christian community great sorrow and deep reflection. For the Church of Christ and its servants are defenseless before material weapons. Their calling, their weapon, is the spiritual sword, the word of persuasion, the word of truth, the sermon. And when in history there have been instances of physical violence as a means of persuasion, of unscrupulousness in means for achieving ends, of immorality of methods in church struggle, this is a distortion of the very idea of the Church of Christ, this is a departure from the principles of Gospel truth.

In the name of this truth, seeing the impoverishment in our times of the true spirit of the Gospel (Luke 9:51–56), I have more than once called in my

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epistles for the abandonment of disputes in church life, for the union of the faithful, for peace and order, and especially with this appeal did I turn when joyfully welcoming in its time the act of church unification of October 8, 1942, which had been concluded and signed also by the now-deceased Metropolitan Oleksiy.

And now, in the presence of his tragic end, there come to mind the words of the Lord: 'Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered thus? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them — do you think they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish' (Luke 13:2–5).

A sign of the times — the tragic death of a hierarch of the Church. The Lord calls us, sons of the Orthodox Church liberated from the yoke of Bolshevism, to repentance, to true Christian brotherly love. The Lord calls all of us to be Christians not only in name.

The departed Metropolitan Oleksiy now stands before the Throne of Christ, to receive according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil (2 Cor. 5:10). It is our duty as Orthodox Christians to pray for him, that the Lord may forgive him all his transgressions, and for the good that he was given to accomplish in his lifetime as an Archpastor in the vineyard of Christ, particularly on the cathedra of Archbishop of Volyn and Kremenets (1934–39), that the Lord may grant him rest in the dwellings of His righteous ones. To fervent prayer for the repose of the soul of the slain servant of God Metropolitan Oleksiy I call the archpastors, pastors, and all the faithful of our Holy Orthodox Autocephalous Ukrainian Church."

After the death of Metropolitan Oleksiy, the General-Commissar for Volyn and Podillia ordered a Sobor of Bishops of the Autonomous Church in the general-commissariat — of whom there were six (Bishops Damaskin Maliuha, Ivan Lavrynenko, Manuil Tarnavsky, Feodor Rafalsky, Iov Kresovych, and Nikodym) — for the election of a "senior bishop" of the Autonomous Church in Volyn-Podillia. Damaskin, Bishop of Kamianets-Podilsky, was elected as the "senior." The second candidate for "senior bishop," Bishop Manuil of Volodymyr-Volynskyi, whom the German authorities wanted in this position, not long after that Sobor of Bishops, on one September night of 1943, was taken from the cathedral building in the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyi by Ukrainian partisans into the forest, where, as it later turned out, a partisan trial was held, and the partisans hanged the bishop. (Litopys Volyni [Chronicle of Volyn], Winnipeg, No. 3, 1956. Protopresbyter Tyt Yakovkevych, "1939–1943 in the Volodymyr Region," pp. 115–116).

Ukrainian partisans also killed Metropolitan Oleksiy; only this murder was accidental, not deliberate. The partisans fired with a machine gun from the forest near Smyha on the road to Dubno at the automobile of the Kremenets Gebietskommissar Müller, but it turned out that in the Gebietskommissar's car was traveling not the Gebietskommissar but Metropolitan Oleksiy with his secretary Archpriest Fedor

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Yurkevych and interpreter Zhykharev; they were traveling to Lutsk, to the general-commissariat. All three, plus the fourth — the driver — perished from the shots. This was related to Bishop Platon by one of the participants in that shooting.

Metropolitan Oleksiy was buried in the cemetery near the bell tower of the Kremenets Epiphany Monastery.

The unrest in Volyn continued to grow. The terror intensified. Villages and churches burned. In June 1943, arrests began of prominent members of the intelligentsia who had participated in the conferences under the leadership of Metropolitan Polikarp at the authorities' own commission. Rumors spread about the imminent mass taking of hostages from among the Ukrainian intelligentsia in the authorities' hope of thereby halting the growth of the Ukrainian partisan movement.

Indeed, on the night of July 15–16, 1943, in the county towns of Western Volyn, the Gestapo arrested en masse the Ukrainian intelligentsia; both men and women were arrested, though the latter, it is true, were released that same day, July 16, toward evening. In Lutsk alone, up to 70 men were arrested. Also arrested were the closest associates of Metropolitan Polikarp — members of the Administration of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, Archpriest M. Maliuzhynskyi and I. Wlasowsky, as well as a member of the Consistory, Archpriest A. Selehiina.

Drunken Gestapo agents broke into the rooms of Bishop Polikarp himself, smashing windows, and shouted at him that he was harboring criminals, but the metropolitan was left alone. Bishop Polikarp informed the general-commissar about the incident, protesting against such treatment of the metropolitan, who, upon his appointment as "senior bishop" in the general-commissariat on January 11, 1943, had been solemnly assured of "protection from the general-commissar himself."

After this, relations between the general-commissariat and Metropolitan Polikarp were broken off.

A month after the mass arrest of the Ukrainian intelligentsia — who had been transported and locked up in prisons predominantly in Rivne, the seat of the Reichscommissariat for Ukraine — on August 16, 1943, Bishop Platon of Rivne was summoned to Lutsk to the General-Commissar for Volyn-Podillia. The conversation with the bishop was conducted by the deputy general-commissar, Landrat, in the presence of the head of the political department in the general-commissariat, Krause.

After a conversation on the topic of German-Ukrainian relations at the beginning of the war and now, when the Ukrainian partisan movement was growing, the deputy general-commissar, without acknowledging any blame by the German administration for the change in relations, demanded of Bishop Platon that he influence the clergy so that they would exert a calming influence on the population: "When the war against the Bolsheviks is victoriously concluded, then the Ukrainian people will receive everything according to their deserts, but for now, above all, calm must be established locally."

Bishop Platon replied that the development of the partisan movement had gone so far that under the given circumstances, neither the bishop nor the clergy could accomplish anything by themselves for calming the population. The bishop had no arguments for calming the people: when villages were burning, churches were being burned with people inside, Ukrainian

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peasants were being arrested en masse, along with the intelligentsia and even the clergy — then with what arguments was the bishop to speak for the calming of the people? The German authorities had to fundamentally change their attitude toward the population, their methods of pacification, and abandon the application of the responsibility of parents for sons, of villages for individual peasants, and the like.

The deputy general-commissar responded to this with a question: "And what are we supposed to do when, as our soldiers pass through a village, they are shot at from the windows of houses and from barns, when we find weapons in churches? We have no time to search for the guilty, because there is a war on, and so we punish everyone where a crime has been committed"...

The bishop advised that, for calming the population, an authoritative person or authority should issue a declarative-manifesto appeal calling upon the population to maintain calm, to cooperate for the victorious conclusion of the war against the Bolsheviks, and clearly indicating what the Ukrainian people would receive after the war's end. To this, the Deputy replied that "there is no need to address the entire Ukrainian people, because in other general-commissariats of Ukraine it is calm, and only here, in Volyn, does unrest reign."

Bishop Platon pointed out that the cause of the existing unrest was not only the agitation of agents left behind by the Bolsheviks but also certain mistakes of the German authorities, which had been and continued to be made, contributing to the growth of dissatisfaction and unrest among the people.

Then the deputy general-commissar demanded in a raised tone that the bishop specify what the mistakes of the German administration were. And when Bishop Platon pointed to the arbitrary behavior in the villages of various Sonderführers and Landwirte, to the burning of churches, the torturing of clergy, and the hostile school and church policy of the German authorities toward the Ukrainian people, the deputy general-commissar shouted: "So we liberated you, and you still have some kind of dissatisfaction with us?"

Bishop Platon thanked him for the liberation by the German army but expressed the opinion that for establishing calm among the population and cooperation with the Germans, it would be very expedient if the General-Commissar would hold a broader conference with representatives of all strata of the Ukrainian population of Volyn, with whom all matters regarding the current abnormal situation could be discussed in detail and a plan of cooperation helpful for victory in the war against the Bolsheviks could be established. The deputy general-commissar promised to present the bishop's proposal for convening a broader conference to the General-Commissar and anticipated that the proposal would be taken into consideration. With this, the audience ended.

That same day, August 16, 1943, after lunch, Bishop Platon had a conversation with the head of the political department in the general-commissariat, Krause. In the conversation, Krause said that there had been many instances when machine guns, rifles, and various ammunition were found in churches, and that priests even buried killed partisans and fired from under churches at passing Germans.

Bishop Platon resolutely denied that weapons could be hidden in the churches themselves; when partisans

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used a church as a military-defensive object, they did not care whether it was a church of the Autocephalous or Autonomous jurisdiction, and in such cases the priest was not consulted.

To this, Krause remarked that there had been instances of shooting from under churches in parishes of the Autonomous Church as well, but on the whole, "the Autonomous Church cooperates more loyally with the German authorities than the Autocephalous Church."

To Bishop Platon's question of how long the break in relations with Metropolitan Polikarp would last, Chief Krause replied that this break would continue until a change occurred in the views of the priests of the Autocephalous Church, visible in the results of their cooperation with the German authorities, especially regarding the combating of partisans.

Chief Krause further remarked: "Metropolitan Polikarp on the stamp of his papers now crosses out the words 'in the liberated Ukrainian lands,' but does not cross out the word 'Administrator'; would this mean that 'the Ukrainian lands are not liberated?'" Bishop Platon explained that the deletion of the words "in the liberated Ukrainian lands" had occurred as a result of Reichscommissar Koch's order limiting the authority of Metropolitan Polikarp to only the general-commissariat of Volyn-Podillia, where, however, Metropolitan Polikarp remained the Administrator; no one had yet deprived him of the dignity of "Administrator" in the General-Commissariat of Volyn-Podillia.

In conclusion, Chief Krause of the political department said that an order would be issued to the Gebietskommissars not to create obstacles for Bishop Platon in his work.

As was evident from the interrogations during the Gestapo investigation of the imprisoned priests and members of the Administration of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, including the author of this work, the German administration accused them, as well as Metropolitan Polikarp, of collaboration and close contact with the Ukrainian partisans.

Although the deputy general-commissar for Volyn-Podillia in his conversation with Bishop Platon had said that in other general-commissariats of Ukraine it was calm, in the life of the Autocephalous Church it was not calm there either, for the authorities everywhere regarded it with suspicion. Archbishop Mykhail in Mykolaiv was also summoned in May 1943 to the Gestapo and sharply interrogated as to who he was, what goals the Autocephalous Church pursued, what content his sermons contained, whether he knew well all the priests of the diocese and how they supported themselves, whether church radas existed at the churches, and so on. Upon releasing him, they gave a strict order that he and the clergy were not to interfere in the public life of the faithful.

During the horrific year of 1943, especially in Volyn, the Germans burned churches in the following Volynn villages: Malyn, Velyka Horodnytsia, Mala Horodnytsia — of the Lubny district; Kortelisy — of the Kovel district; Derazhno, Hubkiv, Bystrychi — of the Kostopil district; Antonivtsi, Filvarky, Lishnia, Molotkiv — of the Kremenets district; Lavriv — of the Lutsk district; Biliv, Novozhukiv, Symoniv, Tesiv, Shubkiv — of the Rivne district. Entire villages were burned together with their churches, and the people were murdered: Lidavka, Borshchivka — of the Hoshcha district; Danychiv, Kopytiv

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— of the Mezhyhirria district; Romel — of the Oleksandriia district; Sinne, Pustomyty — of the Tuchyn district; Yasenych, Kolodenka, Taikury, Starozhukiv, Novostav, Orzhiv — of the Rivne district; Derman — of the Zdolbuniv district. The above list of burned churches and villages makes no claim to completeness.

In the Litopys Volyni (published by the "Institute of Volynn Studies," Winnipeg, Canada, No. 2, 1955), a list is given of persons from the clergy of Volyn and the Kholm region who "perished by a tragic death during the Second World War." Of the 83 persons on this sorrowful synodikon — which likewise cannot be considered complete — 43 priests were shot (and sometimes also burned) by the Germans; 20 were murdered by Polish partisans.

Among those tortured to death by the Germans was one of the most outstanding pastors of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Mykola Maliuzhynskyi, member of the Administration, as representative of the clergy, of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church under Metropolitan Polikarp. We have previously mentioned the courageous participation of Fr. Mykola Maliuzhynskyi, as dean of the Lanovtsi district of the Kremenets county, in the action of resistance to the Polonizing-Catholic work of military officials in Volyn under Poland (the village of Hrynky) (Section III of this Volume IV, Part 2, subsection 13).

During the era of the German occupation, Fr. Maliuzhynskyi worked initially in Kholm, where he was a member of the Spiritual Consistory, and then in Volyn, where the difficult role fell to him of representing the person of Metropolitan Polikarp in all personal dealings on matters of the Autocephalous Church with the office of the General-Commissariat. He had a good command of the German language; in the defense of the rights and prestige of the Church he always stood with dignity, but unnecessarily told the Germans much bitter truth, which in any case did not influence a change in their church policy — yet this arose from the passionate temperament and sincere nature of Fr. Mykola, where diplomacy was required.

On July 15, 1943, at 7 p.m., an automobile pulled up to the residence of Fr. Maliuzhynskyi in Lutsk; he was invited for the confession and communion of Fr. Archpriest Hlovatsky from the village of Sedmiarok, who had been sitting in the Lutsk prison for a long time. But the Gestapo did not take Fr. Maliuzhynskyi to the prison; instead, to the building of the former, under Poland, "Macierz Szkolna," where he spent a sleepless night under guard. At dawn on July 16, pale as a sheet, he was led out of that building and placed in a cargo truck where quite a number of us were already sitting, having been arrested that dawn at our residences.

When toward evening on July 16 we were transferred from the Lutsk prison to the Rivne prison, then, expecting execution on the morning of July 17, almost all of us, in a pre-death state of mind, in a large cell holding 60 persons, confessed during the night to Fr. Mykola Maliuzhynskyi...

Exactly three months after the arrest under the pretext of "ministering" to a sick priest in prison, on October 15, Fr. Mykola Maliuzhynskyi, in the prime of his strength and labors, ended his life in a martyr's death. At dawn of that day, the Germans, in revenge for a partisan attack on one of the officials of the Reichscommissariat in Rivne, shot 33 prisoners of the Rivne prison; among them was Fr. Mykola Maliuzhynskyi,

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together with Fr. Volodymyr Mysechko (a member of the Church Administration under Bishop Platon). Not only were they shot, but their bodies were burned... (In detail about Fr. Mykola Maliuzhynskyi — Bohoslovsky Visnyk [Theological Herald], organ of the UAOC in emigration, No. 2, 1948. I. Wlasowsky, "In Memory of the Pastor-Martyr," pp. 157–163).

We shall not further enumerate how many of the clergy and church activists sat in arrest in prisons and concentration camps under the constant threat of execution, nor whom the Lord saved from sudden death. There were instances when Gestapo agents, during the Divine Liturgy, burst into churches, seized men, and transported them to Germany for labor — as happened even on the first day of the Nativity in the village of Symoniv, Rivne district. And in the presence of such horrifying facts of terror by the German authorities, with what arguments, indeed, could the Church, its hierarchy, its clergy, speak to the people for their pacification?

The brutal violation of the rights of the Orthodox Church and the mockery of its holy canons in the subordination of bishops and clergy to general-commissars and Gebietskommissars, Sonderführers and various Landwirte; the interference in matters of worship; the fanning of passions in church life; the support of the church schism and the prevention of church unification; the prohibition of all church-religious publishing; the burning of holy churches; the brutal treatment of priests in the villages; the persecution, arrests, imprisonment, and shooting of clergy — all this did the Orthodox Church receive from the German administration during the German occupation of Ukraine...

And at the very same time, in the Moscow Patriarchate, new bishops were being appointed and consecrated to cathedras — up to 30 in number — when at the beginning of the German-Soviet war on June 22, 1941, in the entire Muscovite Church across the USSR, there were only 4 active hierarchs; and finally, in Moscow, in August 1943, a Sobor of Bishops conducted the election of a patriarch after 18 years of vacancy of the patriarchal cathedra following the death of Patriarch Tikhon; elected as patriarch was the hitherto Deputy Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Sergiy Stragorodsky.

Let this restoration of the Church by the godless Bolshevik authorities have been a deceitful, insincere game — but during the war, it was a convenient political maneuver that took into account the religious sentiments of the people when it was necessary to rouse them with all patriotic, idealistic slogans to a decisive struggle against the foreigner who occupied the eastern lands while giving nothing to the people there. And when the German propaganda department from Rivne dispatched to the Ukrainian newspapers, on the occasion of the election to the patriarchal throne in Moscow of Metropolitan Sergiy of Moscow, a report under the headline "The Orthodox World Condemns Stalin's Church Comedy," it was deeply mistaken in thinking that the Ukrainian Orthodox world (and not only the Ukrainian) was unaware of the "church comedy" of the German authorities in Ukraine.

"The grotesque attempts of the Moscow's new powerholders to cleanse themselves before their allies of the guilt of annihilating the entire Orthodox clergy and to justify themselves before their own

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population for the annihilation of the Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union have been unmasked in world public opinion as a shameless camouflage maneuver" — so they wrote from the German propaganda bureau in Rivne, further reporting about the election in Moscow "in a blasphemous manner" of a patriarch by order of the authorities, which "provoked in the entire Orthodox world the deepest indignation and holy wrath"...

All this was correct, but it was hardly for the Germans in Ukraine, with their desecration of the Church there during the occupation, to write about "indignation and holy wrath"...

"Between the hammer and the anvil" — thus could one describe the position of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church and its hierarchy in the era we are describing. And yet, when the historic moment of choice arrived — whether to draw closer to the "anvil" advancing upon Ukraine in the wake of the retreating German armies westward — the episcopate and a considerable number of clergy of the Autocephalous Church had absolutely no desire for this rapprochement.

True, the possibility of choice was also limited, for the Germans during the retreat applied demands for compulsory mass evacuation. But even without that — the history of the destruction of the Church by the godless Soviet authorities, especially the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church as a national Church, in the years before the Second World War left no one in doubt that Soviet declarations about the present freedom of religion in the USSR would never encompass the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

Moreover, even the episcopate of the Autonomous Church in Ukraine, which, by defending the ecclesiastical-canonical primacy of Moscow and the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine, had merits before Moscow and its present godless government, nevertheless did not, in its significant majority, believe in "religious tolerance" in the USSR, and headed by Archbishop Panteleimon Rudyk — consecrated as bishop in Moscow in 1941 — went westward.

Of the episcopate of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, only Metropolitan Feofil Buldovsky of Kharkiv and Poltava remained in Ukraine, in Kharkiv, during the retreat of the German army westward; being of an advanced age, he died not long afterward. After the departure on January 13, 1944, of Metropolitan Polikarp from Lutsk, not a single bishop of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church remained in Greater Ukraine, now occupied by Soviet troops.

In the Ukrainian Kholm-Pidliashshia diocese, as was stated above (subsection 1 of Section IV), the evacuation began in the spring of 1944, and in July of that year Metropolitan Ilarion also departed from Kholm.

Thus, no Ukrainian Orthodox bishops remained on Ukrainian lands, and the Orthodox clergy who remained on those lands with their Ukrainian flock all found themselves under the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate. A memento of the separateness of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the era since the revolution of 1917 remained in the addition to the title of the Metropolitan of Kyiv and Halych

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— "Exarch of Ukraine," an addition that the Kyivan metropolitans did not have in the Russian Orthodox Church in the history preceding the revolution of 1917. The current Metropolitan of Kyiv and Halych, Patriarchal Exarch of Ukraine, and member of the Holy Synod under the Moscow Patriarch, is Metropolitan Ioasaf (in the world Vitaliy Leliukhin, from the Smolensk gubernia, born 1903; studied one year at the Smolensk Theological Seminary, closed by the revolution; a priest from 1942 in the Dnipropetrovsk [Katerynoslav] diocese; in August 1958 consecrated Bishop of Sumy), appointed to the cathedra of the Kyivan Metropolitan, in the rank of Archbishop of Vinnytsia, by a resolution of the Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate dated March 30, 1964.

During the Second World War of 1939–1945, the most outstanding event in the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church must be recognized, without doubt, as the acquisition during that war of a national Ukrainian Orthodox episcopate: the consecration of Bishop Ilarion (October 20, 1940), performed by Metropolitan Dionisiy, Archbishop Savatiy of Prague, and Bishop Tymofiy; of Bishop Paladiy (February 9, 1941), performed by Metropolitan Dionisiy, Archbishop Ilarion, and Bishop Tymofiy; then the consecration of Bishops Nikanor and Ihor (February 9 and 10, 1942), performed, with the blessing of Metropolitan Dionisiy, by Archbishops Oleksandr and Polikarp and Bishop Yurii — these were sacred acts of episcopal consecration that gave the Ukrainian Orthodox Church a Sobor of her canonical bishops, canonically operative in that Church forevermore and guaranteeing the succession in her of the Divine Hierarchy.

SECTION V. THE UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH IN WESTERN EUROPE IN EMIGRATION

In the fifth era of the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church — an era that we call the era of the "Revival of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church" — of paramount importance, as we have already seen in the four sections of the history of this fifth era, was the hierarchical question in the life of our Church. This question, treated lightly in its significance for the national-church life of the Ukrainian people by the state governments of Ukraine in 1917–18, became the central issue at the Kyiv Church Sobor of 1921, when the godless communist regime already ruled in Ukraine. Under those circumstances, the Sobor was forced to resolve the hierarchical question in the Church by installing the first two bishops in the revived Church with a departure from the operative canons of the Orthodox Church. But when, after the terror and destruction of the Church in general by the godless communist regime, even this episcopate of 1921 ceased to exist in the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, that Church itself ceased to exist. For where there is only the flock but no God-established hierarchy in it, there is no Church

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(Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, article 10. See about this Volume IV, Part 1 of this work, p. 341).

During the Second World War (1939–45), the most outstanding event in the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was the acquisition of a national Ukrainian Orthodox episcopate on the basis of the canons of the Orthodox Church, with which was also linked the renewal on Ukrainian lands of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. But when, with the retreat of the German armies and the return of the godless Bolshevik regime to the Ukrainian lands, the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church emigrated to the West, once again the Ukrainian lands were left without that Church, as had been the case in Ukraine before the beginning of the Second World War. The clergy — those who remained in Ukraine — and the faithful of the Orthodox Church on Ukrainian lands all fell under the ecclesiastical authority of the Moscow Patriarchate.

But the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church this time did not cease its separate existence. For the hierarchy of that Church was preserved; with it was also the clergy that went into exile. The subject of this Section V of Volume IV, Part 2 of our work will be the history of the church life of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in exile in Western Europe, where in 1943–44 there emigrated, fleeing the godless Bolshevik regime, bishops, priests, and a great number of faithful of that Church.

1. The episcopate of the UAOC in Warsaw. Mutual relations between it and Metropolitan Dionisiy. The first Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in emigration, in Warsaw, March 31 – April 8, 1944. The "Temporary Provisions on the Governance of the Holy UAOC." The Paschal Epistle of the Sobor of Bishops. The German authorities' refusal to allow bishops and clergy to minister to the faithful of that Church. The Ukrainian Orthodox parish in Berlin. Evacuation transfers of bishops and clergy. The "Theological Seminar" in Breslau. The Nativity Epistle of 1944 from Metropolitan Polikarp. The Capitulation of Germany on May 8, 1945; the hierarchy of the UAOC dispersed at that time throughout Germany in groups.

With the evacuation westward of the episcopate of the UAOC, it was forever relieved of the "guardianship" of that German administration in Ukraine which, headed by Reichscommissar Erich Koch, left behind a detested memory in the history of Ukraine, and particularly in the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 1942–43.

In Warsaw, where the bishops of the Autocephalous (and likewise the Autonomous) Church from Ukraine were directed during the evacuation, they now had above them the German authority of the General Government — more specifically, the governor of the Warsaw district. Immediately, the anti-canonical order of the Reichscommissar of Ukraine concerning the subordination of bishops to general-commissars in the separate general-commissariats and their independence from the central church authority of the Sobor of Bishops headed by the Metropolitan ceased to be operative. The bishops of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church once again became a single canonical whole, as a Sobor

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of Bishops of the Local Church, and Bishop Polikarp began to be addressed in the official letters of the Governor of the Warsaw District as "Administrator of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Polikarp."

Metropolitan Polikarp, who had departed from Lutsk in Volyn for Warsaw on January 16, 1944, as well as the other bishops of the UAOC who arrived in Warsaw, were taken care of there by Metropolitan Dionisiy. The ecclesiastical-canonical relations between His Beatitude Metropolitan Dionisiy and the episcopate of the UAOC remained, with the bishops' move to Warsaw, the same as they had been before, when the bishops were active in Ukraine and Metropolitan Dionisiy was not permitted by the German authorities to exercise his ecclesiastical-canonical jurisdiction beyond the borders of the General Government. For that reason, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church and the Autocephalous Church in the General Government continued to be administratively different, although nationally it was one Ukrainian Church. Its canonical Kiriarch was Metropolitan Dionisiy, from whom had also come the appointment of Archbishop Polikarp as Administrator of the Ukrainian Church and the blessing for the consecration of bishops for that Church, performed in February 1942 by Archbishops Oleksandr of Polissia and Polikarp of Lutsk.

Thus this temporary, transitional canonical conception continued further: Metropolitan Dionisiy, with whose blessing the national Sobor of Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church had come into being, did not bind this Sobor and the Metropolitan-Administrator of the Church, who were in fact independent in the governance of the Church, while at the same time uniting them with the Orthodox East through his canonical authority as the head of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in Poland — historically the successor of the former Kyivan Metropolitanate of the 16th–17th centuries — recognized by that East.

Taking advantage of the restoration of the canonical order in the Church, Metropolitan Polikarp convened in Warsaw a session of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC; the session took place, with work in commissions, from March 11 to April 8, 1944. This was the first Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in emigration. In it, under the chairmanship of Metropolitan-Administrator Polikarp, participated Archbishops Nikanor, Ihor, and Henadiy, Bishops Mstyslav, Sylvestr, Volodymyr, Platon, Viacheslav, and Serhiy, and Archimandrite Dosyfei, as "administrator of the affairs of the Poltava diocese" (Ivanchenko; he soon left the ranks of UAOC clergy, and from 1951 was in the USA among the clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate; in May 1959 he was consecrated a bishop in New York and is deputy of the Patriarchal Exarch in America). Archbishop Mykhail and Bishop Hryhoriy were not in Warsaw.

The most important among the resolutions of this Sobor of Bishops was the resolution adopted at the session of April 4, 1944, on the "Temporary Provisions on the Governance of the Holy Ukrainian Autocephalous Church," the draft of which had been developed in commission. According to these "Temporary Provisions" of April 4, 1944, the supreme organ of governance of the UAOC, until an All-Ukrainian

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Local Sobor, would be the Sobor of her Bishops, composed of all her bishops. The Sobor of Bishops was to be convened and headed by the Metropolitan-Administrator, who was also the "Locum Tenens of the Kyivan Metropolitan Throne." As the executive organ of the Sobor of Bishops, a Sacred Synod was established composed of: chairman — Metropolitan Polikarp, deputy chairman — Archbishop Henadiy, members — Archbishops Nikanor and Ihor, secretary — Bishop Platon.

Upon the conclusion of the Sobor's session, the episcopate of the UAOC issued a Paschal Epistle to the faithful (in 1944, Pascha fell on April 16), in which it wrote:

"The Ukrainian People have traversed a heavy Golgotha throughout their historical past. The last 25 years of their existence under the yoke of godless Red Moscow were an unceasing 'Passion Week.' True, there were moments when the Resurrection was not far from us. But evidently we were unworthy of it, because once again on the broad steppes of Ukraine there reigned the demon of human malice, pride and arrogance, the demon of violence against everything sacred in the human soul, the demon of hatred toward all our national sacred values, a demon that denies even the historical life on earth and the cruciform feat of Jesus Christ...

Our sorrow is boundless. But even it can change to joy, if we become worthy that the Risen Christ be among us. This will happen when the aspiration toward resurrection becomes universal among the entire Ukrainian people... May today's Pascha remind us all of the necessity of self-perfection, of the necessity of labor, of the necessity of an honest life, of our unification around the Church of Christ"...

Finding themselves in emigration, the episcopate of the UAOC, and with it the clergy that had left their native land, soon faced the question of how and to what to apply their spiritual forces here. It was clear that their pastoral calling was one that the hierarchy and clergy had to fulfill here too, in foreign lands, where there were thousands of Orthodox Ukrainians forcibly transported to Germany from Ukraine for labor, as well as prisoners of war and refugees from the Bolshevik regime. Many of these people, who had long ago forgotten God at home, here in a foreign land, facing an unknown future, needed spiritual comfort and sought it. The ground for religious revival and the healing of the human soul was created by the terrible circumstances of wartime with its perpetual anxiety and dangers to one's own life and the lives of loved ones, and by the difficult circumstances of captivity and life in labor camps.

Therefore, the episcopate of the UAOC addressed a memorandum to the General-Governor requesting that bishops and priests of the UAOC be given the opportunity to access the masses of Orthodox Ukrainians for the purpose of spiritual-moral care, religious comfort through divine services in the camps on Sundays, through sermons, religious lectures, and the like. However, the German authorities — it is hard even to imagine from what motives precisely — did not consider it advisable to permit, let alone assist, the bishops and clergy of the UAOC to minister to their very, very numerous

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flock in exile. The central authorities in Berlin recognized on the territory of Germany only one jurisdiction for the Orthodox who, for one reason or another, found themselves there — namely, the Russian one, under the leadership of Metropolitan Seraphim (Liade) of Berlin and Germany. The exception was the sole Ukrainian Orthodox parish of the Holy Archangel Michael in Berlin, which Metropolitan Dionisiy of Warsaw had opened under his jurisdiction, and which was served by Fr. Fedir Biletsky, an emigrant from Volyn.

Only at the beginning of 1945 — that is, after the episcopate of the UAOC had already been in emigration for a year — did the Ukrainian Orthodox intelligentsia succeed, with great difficulty and after interrogations and re-interrogations at the Gestapo, in opening Ukrainian Orthodox parishes in Vienna and Prague, and even those only as branches of the Ukrainian parish in Berlin. Moreover, when the bishops of the UAOC were already in emigration in Germany and celebrating divine services with the clergy in the places of their sojourn, workers from the East ("Ost" workers) were forbidden to enter the premises where divine services were being held; priests were ordered to post notices of this prohibition on the entrance doors to the places of worship.

The rector of the Ukrainian parish in Berlin, Fr. Biletsky, taking advantage of the recognition of this parish by the authorities, traveled to the camps of Orthodox Ukrainians cast into exile as laborers, bringing them great religious comfort and spiritual joy. These journeys of the rector in the final period of those camps' existence were made in the company of Protodeacon Vasyl Potiienko, who in 1924–26 had been chairman of the VPCR. During the flight from Berlin itself, as the Bolshevik army was advancing, Fr. Vasyl Potiienko tragically perished during a strafing attack by fighter planes. Eternal memory in the history of our native Church belongs to Fr. Vasyl Potiienko as a distinguished fighter for the independence of that Church.

By order of the German authorities, the episcopate and clergy with their families of the UAOC (in their majority) remained together during the war in emigration and, insofar as various misadventures did not befall them in those chaotic times, traveled together or were transported from place to place. On July 29, 1944, the episcopate left Warsaw and was transported to the resort of Krynica, from where it was soon directed to Slovakia (Trenčín, then Bratislava). From Bratislava, on October 5, they were taken (by train, approximately 600 persons) to Germany, arriving at Kissingen, but were quickly sent back to Austria, to Graz, and then to Marburg, where they remained in railroad cars from October 17 to 29, experiencing air raids by bombers almost daily. There were also casualties from bomb explosions — Bishop Mstyslav's father, Mr. Ivan Skrypnyk, and his sister Zinaida Tanko (from Poltava), as well as the wife and daughter of Archpriest Borys Yakovkevych (now Bishop Borys of Saskatoon in Canada), perished. From Marburg, where the Germans divided the transports into groups, the episcopate of the UAOC with its entourage was transported to the city of Breslau.

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Spending nearly three months in Breslau, the bishops were able to engage at least somewhat in productive work. Here a "Theological Seminar" was conducted for improving the qualifications of the clergy; it offered courses in theological disciplines, church history, the history of the revival of the Ukrainian Church, the history of Ukraine, Ukrainian language and literature, and German language. A Commission also worked on the translation of liturgical orders into the living Ukrainian language.

On the occasion of the Nativity holidays, Bishop Polikarp addressed the archpastors, clergy, and faithful of the UAOC in exile with an "Epistle," in which he emphasized the deprivation in Germany during the great feast of the Nativity of Christ of spiritual comfort for Orthodox Ukrainians: "How many of our faithful people will hear this year at the feast of the Nativity of Christ the moving 'Christ is born — glorify Him!' How many will be able to bow before the Newborn Christ Child in a holy church, or even if not in a church, then at least at a divine service?.. Thousands of our people, and among them archpastors and pastors, were forced to leave their native land and are scattered beyond its borders. Children are often torn from parents, wives from husbands, families shattered by the terrible circumstances of a world war unprecedented in history. Therefore, on Holy Eve this year, more than one tear shall be shed among our people — both in the homeland under a new yoke, and everywhere in exile. But that tear shall be sacred. For it elevates the soul. It speaks of our love for those close to us; it testifies to our spiritual bond with our suffering people. More broadly — the tears shed on this Holy Eve are a yearning for the ideal of Christ. This yearning is salvific when it is not despair in life, but a deep sorrow for people in their fall, a striving for God's truth among individuals and whole nations... For Christ is born then in the soul of man; to Christ must weary, tormented humanity return"...

At the Nativity of 1944, Metropolitan Polikarp was in Berlin, where together with Bishop Mstyslav he celebrated the Divine Liturgy; thousands of Ukrainians gathered for that service. During this journey, the metropolitan also visited the Eastern Ministry of the Reich, where he demanded that the bishops and priests of the UAOC be allowed access to the Ukrainian Orthodox masses in Germany. The metropolitan was promised in the Ministry that the UAOC in Germany would be given the same rights as the Russian Church Abroad under the administration of Metropolitan Seraphim. Whether this belated concession would have been implemented is hard to say, but the advance of Allied forces on Germany from west and east and the terrible air attacks of Anglo-American aircraft were already bringing the end of the horrible war near.

During the evacuation of Breslau, the bishops of the UAOC were directed on January 25, 1945, to Dresden. Bishops Mykhail and Volodymyr remained there by order of the German authorities and on the night of February 14, 1945, survived the horrific destruction of that city, miraculously escaping when the building in which they were housed was also hit by bombs. Metropolitan Polikarp, Archbishops Nikanor and Ihor, and Bishops Sylvestr and Hryhoriy were transported from Dresden on February 3

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to Erfurt, from where they were evacuated to the village of Witterda in Thuringia, where they and several priests remained until the very capitulation of Germany on May 8, 1945. Bishops Mstyslav, Platon, and Viacheslav were at this time in Bad Kissingen (or near Bad Kissingen), while Archbishop Henadiy and Bishop Serhiy had traveled from Marburg not to Breslau but to Konstanz.

Thus the hierarchy of the UAOC before the end of the Second World War was scattered throughout Germany in groups, but this occurred due to purely military events. The German authorities, throughout the more than year-and-a-half sojourn of the episcopate of the UAOC in emigration until the end of the war, did not allow it to organize the church life of its many-thousand-strong emigrant flock, keeping it and the clergy in confinement and forced inactivity — which caused much harm to the Holy Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in exile.

2. Moods of piety among the Ukrainian emigration after the Second World War. The arrangement of churches and the beginnings of the organization of church life from below. The conference of July 16, 1945, in Bad Kissingen of Metropolitan Polikarp, Archbishop Mykhail, and Bishops Mstyslav, Platon, and Viacheslav. The conferences of November 10, 1945, in Munich of Archbishop Mykhail and Bishops Mstyslav and Platon with the participation of church activists, and of November 11 — of the bishops themselves; resolutions of these conferences; distribution for church administration of the UAOC of the German territory in the American occupation zone. The Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in emigration in Esslingen, March 14–17, 1946; its resolutions. The Conciliar Archpastoral Epistle of March 17, 1946.

The capitulation of the Germans on May 8, 1945, found masses of Ukrainians fleeing from the Bolsheviks who were advancing westward, themselves also on the road westward to meet the American and English armies. Those who had earlier been transported to Germany for labor awaited the arrival of those same armies as liberators. The movement of exiles from their native land continued for a long time throughout 1945. In late summer and autumn of that year, more or less permanent UNRRA camps for displaced persons began to be organized, with the registration of the displaced.

Already during their wanderings — by horse cart or even on foot — along the roads of Germany, the displaced persons, when they stopped somewhere for a longer time, did not forget Sundays and feast days, seeking a place where they could pray at a divine service. The moods of piety were extraordinarily strong among people who had survived the times of terrible Bolshevik and German terror and violence, the horrors of a horrible war that brought ruin and death equally to soldiers and the civilian population. Now, having left the Bolsheviks behind them, people did not know what would become of them amid a hostile German sea, and whether they would begin to be sent back eastward under the Allies' agreement with

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the USSR — as rumors, not without foundation, were already spreading among the emigrants.

The Ukrainian Catholic clergy, during the time of these wanderings of Ukrainian displaced persons, quickly began to organize divine services for their faithful. For German Catholic priests provided that clergy with German Catholic churches for worship services. For Orthodox Ukrainians on the road, it was difficult to organize Orthodox divine services, also because of the near-total absence among them of Orthodox priests; together with the bishops, the Ukrainian Orthodox priests had been transported far to the west of Germany. Therefore, Orthodox Ukrainians on the road also frequented Greek-Catholic divine services in the Eastern rite in the Church Slavonic language, not infrequently organizing church choirs with their own resources for those services.

When the displaced persons began to settle in places of more or less permanent residence in the larger cities of Germany and in the camps organized for displaced persons, the church life of Orthodox Ukrainians also began to be organized. This organization initially proceeded from below. Laypeople arranged churches for worship wherever a Ukrainian Orthodox priest was found among them; sometimes they summoned a priest from another locality or from some camp. Parish radas were also organized at those churches. The episcopate of the UAOC, scattered throughout Germany, at the beginning did not take part in the organization of church life.

Very negatively affecting the organization of church life of the UAOC in exile was the sojourn of Metropolitan Polikarp far to the north of Germany, in the British occupation zone near Hanover (Gronau), where Metropolitan Polikarp arrived in the summer of 1945 after a difficult life in the village of Witterda in Thuringia through the entire spring of 1945. Despite the distance, there was as yet no postal communication between the two zones, and to travel from the American zone — where the largest number of Ukrainians were — to the British zone, or vice versa, required the permission of the military authorities.

But the yearning for God and the Church of the Ukrainian displaced persons who found themselves, after the terrible world cataclysm and their shattered dreams and hopes, "by the Rivers of Babylon," had to assume proper organizational forms, since the archpastors of the Church were with their people in exile. The entire Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in emigration had to be organized.

Thus, already in July 1945, Metropolitan Polikarp established contact with some of the hierarchs of the Church, having arrived, after great difficulties in obtaining travel permission and means of transportation, in Bad Kissingen (American zone). There, on July 16, 1945, he held a conference in which Archbishop Mykhail and Bishops Mstyslav, Platon, and Viacheslav participated.

At this conference, it was first of all resolved: "To consider further that the episcopate of the UAOC remains in emigration as an organized

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hierarchical body of the UAOC, which is to act in the persons of all bishops headed by His Most Reverend Eminence Metropolitan Polikarp for the good of the UAOC, guided in its work by the resolutions of the Sobor of Bishops in Warsaw in March–April 1944 and striving for unity, concord, and love."

Acknowledged were the letters and memoranda already composed to that date by Metropolitan Polikarp regarding the position of the episcopate, clergy, and faithful of the UAOC in emigration in Germany, addressed to various dignitaries of the Anglo-American occupation authorities, to Archbishop Ioann Teodorovych in the USA, to the Archbishop of Canterbury in London, and to the International Red Cross. Archpastoral care over the Orthodox Ukrainian emigrants located in the British zone was entrusted to Metropolitan Polikarp, and in Bavaria in the American zone — to Archbishop Mykhail.

After a detailed discussion of the current position of the episcopate, clergy, and faithful of the UAOC in the new conditions of emigration, and having recognized the magnitude of the tasks before the leadership of the Church and its clergy in relation to the faithful in exile, the participants of the conference in Bad Kissingen recognized the necessity of convening a Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC as soon as possible for a comprehensive discussion and planning of the work of the UAOC in exile.

A Sobor of Bishops was not so easily or quickly convened in the conditions of the time. In the British zone, where there was no UAOC bishop besides Metropolitan Polikarp, the Bishop immediately took under his administration the Ukrainian Orthodox parishes in the camps. Archbishop Mykhail arrived in September 1945 from Schweinfurt (camp) to Munich, when the organization of the church administration of the UAOC in Bavaria commenced under his leadership. Bishop Platon in that same September faced the threat of being returned "to the homeland" as supposedly a "Soviet citizen." For a long time, he was under house arrest in Bad Kissingen, but thanks to his own resolute opposition to the illegal demand and the efforts of Bishop Mstyslav on his behalf before the military authorities in Frankfurt, he was released from arrest and the threat of "repatriation."

In November 1945, Bishops Mstyslav and Platon arrived in Munich, where, with the blessing of Metropolitan Polikarp — who himself could not come to Munich — two conferences took place under the chairmanship of Archbishop Mykhail: on November 10, with the participation of the named hierarchs, members of the Church Administration under the Archbishop in Bavaria, and representatives of parish radas at the churches in Munich and Augsburg; and on November 11 — a conference of the bishops themselves, with the participation of the secretary of the Church Administration, Ivan Wlasowsky.

At these conferences, reports were heard on the state of the UAOC in the American occupation zone, from which it was evident that the organization of the church life of Orthodox Ukrainians in this zone was gradually progressing both in the camps and outside them; there was a shortage of priests; attention was drawn to the harmful practice of priests

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moving from camp to camp without the blessing of the bishops. The subject of the first conference was mainly organizational questions connected with the publication of liturgical orders in Ukrainian translations, church-religious press, the teaching of religion in Ukrainian schools in emigration, the preparation of candidates for the priesthood, and the creation of brotherhoods and sisterhoods at Ukrainian Orthodox churches.

Given the diversity of texts of Ukrainian translations of liturgical orders, the conference approved the recommendation that, until this sorrowful phenomenon was normalized by the higher church authority, it be accepted as a rule to use and reprint the Sluzhebnik (liturgical book) in the translation of the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw, and the liturgical orders of the Trebnik in the edition of the Society named after Metropolitan Petro Mohyla in Lutsk.

The discussion on the topic of opening a higher theological school for the preparation of cadres for the priesthood, or — given the impossibility of this task under the present conditions — only pastoral courses, which was favored by the majority of the conference participants, concluded with the recommendation that a central institution for the entire UAOC in emigration be brought to life and work in the character of a "Theological-Scholarly Institute"; this institution was to develop and represent the scholarly-theological thought of the UPChurch in periodical or non-periodical publications, develop projects for theological schools with curricula for them, and approve textbooks for the teaching of Religion in secular schools.

At the conference of bishops, the hierarchs resolved to present to Metropolitan Polikarp for his information, sanctioning, and issuance of authorizations to the bishops the following distribution of territories for church administration in the UAOC in the American zone: a) in Bavaria — Archbishop Mykhail, to whose assistance, given the size of the province, Bishops Volodymyr and Viacheslav were to be assigned (for unknown reasons, these bishops, having been invited, did not arrive at the conference); Bishop Volodymyr was to serve a part of Bavaria — Bayreuth-Nuremberg-Fürth; Bishop Viacheslav in western Bavaria — Bad Kissingen-Schweinfurt-Würzburg; b) in Greater Hesse — Bishop Mstyslav; c) in Baden-Württemberg — Bishop Platon.

At the conference of bishops, it was recognized as necessary to normalize the distribution of clergy among the camps, so that there would not be several priests in one camp and none in another; it was recognized as necessary to apply immediately Canon 17 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council regarding the acceptance of a cleric by a bishop only with a letter of release from the bishop of the territory of the American or British zone in which that cleric had previously resided.

The conference of bishops, like the episcopal conference in July in Bad Kissingen, recognized the most important matter to be the urgent convening of a Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC. The desired time for the session of the Sobor of Bishops was even indicated — December 25–27, 1945 — the place for holding the Sobor — Frankfurt am Main — and an approximate program was developed, with the assignment of reports at the Sobor also to bishops who had not yet participated in the work of organizing the church

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life of the UAOC in emigration after the German capitulation, such as Archbishops Nikanor and Henadiy, and Bishops Sylvestr and Volodymyr.

The Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in emigration — the second after the Warsaw one of 1944 — was successfully convened only in the spring of 1946. This Sobor took place on March 14–17, 1946, in Esslingen (near Stuttgart), where Bishop Platon, who governed the UAOC in the province of Baden-Württemberg, then had his residence. Under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Polikarp, the following participated in the sessions of the Sobor: Archbishops Ihor, Mykhail, and Henadiy, Bishops Mstyslav, Sylvestr, Hryhoriy, Volodymyr, and Platon — secretary of the Sobor of Bishops. Archbishop Nikanor and Bishops Viacheslav and Serhiy sent justifications for their absence.

In his introductory remarks at the opening of the session of the Second Sobor of Bishops, Metropolitan Polikarp recalled what he had said at the opening of the First Sobor in Warsaw: "I am deeply convinced that unity, unanimity, solidarity, and the obedience binding upon all of us, as monks and bishops, here in emigration will unite all of us to an even greater extent, for only in unity is there strength"...

"To my very great sorrow," the Bishop continued, "these words of mine did not reach the heart of some of the bishops, and there occurred among the company of bishops of the UAOC what should not have occurred... But we shall not recall all that bad past from the life of our Church. We must place a cross upon it... A new page has now opened in the life of the UAOC under different, I would say better, conditions of emigrant life... When the German authorities did not want to recognize our Church and even forbade Orthodox Ukrainian workers from attending divine services, now the victors over Germany have recognized the UAOC as a church organization separate from other churches, and here we are, freely gathered for the discussion of our church affairs... Therefore, every one of the bishops of the UAOC must firmly consider whether the separatist actions of some bishops are beneficial for our Church and for our Ukrainian people? The Ukrainian people aspire to create their own independent state; they aspire to the unification of all Ukrainians into a monolithic, strong people. They want to have in Ukraine one, independent from neither Moscow nor Rome, native Church of their own, with their own native episcopate and clergy, such as they had in their princely times. I believe that the Ukrainian people, with God's help, will realize these aspirations. Therefore, any of the bishops and clergy who do not wish to understand what is beneficial for the Church and for the Ukrainian people, who neglect their duties that they assumed before God toward their people, their flock, and wish to go their own way — we must, in the most decisive manner, ourselves remove, in accordance with the Word of God: 'Remove the evil one from among yourselves' (1 Cor. 5:13)."

The "sincere" introductory remarks of the Metropolitan were heard, as noted in Protocol No. 1 of the proceedings of that Second Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in emigration, by the bishops "with great attention."

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The historic moment in which, for the first time after the capitulation of the Germans, the bishops of the UAOC gathered in emigration for conciliar deliberations was reflected in the following appeal of the Sobor of Bishops to the Christian churches: "The six-year struggle in defense of the just and consonant with Christian teaching coexistence of humanity has not given the world the desired results. Millions of human victims and a sea of blood shed during 1939–45 not only have not freed humanity from the threat of the ruin of Christian civilization but, on the contrary, have intensified the staging centers of militant godlessness and the destructive materialist worldview. Communism hurls an ever more distinct challenge at Christianity and its civilization. Godlessness is mobilizing throughout the entire world all dark forces for the final struggle with the Christian world... Understanding the decisive weight of the coordination of forces for the defense of the Truth of Christ on earth, the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, which is the exponent of the will and aspirations of the much-suffering Ukrainian People, appeals to all the free Christian churches in the world with a call for the joint defense of the greatest treasure of all humanity — the Church of Christ and Christian civilization and culture." (Resolution of the Sobor No. 3).

Manifesting itself outwardly in the Christian world in the above-cited resolution, presented in a communiqué to the press, the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC further recognized the necessity of the outward manifestation of its Church specifically in the Orthodox world, as a National Orthodox Church of the Ukrainian People. To that end, the Sobor resolved to address the First Hierarchs of all Autocephalous Orthodox Churches with a "Circular Informational Epistle," which, after being prepared by a designated commission, was heard by the Sobor and approved by it. This "Epistle," about which more will be said further, bore the character of a historical reference about the existence through the ages of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, about its revival with the national revival of the Ukrainian people during the revolution of 1917, and about the main events on the path of that revival until the end of the Second World War, and had as its purpose entering into prayerful communion with the other Autocephalous Orthodox Sister-Churches.

In resolving the organizational problem of the internal life of the UAOC in emigration, the Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen encompassed with an organizational network the entire church life from top to bottom, so that that life would not proceed, as hitherto, along various paths, unorganized throughout the camps. The supreme organ of governance of the UAOC in emigration remained the Sobor of Bishops of the Church headed by the Metropolitan.

At the Sobor in Esslingen, the delegates resolved to no longer use the title "Metropolitan-Administrator" of the UAOC, as this title had remained in the "Temporary Provisions" adopted at the Sobor of Bishops in Warsaw in the spring of 1944. Instead of this title, Metropolitan Polikarp was recognized as having the rights of a Regional Metropolitan in the Church, in accordance with the 34th Canon of the Holy Apostles; from this time, Metropolitan Polikarp became not merely a titular metropolitan, but

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metropolitan of the national UAOC in emigration, its primate, Head of the Sobor of Bishops and the Sacred Synod of the UAOC — these central institutions of the UAOC in emigration. The executive body implementing the resolutions of the Sobor of Bishops, and the permanently functioning central governing body of the UAOC in emigration, remained the Sacred Synod, composed of the metropolitan as Head of the Synod and three bishops, of whom one served as deputy head, another as a member of the Synod, and the third as secretary of the Sacred Synod; all three were elected for one year.

As members of the Sacred Synod at the Sobor in Esslingen, Archbishop Mykhail was elected (who also served as Deputy Head), Bishop Mstyslav, and Bishop Platon (Secretary of the Sacred Synod). Professor Ivan Wlasowsky was appointed to the position of Director of the Chancellery of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC.

The Sobor of Bishops charged the Synod with drafting and publishing a statute for Church Administrations as auxiliary bodies under the ruling bishops of the UAOC in emigration, a statute for church-parish councils under the chairmanship of rectors for Ukrainian Orthodox parishes abroad, as well as for church brotherhoods and sisterhoods at parishes.

At the Sobor in Esslingen, a new distribution of the territory of Western Europe was carried out for the spiritual care and administration of UAOC parishes by its episcopate:

British Zone in Germany — Metropolitan Polikarp and Bishop Hryhoriy as his vicar (for Westphalia); American Zone: Southern Bavaria — Archbishop Mykhail (seat in Munich), Northern Bavaria — Bishop Volodymyr (Regensburg), Archbishop Ihor — Swabia (Augsburg), Württemberg-Baden — Bishop Platon, camp in Ellwangen — Bishop Sylvester; Austria Salzburg — Archbishop Henadiy; France-Belgium-England — Bishop Mstyslav, who until his departure for one of the named countries would also care for the province of Gross-Hessen in the American Zone.

After detailed discussion, following Archbishop Ihor's report on the tasks of missionary-educational work among the faithful and the preparation of clergy cadres, the Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen recognized the necessity of creating missionary-educational departments under the ruling bishops with missionary positions attached to them, establishing pastoral and deacon courses in a more suitable city of Germany (Munich was named), founding a Theological Department at one of the Ukrainian institutions of higher learning in emigration, and organizing a Theological-Scholarly Institute. The execution of these tasks was entrusted to the Sacred Synod of the Church. Church publishing activities were also to be concentrated under the Synod, and a report on the organization of this work was delivered at the Sobor by Bishop Volodymyr. It was recognized as expedient to publish a central periodical organ of the UAOC and, where possible, periodical organs of the church administrations under the bishops.

At this same Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen, the idea arose of creating a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the free world.

After discussion following Bishop Mstyslav's report on the topic "The Current

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Situation of the UAOC in Emigration and Its Prospects for the Future," the Sobor resolved: "To charge the Sacred Synod with establishing contact with all Ukrainian Orthodox ecclesiastical centers throughout the world with the aim of uniting in the common idea of the UAOC and coordinating its practical actions."

During the proceedings of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Esslingen, news arrived from Galicia about the liquidation by the Bolsheviks of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, whose hierarchy had been arrested by the Bolsheviks already in 1945 after the German capitulation. Now, on March 8, 1946, a so-called sobor was held in Lviv, initiated by several clergy of the Greek Catholic Church; at it, in the presence of priests brought from across the region, under direct pressure from MVD (NKVD) organs, the invalidity of the Brest Union with Rome of 1596 was proclaimed, along with the union of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Galician province with the Orthodox Patriarchate in Moscow. (Dr. Stepan Baran, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. Munich, 1947, p. 141.)

The Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, on the motion of Bishop Mstyslav, in its resolution condemned this un-Christian act of forcible conversion to Orthodoxy, "directed at achieving political aims that have as their goal the denationalization of Ukrainians," and "expressed to the Ukrainian Greek Catholics its fraternal, sincere, and heartfelt sympathy."

To the clergy and faithful of the UAOC in emigration, the Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen issued an Archpastoral Epistle of the Sobor dated March 17, 1946. In it the Sobor of Bishops wrote:

"Now, in the conditions where, following the victory of the Great Western Democracies, the sacred Christian principle of genuine religious tolerance has prevailed, the Lord has granted us the opportunity to gather from various places of our wandering life and to hold the Second Sobor of Bishops of our Church. In the reports at the Sobor by the hierarchs, who already in the autumn of 1945 embraced certain territories of Ukrainian Orthodox residence in Germany under their archpastoral care, it was joyfully established that there is a strong religious uplift among our people abroad, their ardent love for the Native Church with its ancient customs and traditions of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, and the deep interest of our intelligentsia in church-religious questions. Under conditions of general post-war devastation, and even more so under conditions of the poor émigré life, the faithful and clergy have created and arranged in the camps and cities wonderful Orthodox churches; in them the exiles bring their sighs to God, strengthen themselves in spirit through warm prayers, learn the truths of our faith, pray for the eternal repose of the great sons of the Ukrainian people and all who fell for a better fate and freedom of the Fatherland, and for their relatives and dear ones. In fervent prayer to God, accompanied by the beautiful singing of organized church choirs, thousands of Ukrainian exiles find great consolation and firm hope for a better future. A deepening of their faith, a grounding of the Christian worldview in place of the materialist theories that in recent decades have

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risen against God and against His Christ — this is what the Ukrainian intelligentsia seeks in lectures on religious and church-historical themes, in discussions at religious-educational gatherings. Almost everywhere there exist parish governance bodies at the churches, in which elected parish representatives work actively together with the clergy.

All this fills our hearts with spiritual joy and strengthens in us faith and hope to look with confidence upon the work of God among our people in emigration — that church life will continue to flourish and will embrace also those places of concentration of our people abroad where it has not yet been organized. For our Native Church has extraordinary significance for us, especially abroad — the Orthodox faith of our fathers and forefathers, which will not allow us to dissolve in a foreign and differently-believing environment, and will help preserve in us and in our children our national-religious identity."

The Epistle was signed on March 17, 1946, headed by the Chairman of the Sobor, Metropolitan Polikarp, and by all the bishops who participated in the Sobor.

At the Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen, Metropolitan Polikarp also informed the Sobor that representatives had approached him on behalf of an initiative group of laypeople regarding the convening in emigration of an "All-Church Ukrainian Sobor," requesting a blessing for the work of a "Pre-Sobor Conference" that would prepare materials for such a Sobor. Metropolitan Polikarp advised those representatives to consult on this matter with all bishops, and he himself corresponded with the bishops on this subject. All bishops then expressed themselves in favor of first convening a Sobor of Bishops, at which the question of the possibility and necessity of convening an "All-Church Ukrainian Sobor" in emigration would be discussed.

The Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen recognized that the convening of a Sobor of the UAOC as a Local Sobor of that Church could not be carried out by a portion of that Church in emigration, apart from its millions-strong flock in Ukraine. As for convening a Sobor of the Church in emigration, composed of bishops, representatives of the clergy, and faithful, to deliberate on the needs of that Church in the present changing conditions of émigré life — at the present moment such a matter did not appear feasible to realize. The Sacred Synod was charged with preparing the materials needed for such a Mixed Sobor, when the appropriate preconditions and capabilities for its convening would arise.

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  1. The Sobor of Bishops and the Sacred Synod as the permanent executive body of the Sobor of Bishops — the supreme governing bodies of the UOC in emigration. Sessions of the Sobor of Bishops and the Sacred Synod. Composition of Synod members; representation of clergy and laity in the Synod. Structural forms of the internal life of the UAOC in emigration in accordance with the canonical code of the Universal Orthodox Church; the correspondence of these forms to the transitional period of Ukrainian church life abroad.

Having reviewed at the Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen the "Temporary Provisions on the Governance of the Holy Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Emigration," adopted at the Sobor of Bishops in Warsaw in 1944, the Sobor retained as the supreme governing bodies of that Church the Sobor of its Bishops and the Sacred Synod as the permanent supreme body governing the Church, executing the resolutions of the Sobor of Bishops. These supreme governing bodies of the UAOC in emigration remained in place statutorily until the "First Sobor of the UAOC in Emigration," which took place on December 16–18, 1956, in Karlsruhe (Germany), where a new "Statute of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Emigration" was adopted (Ridna Tserkva. January–February 1957, No. 27, pp. 10–14).

But in fact, the Sobor of Bishops and the Synod of the UAOC, with the intensified departure of clergy and faithful from Germany and from Europe in general, and then with the departure of the bishops themselves, and with the primate of the Church, Metropolitan Polikarp, moving to France in April 1950, ceased to function as active supreme governing bodies of the Church from the end of 1949.

Over the four years 1946–49, the following sessions of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC took place: Session II (after the first in Warsaw) — March 14–17, 1946, in Esslingen; Session III — May 12–15, 1947, in Munich; Session IV — October 23–24, 1947, in Aschaffenburg; Session V — April 19–20, 1948, in Augsburg; Session VI — November 3–5, 1949, in Dillingen.

The sessions of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC in emigration during the same period of 1946–49 were as follows: I — March 17, 1946, in Esslingen; II — June 14–17, 1946, in Esslingen; III — August 23–26, 1946, in Munich; IV — November 19–23, 1946, in Kornberg (province of Gross-Hessen); V — May 10–11, 1947, in Munich; VI — August 5–8, 1947, in Mainz-Kastel; VII — October 21–22, 1947, in Aschaffenburg; VIII, which was supposed to take place between October 24, 1947, and April 15, 1948, did not occur; IX — April 15–17, 1948, in Augsburg; X — November 12–14, 1948, in Ellwangen; XI — June 15–17, 1949, in Munich; XII — November 1–2, 1949, in Dillingen.

All sessions of the Sobor of Bishops and Synod of the UAOC took place in the American Occupation Zone, and Metropolitan Polikarp presided over all sessions, traveling from the British Zone (Gronau, then Heidenau); Bishop Platon served as the permanent secretary of the Sobor of Bishops and Synod.

In the composition of the Synod of the UAOC, where, besides the Head and Secretary, there were two members (Archbishop Mykhail and Bishop Mstyslav, elected at the Second Sobor of Bishops), at the Third

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Sobor of Bishops an amendment was adopted: the number of Synod members was set at five bishops; of these, the metropolitan and the deputy metropolitan were members of the Synod by virtue of their position, and three members were elected by the Sobor of Bishops, one of whom was also elected as secretary of the Synod. As Deputy Metropolitan, at the Third Sobor of Bishops in Munich, Archbishop Nikanor was elected (for life), and as members of the Synod — Archbishops Ihor and Henadiy and Bishop Platon (secretary).

At the Fourth Sobor of Bishops (October 23–24, 1947), it was recognized as beneficial to expand the composition of the Synod of the UAOC in emigration with representatives of the clergy and laity, and temporarily, until the Church Assembly of the UAOC, which was resolved to convene, Protopriest Borys Yakovkevych was invited as a member of the Synod from the clergy, and attorney Yevhen Tyravsky from the laity.

At the Church Assembly, which took place on December 25–27, 1947, the wish was expressed that the Synod should have two representatives from the clergy and two from the laity; at the same time, the membership in the Synod of Protopriest Borys Yakovkevych and attorney Yevhen Tyravsky was approved, and as the other two representatives, Mitred Protopriest Yuriy Peleshchuk was elected from the clergy and Professor Anatoliy Kotovych from the laity. The resolution of the Church Assembly was confirmed by the Fifth Sobor of Bishops (April 19, 1948), and the named representatives of the clergy and laity served on the Synod until their departure from Europe.

At the Sixth Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, held on November 3–5, 1949, the "Provisions on the Governance of the UAOC in Emigration" were reviewed; regarding the Sacred Synod, it was stipulated in the "Provisions": "Under unfavorable conditions, the Sacred Synod convenes in a reduced composition, namely: with the Head, Secretary, and one representative each from the clergy and laity" (article 8).

With the departure of bishops from Europe, when only Metropolitan Polikarp and Archbishop (from September 16, 1952, Metropolitan) Nikanor remained, the Synod of the UAOC consisted of four members: the hierarchs Polikarp and Nikanor, from the clergy Protopresbyter Volodymyr Vyshnevsky (who also served as secretary of the Synod), and from the laity Petro Plevako.

After the repose of Metropolitan Polikarp (October 22, 1953), the Synod remained composed of Metropolitan Nikanor, Fr. V. Vyshnevsky, and P. Plevako, but in fact its functions were taken over by the Metropolitan Rada. With the adoption at the First Sobor of the UAOC in Emigration on December 16–18, 1956, of the new "Statute of the UAOC in Emigration," the Synod as the executive body of the UAOC in emigration was replaced by a new institution called the "Supreme Church Administration," composed of two members from the clergy and two laypersons under the chairmanship of the Metropolitan of the UAOC (article 17 of the "Statute").

Fulfilling the charges given to it by the Sobor of Bishops (in Esslingen) regarding the drafting of statutes for the internal life of the UAOC in emigration, the Sacred Synod of that Church adopted at its sessions and published for use in the life of the Church a whole series of statutes, namely: "Statute for Ukrainian Orthodox Parishes of the UAOC in

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Emigration" (at the session of June 15, 1946); "Statute for Church Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods at Parishes of the UAOC" (at the same session); "Statute of the Ukrainian Theological-Scholarly Institute under the UAOC" (June 16, 1946); "Statute for Ruling Bishops and Church Administrations under Them of the UAOC in Emigration" (at the session of August 23, 1946); "Statute of the Ukrainian Orthodox Brotherhood of Mercy" (a central body in the UAOC, at the session of November 19, 1946); "Rules for the Work of Church Wardens at Churches of the UAOC in Emigration" (May 10, 1947); "Regulations of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC in Emigration" (confirmed by the Sobor of Bishops on May 15, 1947). At the Sixth Sobor of Bishops in Dillingen on November 3, 1949, the Sobor confirmed the "Statute of the Theological Academy of the UAOC in Emigration."

Thus the Sobor of Bishops and the Synod, by the charge of that Sobor as the Supreme Body of Church Governance of the UAOC in emigration, regulated through statutory forms the entire internal life of that Church abroad after the end of the Second World War. The Synod built the statutes it issued, named above, on the principles adopted by the Sobor of Bishops of the Church and fixed in the "Temporary Provisions on the Governance of the Holy UAOC in Emigration," the act of the Sobor in Esslingen of March 14–17, 1946, and then, with some amendments necessitated by church life, in the "Provisions" adopted by the Sixth Sobor of Bishops in Dillingen on November 3–5, 1949.

In evaluating the structural forms of individual Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, the historian must proceed first of all from the principle of whether the church structure corresponds to the very teaching of the Orthodox Church about the Church as a divine, not human, institution, and whether it contradicts the fundamental canons of the Universal Orthodox Church adopted on the basis of that teaching.

As Metropolitan Nikanor (Abramovych) writes: "The Canonical Code of the Orthodox Universal Church contains dogmatic definitions and rules of church structure and discipline, some of which also have the character of dogmatic positions, because they are based on the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. This Code has binding force for every member of the Orthodox Universal Church who wishes to belong to Her (Sixth Ecumenical Council, Canon 2; Seventh Council, Canon 1; Orthodox Confession of Faith of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, Part 1, Answer 72)." ("The Dogmatic-Canonical Structure of the Holy Orthodox Universal Church." — Bohoslovsky Visnyk. Organ of the UAOC in Emigration, No. 1, p. 14.)

From the standpoint of this principle, nothing can be found in the "Temporary Provisions on the Governance of the Holy UAOC in Emigration" that contradicts the Canonical Code of the Orthodox Church, nor in any of the statutes and regulations adopted in development of the fundamental principles of structure and governance contained in the "Provisions."

While affirming the faithfulness of the structural forms of the internal life of the UAOC in emigration to the principles of the dogmatic-canonical structure of the Orthodox Church, the question must also be posed: to what degree did these forms promote the development of the church-religious life of Orthodox Ukrainians

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abroad, both from the standpoint of the people's present spiritual needs and from the standpoint of national-ecclesiastical traditions?

In this regard, one must not forget that the hierarchy, part of the clergy, and the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church were not on their native land and not in a permanent or more-or-less settled place of residence, but in temporary sojourn, awaiting resettlement or dispersal. For it is one thing to build one's church life in the Fatherland and in one's own state, another thing in places of permanent settlement, even if abroad — as, for example, in Canada, the USA, and other countries — and yet another in the position of a wandering exile whose movements often did not even depend on himself.

In such a "transitional" situation the UAOC in emigration found itself in Europe, when, even in the first years of emigration, there glimmered hope of returning to the Fatherland, and therefore in the church-legal acts of that time regarding the structure and governance of the UAOC we find the formula: "until the convening of an All-Ukrainian Church Sobor," or "until the All-Ukrainian Local Sobor..." It is clear that in these acts such a Local Sobor is recognized by the hierarchy as the supreme body of church authority in the Local Orthodox Church of the Ukrainian people.

The holding of such church sobors — composed of the hierarchy, clergy, and representatives of the faithful — at the present time in the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches abroad but in places of permanent settlement of Ukrainian Orthodox communities, as in Canada, the USA, and in 1956 in Europe as well (the First Sobor of the UAOC in Emigration, December 16–18, 1956, in Karlsruhe) — entirely refutes the former (and present) unconscionable agitation of the so-called Ukrainian "conciliar governmentalists" about the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church abroad as "autocrats" in the Church, enemies of conciliarity in its governance.

The Sobor of Bishops, as the supreme governing body of the UAOC in emigration, was in those times of wandering of Orthodox Ukrainians the most appropriate conciliar form of supreme authority in that Church, sanctified by centuries and by the canons of the Holy Universal Orthodox Church on conciliar governance in the Church (see Canons 34 and 37 of the Holy Apostles, Canon 5 of the First Ecumenical Council, Canon 19 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, Canon 8 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, Canon 20 of the Council of Antioch, and others).

The UAOC episcopate as a whole, and the bishops in the individual centers (provinces) of exile residence, were those who united the members of that Church spiritually by virtue of their very hierarchical position, before consecration to which they took the hierarchical oath for the welfare of the Church and in fidelity to serving her.

As a participant, in the capacity of Director of the Chancellery of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC until his departure in August 1948 to Canada, in all sessions of the Sobor of Bishops, the Sacred Synod, and the Church Assembly of the UAOC abroad — the author of this "History of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church" will until the end of his days remember those moments of uplift, those solemnities of an ecclesiastical and civic-ecclesiastical character with which

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those sessions took place in the various camps for displaced persons and cities abroad in Germany: in Esslingen, Munich, Kornberg, Mainz-Kastel, Aschaffenburg, Augsburg, Regensburg. These were truly meetings of love, warmth, and hospitality from the flock toward their archpastors, headed by Metropolitan Polikarp, when people cast upon foreign shores amid the German sea heard words of consolation from their spiritual fathers and in common supplications to God at the services found comfort in their sorrowful thoughts about an unknown and uncertain future.

Does not such an attitude of the faithful toward the sessions of the Sobor of Bishops and Synod of the UAOC, when these sessions were such a joyous event in the camp life of the faithful, positively answer the question: to what degree did the structural forms of the internal life of the UAOC in emigration promote the development of the church-religious life of Orthodox Ukrainians abroad?

On the other hand, the Sobor of Bishops and the Synod, as the supreme governing bodies of the UAOC in emigration, in no way excluded the active participation of the lay element in the life and governance of the Church. As was already noted above, the Sobor of Bishops agreed to representation of clergy and laity in the Sacred Synod; the "Statute for Ruling Bishops and Church Administrations under Them" establishes in the collegial composition of these administrations both clerical and lay persons, and also establishes diocesan conferences of representatives of the clergy and faithful, and audit commissions; the "Statute for Ukrainian Orthodox Parishes of the UAOC in Emigration" broadly outlines the activity of parish representatives; parish brotherhoods with the central "Brotherhood of Mercy" statutorily had a wide field for cultural and charitable work within the UAOC in emigration.

As we have already seen from the Archpastoral Epistle of the Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen of March 17, 1946, a strong religious uplift among Ukrainian exiles abroad was established at the very beginnings of émigré life after the Second World War. And this popular piety did not weaken. When the mass resettlement of refugees from the East from Europe began in 1948–49, they carried it with them to the farther lands across seas and oceans. In their Native Church, Orthodox Ukrainians found great spiritual consolation. Everywhere in camps and outside camps, in the cities of Germany where there were larger colonies of Orthodox Ukrainians, prayers of exiles rose to God in well-appointed churches. The churches themselves, the artistic decorations, the holy icons, the utensils needed for the divine services — all of this was constructed and arranged by the means and hands of the exiles themselves.

The annual cycle of church life, linked with divine services on Sundays and great feast days and with popular festive traditions, the magnificent civic-ecclesiastical memorial services for the souls of the great sons of the Ukrainian people and national martyrs, the church-pastoral sermon, the personal prayers in the temples of the exile's sorrowful heart — all these experiences uplifted and strengthened souls, spiritually uniting

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the exiles with one another and with their native land, with those left behind there — relatives, dear ones, friends, the entire nation. Whoever experienced and understood this personally also felt within themselves the obligation to support the Native Church, to work to the measure of their strength and abilities in church organizations — in the parish rada, in the brotherhood, in the sisterhood. And these organizations labored no little in the UAOC in emigration, in its parishes — in some more intensively, in others less so; there were, of course, misunderstandings and complaints from the localities to the higher church authority, but that depended on people, not on the statutes, which provided full opportunity for broad and beneficial cooperation among all component parts of the UAOC in emigration.

[Trans. note: Subsection 3 does not appear in the original.]

From people also came, in this era of church life of Orthodox Ukrainians in the camps in Germany before their resettlement from Europe, that phenomenon which became known as the "Aschaffenburg Schism" of 1947. Now, in historical perspective, when even this schism itself has exhausted itself in further petty schisms, it is clear that the Aschaffenburg Schism was only an insignificant episode, a pitiable dissonance in the internal life of the UAOC in emigration with its high national-religious uplift, to which the Archpastoral Epistle of the Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen of March 17, 1946, faithfully testifies — signed by all bishops present at the Sobor, including Bishop Hryhoriy Ohiichuk, who later also found himself in the Aschaffenburg Schism.

4. The "Aschaffenburg Schism" in the UAOC in emigration. The camp at Mannheim as the first center of the "conciliar governmentalist movement" action. The means of conducting this action by adherents of the "canons of 1921." Their distortion of the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Was the structure of the UAOC on the principles of 1921 a restoration of the past in the history of the Kyivan Metropolitanate before 1686? The sad experience of "popular conciliar governance" in the church life of the UAOC in Ukraine. The resolution of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in emigration on convening a Pre-Sobor Assembly. The Sobor Epistle of May 15, 1947. The question of the union of Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych with the hierarchy of the 1942 consecration and who was to decide it. The interference of the "conciliar governmentalists" in this matter. Their assembly in August 1947 in Aschaffenburg; the resolutions of the assembly. Protests from the localities against the resolutions of the Aschaffenburg assembly; the protest of Orthodox Ukrainians of the Mainz-Kastel camp. Attempts by the episcopate to call to church order the six priests who participated in the assembly. The adherence to the schismatics of Bishop Hryhoriy Ohiichuk. The Extraordinary Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, October 23–24, 1947; its Sobor Epistle on the excommunication of the apostate-schismatics. Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych's refusal to head the "conciliar governmentalist movement" of adherents of the canons of 1921. Was the excommunication of the schismatics persecution for "ideology"? On the schismatics' naming of the UAOC "Synodal." The Ukrainian Church

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Assembly of representatives of the episcopate, clergy, and laity, December 25–27, 1947, in Regensburg, condemns the "Aschaffenburg Assembly." The appeal of the Sobor of Bishops in its Sobor Epistle of November 5, 1949, to the schismatics to return to the bosom of the UAOC.

Above we have recounted the attempt by adherents of the "canons of 1921" already in Kyiv to introduce disorder into the life of the UAOC in 1942 through demands for "conciliar governance" understood as "popular rule" in the Church, and how these demands were rejected by Metropolitan Nikanor (see Section IV, Subsection 5). After that, during the times of the German occupation of Ukraine, there were no demands for "popular governance" (radopraviye), in the expression of Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky, in the administration of the UAOC.

Here, however, in emigration, in the conditions where the material existence of refugees was more or less secured by the charitable organizations UNRRA and then IRO, adherents of the "canons of 1921" found it timely to begin in exile the struggle for the implementation of these canons in the life of the UAOC in emigration.

Already in November 1945, on the initiative of adherents of "popular rule" in church governance — Ivan Harashchenko, Mykyta Kekalo, Arkadiy Yaremenko, and Fr. Oleksandr Popov — a "Commission for the Convening of an All-Church Sobor of the UAOC Abroad" was formed. The chairman of this commission was Ivan Harashchenko. In addition to this commission, under the "Ukrainian Central Committee" or "All-Ukrainian Civic Committee" in Frankfurt, a "Church Department" was founded, also headed by Ivan Harashchenko, with Mykyta Kekalo as secretary. Under the "Ukrainian National-State Union" there was also a "Church Commission," in which Mykyta Kekalo served as secretary.

The named organizations for church affairs arose without communication with the supreme church authority of the UAOC in emigration; this authority learned of their existence post factum and subsequently gathered information on who organized them and with what purpose (letters from the Secretary of the Sacred Synod to the Ukrainian Central Committee of May 13, 1946; to Ivan Harashchenko of May 16, 1946; to the Board of the UNS Union in Mainz-Kastel of December 6, 1946).

The question of convening an "All-Church Ukrainian Sobor" in emigration, with which the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Esslingen dealt (the resolution on this matter was cited by us in Subsection 2), originated with those same commissions outside the Church itself; in Metropolitan Polikarp's report to the Sobor, they were called an "initiative group of laypersons." These initiators, who in their "Memorandum" to the Sobor of Bishops called themselves "autocephalists" and "conciliar governmentalists" (Archive of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC in Emigration, Section I, Case No. 2, p. 72), remained extraordinarily dissatisfied with the resolution of the Sobor of Bishops, which recognized that in the present changing conditions of émigré life, the convening of an "All-Church Ukrainian Sobor" was not feasible to realize.

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The first response of the "conciliar governmentalists" to this resolution came just about two days after the conclusion of the Second Sobor of Bishops on March 17, 1946. It occurred at the meeting of March 19, 1946, of the Parish Rada of the St. Nicholas Church in the Mannheim camp, which appears to have been the center of the "conciliar governmentalist" campaign at that time.

Having returned from the session of the Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen, Bishop Hryhoriy Ohiichuk, who resided in that camp, delivered to the meeting of the said Parish Rada an informational report on the "proceedings" of the Sobor of Bishops and the resolutions that he himself had signed in the Sobor's minutes — all without any objections. This report, as evident from the Rada's resolutions, against which the bishop did not protest, had an agitating effect on the Rada members.

The Parish Rada in the Mannheim camp in its resolutions "stated that the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC had not justified the hopes placed upon it by the faithful and clergy of the UAOC," that this Sobor "had violated the fundamental principle of the Holy Orthodox Ukrainian Church — Conciliar Governance, which had existed throughout the centuries," that it "had created a Synod — a body foreign and unnecessary in the Ukrainian Church," "had legalized not the election of parish council leaders but their appointment in the persons of parish rectors," and so on.

We pass over the references in the resolutions to the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which attest to the deplorable ignorance of that history by the leaders of the popular-governance tendency in church administration; on this we shall speak in another place.

The Council finally resolved: 1) "An All-Church Sobor must be convened without fail and no later than May of this year (emphasis ours); the Church Department of the All-Ukrainian Civic Committee must see to this. 2) Until the convening of the All-Church Sobor and the adoption of its resolutions, our parish does not recognize the decisions of the Sobor of Bishops of March 14–17 of this year in Esslingen and does not submit to them. 3) The structure of our parish shall remain, both canonically (?) and administratively, the same as it has been until now."

Chairman of the Parish Rada in Mannheim, Engineer T. Bondar. Secretary, Engineer V. Turchyk. "Certified as consistent with the original: Prot. M. Yavdas." (Minutes of the meeting of the Parish Church Rada in Mannheim (camp), held on March 19, 1946, at 7:00 p.m.)

That the camp in Mannheim was already in November 1945 a center of the planned "conciliar governmentalist" campaign is evident from the report to the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC by Bishop Sylvester, who resided in that camp at the time. In his report dated March 10, 1946, Bishop Sylvester wrote: "At the meeting of the newly elected Parish Rada (November 30, 1945), in response to members' question about who would head the parish hierarchically, the newly elected candidate for rector, Priest Mitrofan Yavdas, looking at Bishop Hryhoriy, solemnly declared: I will recognize that bishop who recognizes the hierarchy and canons of 1921..."

"At the meeting of the Parish Rada on March 4, 1946, one of the priests recounted: 'Upon my arrival in Mannheim, I went to see Bishop Hryhoriy, who began insisting that I serve with him in the church; he said the following: now we shall have order, because I have separated myself from the so-called

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canonical or ecumenical hierarchs and am creating my own separate Church on the basis of the canons of 1921'..." And when Bishop Sylvester proposed that Bishop Hryhoriy declare to the people after the Sunday Divine Liturgy that he "had broken with the UAOC of 1942 and was restoring the autocephaly of 1921," Bishop Hryhoriy, having thought for a moment, said: "I cannot yet do that right now..."

"Bishop Hryhoriy is conducting energetic activity, traveling to camps and serving. In some camps he is received; in others he is not allowed to serve. This introduces disorganization and spiritual unrest among the faithful..." (Archive of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC in Emigration, Section per register I, Case 2, p. 52.)

In the style and character of the resolutions of the Parish Rada in the Mannheim camp regarding the resolutions of the Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen, the campaign of the "conciliar governmentalists," hostile to the hierarchy of the UAOC in emigration, continued further. The conduct of Bishop Hryhoriy was the subject of discussion at the Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen, as a result of which Metropolitan Polikarp's proposal was adopted to assign Bishop Hryhoriy to the British Zone as a vicar of the metropolitan.

Later, Bishop Hryhoriy denied that under the influence of his report the disrespectful resolutions toward the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC had been adopted at the meeting of the Parish Rada in Mannheim on March 19, 1946, and wrote that "the true faithful, to whom the Holy Church is dear, greeted the resolutions of the Holy Sobor of Bishops with great joy and expressed their satisfaction that the episcopate had reached agreement..." "I realize that it is one thing to love Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky and his ideology, and quite another to create a schism, especially in emigration, when we need unity as never before and nowhere else." (From the letter of Bishop Hryhoriy of April 13, 1946, to the Secretary of the Sacred Synod, Bishop Platon. Archive of the Synod of the UAOC in Emigration, Section IV, Case 30.)

However, the Sacred Synod at its Second Session on June 14, 1946, resolved: "Taking into account that the disorder in the Mannheim parish and the disrespect toward the Sobor of Bishops by the Parish Rada in Mannheim was caused mainly by Bishop Hryhoriy — Bishop Hryhoriy is to be warned for his false informing of the Parish Rada members, which led to the adoption of resolutions inadmissible in form and content against the Sacred Sobor of Bishops and the Synod, with the admonition that should similar actions on his part recur, the above facts will also be adduced when the matter is directed to the Sacred Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC." (Minutes No. 1, Session II of the Synod of the UAOC, June 14, 1946.)

With the departure of Bishop Hryhoriy to Westphalia (British Occupation Zone) in May 1946, and after the penitence of Protopriests Demyd Burko and Mitrofan Yavdas in letters to their diocesan bishop, Bishop Platon (Fr. Burko's of May 29, 1946; Fr. Yavdas's of June 3, 1946), requesting that, in the name of peace in the St. Nicholas parish of the camp in Mannheim (later Dornstadt) and in the entire UAOC

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in emigration, their transgressions be forgiven and the prohibition on their sacred ministry be lifted — a request that was granted by Bishop Platon — the campaign of the "conciliar governmentalists" was openly continued by their lay adherents, headed by Ivan Stepanovych Harashchenko.

The means of conducting this campaign were "memoranda," with which adherents of the "canons of 1921" addressed the Sobor of Bishops and Synod of the UAOC with demands to immediately convene a "full-fledged" sobor of the Church; the organization by them of gatherings in the camps for the purpose of propagandizing the principles of "conciliar governance" in the life of the UAOC; the reprinting and dissemination of such publications as the Proceedings of the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Sobor in Kyiv, October 14–30, 1921, The Grace-bearing Character of the Hierarchy of the UAOC of 1921, the All-Ukrainian Civic Religious Anthology; mimeographed leaflets; the anthology The Truth about the UAOC — the Conciliar-Governed with the motto: "To serve the people is to serve God" — Metropolitan Ilarion; and articles in the Ukrainian press (Nashe Zhyttia, Nedilia, Ukrainski Visti).

In one of the memoranda to the "Sacred Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC," submitted on behalf of the "Conference of Ukrainian Orthodox Citizens" bearing 274 signatures, certified at the end with the signature: "Chairman of the Initiative Group for Unity in the UAOC, I. Harashchenko" — we read:

"From time immemorial, the structure of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was built on the principles of conciliar governance. The right to decide disputes and lead the Church belonged equally to all members of the Church: bishops, priests, and the people. The highest governing body was the Church Sobors, composed of all three parts of the Church (bishops, priests, and representatives of the people). Such Sobors took place in the Ukrainian Church, as the chronicles attest, already in the princely era..." (Archive of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC, I, Case No. 2, p. 67.)

This assertion about the "primordial" nature (from the holy Prince Volodymyr the Great) of the "conciliar-governed" structure of the Ukrainian Church (the Kyivan Metropolitanate) is found in all the demands of the popular-governance tendency that the episcopate of the UAOC restore this structure in the life of that Church in emigration.

"Seven hundred years of the existence in Ukraine of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church — that is how long it lasted until the Moscow tsarist government enslaved it in 1686... This Church was built on broad and lofty people-loving (democratic) principles, on the principles of conciliar governance" — we read in the "Declaration on the State of the UAOC (Conciliar-Governed) in Europe" of October 16, 1947 (The Truth about the UAOC — the Conciliar-Governed. Published by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council. Abroad, A.D. 1947, p. 5).

It is unknown on the basis of what historical sources these "laypeople" — ignorant not only of the history of the Universal Orthodox Church but also of their own Ukrainian Church — wrote (and continue to write) about the "primordial nature of conciliar governance" in the Ukrainian Church in their "literature" of a "cheap propaganda leaflet" character, as I was compelled to characterize it in my report at the Church Assembly of the UAOC on December 25–27,

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1947, in Regensburg (Canonical and Historical Foundations for the Autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. UAOC, 1948, p. 20).

I had particularly in mind at that time the brochure by Danylo Sviatohirsky, The Main Principles of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, published in 1946, which was full — to put it mildly — of fantasies about "all-popular conciliar governance" in the ancient Ukrainian Church, "bequeathed to the peoples by Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition," as the author apodictically asserts, though in the introduction to the brochure he instructs that "each of us must know the past of the Holy Orthodox Ukrainian Church."

Ivan Harashchenko himself, whose educational qualifications are unknown, wrote a lengthy article "On the History of the UAOC (Conciliar-Governed)" in the journal Nedilia, No. 181, 1949; reading this article, one does not know whether to marvel more at the ignorance of the author, who took on a church-historical topic to write about, or at the editor of the journal, who used such an article to enlighten Orthodox Ukrainians abroad. Here you find such "gems" as: "The Moscow Church introduced its Orthodoxy in a completely different manner than the Ukrainian Church. In the Ukrainian Church there was conciliar governance, which corresponded to Apostolic preaching (?) and the spirit of Christ's covenants (?); in the Moscow Church no conciliar governance was permitted, and the power of a single person reigned — officially the patriarch, and in reality the autocratic tsar or emperor. Such an enormous difference in understanding the fundamental principles of Christianity was sharply reflected in the entire life of both the Moscow and the Ukrainian peoples. By name they were co-religionists, but in terms of life and the substance of their understanding of their faith — they were opposites (?)..."

Is the author of such lines aware of when patriarchs appeared in the Moscow Church and what was their role in the historical life of the Moscow Church, state, and people in the seventeenth century? And what sort of power of "a single person" reigned there before the establishment of the patriarchate only in 1589? Has Harashchenko ever heard of the Sobors in Moscow and of the independence of that Moscow Church from the Ecumenical Patriarch already in the mid-fifteenth century? Of the "Stoglav Sobor" of 1551? Of the "Great Moscow Sobor" of 1666–67, at which the patriarch Nikon himself was deposed?

Was he aware that in the struggle against caesaropapism in the Russian Church, which developed so extensively from Peter I in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and for the restoration in the life of that Church of the principles of conciliarity (but not "conciliar governance," which, in the understanding of our "conciliar governmentalists," did not exist in the ancient Ukrainian Church either), the greatest ideological role was played precisely by the Moscow Slavophiles, in particular Aleksei Khomyakov, justly called the "Teacher of the Church"?

And did Harashchenko know anything about the "Pre-Sobor Commission" (Predsobornoe Prisutstvie), which left behind six volumes of work of extraordinary importance for the study and understanding of the principles of conciliarity of the Church in the spirit of the Universal Orthodox Church? This "Pre-Sobor Commission" (see about it in our Outline History of the UOC, Vol. IV, Part 1, pp. 7–8) was organized in Russia in 1906; working

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in it, divided into several commissions, were the most distinguished representatives of the hierarchy and clergy, professors of theological academies and universities, prominent lay figures in the church field — the flower, one might say, of the theological, church-canonical, and church-historical scholarship of that time in Russia, not having the slightest concept of which, Harashchenko in his above-named demagogic article calls it: "government-issue theology"...

The leader of the "conciliar governmentalist" tendency in the life of the UAOC in emigration and his collaborators in writing produced so much that was false in their "reports" about the past of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church — often perhaps not out of ill will but simply because of their ignorance of that history — that it would take several pages to refute their writings, with which they fed the "thirsting and hungry soul of the Ukrainian people" in the camps, a soul that "government-issue theology" could not nourish... We do not consider it necessary to spend time on this now.

Those of our readers who are genuinely interested in the question of what forms of conciliar structure and in what period existed in the internal life of our ancient Church (the Kyivan Metropolitanate) in the years 988–1686, when also the principles of true conciliarity and election of clerical persons were operative among us and when they were not — we venture to refer to the corresponding sections of Volumes I–II of our work, written, we venture to assert, on the basis of historical facts from historical sources and reputable church-historical literature, and not from some fantastic and unwise "conciliar governmentalist ideologies"; from Volume IV, Part 1, we recommend rereading pages 259–266; we also refer to our brochure How Sobors Were Held in the Ancient Ukrainian Orthodox Church (New York, 1954). I have not encountered any criticism of this canonical-historical essay on sobors in the past of our Church from the "conciliar governmentalists," for whose fantasies there is no place in that essay.

And now let us draw attention to the fact that the "conciliar governmentalists," who in 1946 (Frankfurt am Main) republished the "Canons of the UAOC" in the Proceedings of the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Sobor in Kyiv, October 14–30, 1921, did not know how (and still do not know how) to read those canons of 1921.

In the "canons" or resolutions of the Kyiv Sobor of 1921, concerning the "all-popular conciliar-governed" structure of the Church, there is absolutely no mention of restoring this structure that supposedly existed in the past of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church before its subordination in 1686 to the Moscow Patriarchate. On the contrary, in those "canons" it is clearly stated:

1) The episcopal-autocratic structure of the Church, which developed under the influence of circumstances and the state-monarchical order of those times, with which the old canons are imbued, can no longer remain and must be replaced by a church-conciliar-governed structure, in accordance with the spirit of the Orthodox Christian faith;

2) Sobors composed of bishops alone, as has been the case and still is, do not correspond to the true spirit of the Orthodox Christian faith, do not allow the Church to live a full church

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life, and must necessarily be replaced by Sobors with representatives of the entire Orthodox population"... etc. (Proceedings, pp. 3–4. Emphasis ours.)

This church structure was an innovation in the Ukrainian Church, not a restoration of the past, which is why I wrote: "In questions of church structure, the Kyiv Sobor of 1921 took the most radical position, compared with its resolution of other questions that confronted the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, reborn to independent life"... "The church structure, with far-reaching departures from the canons of the Orthodox Church, was adopted without coercion, as a conscious reform in the life of the Church." (Outline History of the UOC, Vol. IV, Part 1, pp. 126–127. Read also further, pp. 127–136.)

Thus the creators of the "canons of 1921" knew the history of the UOC better than the adherents of those canons in emigration. They did not call for a return to "conciliar governance" in the ancient Kyivan Metropolitanate; they did not invoke "conciliar governance" traditions spanning 700 years in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church; they did not invoke in support of this "conciliar governance" the authority of the greatest figure in our church history, Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, with his famous Orthodox Confession of Faith, recognized as a symbolic book throughout the entire Universal Orthodox Church.

They openly declared that the old canons were "the most expedient for their time and the only means possible at that time for ordering church life"; but now they "consider that those same demands of church life can, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, also exclude them (the old canons) from use." They took the path of reform in the structure of the Church, and not only in their own Ukrainian Church but in the entire Universal Orthodox Church (in their dreams, of course), as is evident from Canon (11, 14) of the Sobor of 1921: "The VPCR, parish unions, and individual parishes must work together toward the building of a worldwide Orthodox Christian international body uniting all autocephalous Churches."

The principle of "all-popular conciliar governance" in the structure of the Church, being a reformist innovation in the history of our Church, did not justify itself in the sad practice of church life of the UAOC already in the first times after its introduction on the basis of the "canons of 1921," as we have shown on the basis of primary historical sources, the testimonies of Metropolitans Lypkivsky and Boretsky, Archbishop Maliushkevych, Bishop Romodanov, and others (see Vol. IV, Part 1, pp. 251–266).

It is obvious that about this sad practice of "the transformation of conciliar governance into arbitrariness" of laypeople in the life of the Church, as the Great Mykolaiv Assembly of 1928 established, the "conciliar governmentalists" in emigration wrote not a single word. On the contrary, just as they wrote untruth about "conciliar governance" in the past of the UOC, so they dealt in untruth when glorifying "conciliar governance" in its "revival" of 1921.

"Its ecclesiastical vitality," wrote Danylo Sviatohirsky, "was incomparably demonstrated by the conciliar governance of the UAOC in the times of Metropolitans

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Vasyl Lypkivsky and Mykola Boretsky" (Op. cit., p. 9). Surely Sviatohirsky knew and had read in Metropolitan Lypkivsky's memoirs about the "Morozivshchyna" — that is, the arbitrary actions of the chairman of the Second VPCR (VPCR), Mykhail Moroz — yet the chief leader of the "conciliar governmentalists," I. Harashchenko, did not stop even before this: in defiance of everything written about Moroz by Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky (Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky, History of the UOC, Section 7, Winnipeg, 1961, pp. 108–112; in my work, Vol. IV, Part 1, see pp. 161–164), he characterized this atheist as follows: "At its (the VPCR's) head was elected Mykhail Naumovych Moroz. He had previously been a zemstvo worker, a very firm and energetic man, intelligent, diplomatic, and tactful." (Nedilia, July 3, 1949, article "On the History of the UAOC — Conciliar-Governed.")

That the experience with "all-popular conciliar governance" in the life of the UAOC in Ukraine in the 1920s was quite sad was also attested by direct participants in the church life of that time — authoritative persons such as, for example, Archbishop Mykhail; in the rank of protopriest he had served in the UAOC, delivered reports on the state of his church district at the Great Pokrova Assemblies of the UAOC (Minutes of the Session of the Great Pokrova Assembly, October 30, 1926), and was repressed by the godless authorities and spent nine years in exile on the Solovki Islands.

The hierarchy of the UAOC in emigration, standing on the foundations of the Orthodox dogmatic-canonical teaching about the Church of Christ as a divine institution, as well as on the historical understanding of the principles of conciliarity in the structure of the Orthodox Church — particularly in the ancient Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the times of the holy Prince Volodymyr, and not from the Kyiv Sobor of 1921, whose structural canons for the Church were a departure from that understanding — and also taking into account the sad experience of the practical application in the life of the UAOC of those canons, the hierarchy of the UAOC in emigration firmly opposed the demands of church demagogues to introduce in the Church "all-popular conciliar governance" according to the "canons of 1921," to "eliminate inequality in the Ukrainian Church" which supposedly "denies the ideological content (?) of the Ukrainian Church, rejects its popular-national essence (?), hinders the development of its life, and causes the meaninglessness (?) of our church life," and so on — all these being expressions in the above-mentioned memorandum to the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, submitted in the spring of 1947.

Finally, these demands took on an ultimatum character with such threats at the end of that memorandum: "If our appeal and these proposals are not taken into consideration by you, Most Honorable and All-Honorable Fathers, the Ukrainian Orthodox citizenry — autocephalists, conciliar governmentalists — with God's help, will itself seek paths and possibilities for the restructuring of the governance and leadership of the UAOC on its historical principles (?), in the name of preserving it as the religious-national treasure of the Ukrainian people." (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section I, Case 2, p. 72. Emphasis ours.)

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The canonical episcopate of the UAOC in emigration, which had never imposed its authority on anyone even before emigration, in Ukraine, when during the German occupation it was restoring there the national Ukrainian Orthodox Church, previously liquidated by the godless Bolshevik authorities — for which thousands of Orthodox Ukrainians blessed it — could not, of course, react in any way other than with resistance, also in emigration, to the demands of a handful of "conciliar governmentalists" that an anti-canonical structure be introduced in this Church. And all the more so because this handful of émigrés, with unknown authority, spoke on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people and in the name of "preserving the majesty of the UAOC," while in reality bringing turmoil and disorder into the life of the Church and threatening to break its unity. The episcopate had to defend the Church from such "defenders" of its majesty.

Above we have already stated that the episcopate of the UAOC in emigration in no way denied the principles of true conciliarity in the life of the Church, under which the hierarchy of the Church is nevertheless recognized as having its special hierarchical prerogatives not only in the sphere of sacred ministry and teaching but also in the governance of the Church; under which not everyone is equalized in the management of all affairs of the Church — as was the case in the ancient Ukrainian ecclesiastical conciliarity, where at sobors or at sessions of the higher church institutions, it was not a layman who presided but the metropolitan or bishop, who did not sit merely as an "honorary" figure...

Thus the episcopate, while recognizing it as untimely in camp life to convene an All-Church Sobor, nevertheless charged the Synod with preparing the materials needed for such a Sobor when the appropriate preconditions and capabilities for its convening should arise.

Fulfilling this charge of the Sobor of Bishops of March 17, 1946, the Sacred Synod already at its session on June 14, 1946, recognized it as expedient to precede the All-Church Sobor — composed of the episcopate, clergy, and representatives of the laity — with the convening of a Pre-Sobor Assembly. To prepare for this Pre-Sobor Assembly, the Synod called a special Commission under the chairmanship of Archbishop Mykhail, composed of three clergy (Fr. Oleksandr Popov, Fr. Oleksandr Novitsky, and Fr. Artem Selepyna) and three laypeople (Prof. F. Kulchynsky, Ivan Harashchenko, and Neofit Kybaliuk).

And it was characteristic of the "popular-governmentalist" tendency in the life of the UAOC in emigration that Protopriest Oleksandr Popov never once appeared at the meetings of the Commission for the preparation of the Pre-Sobor Assembly in the UAOC, although he was one of the main figures of that tendency; for this reason the Synod at its session on November 23, 1946, appointed Prot. A. Theodorovych in his place.

Ivan Harashchenko, although he initially participated in the sessions of that Commission, immediately showed in his statements that he had come not for cooperation and reconciliation but for opposition, as an adherent of the "canons of 1921." Archbishop Mykhail, as chairman of the Commission, drew his attention to his already hostile attitude toward the other members of the Commission, after which Harashchenko also stopped coming

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to the Commission's meetings, and with his group of like-minded individuals continued agitation in the camps for the introduction of "all-popular conciliar governance" in the church structure.

At the session of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, May 12–15, 1947, in Munich, the report on the work of the Commission regarding the convening of the Pre-Sobor Assembly of the UAOC in emigration was heard — the Commission having already completed its work and been closed by the Synod on May 10, 1947. The Sobor of Bishops accepted the report and resolved:

a) To consider the convening of a Church Sobor of the UAOC in emigration as necessary, and to convene it after the completion of the unification of Ukrainian Orthodox church centers outside the Fatherland into one UAOC, which is already in the process of being realized;

b) Until that time, to charge the Sacred Synod with convening, in preparation for the Church Sobor, a Pre-Sobor Assembly with the participation of bishops, representatives of the clergy and faithful of that part of the UAOC that is currently in emigration in Europe;

c) To approve the draft electoral ordinance for the election of representatives to the Pre-Sobor Assembly, developed by the Commission.

At the same session of the Sobor of Bishops, memoranda from Ukrainian citizens on matters of church life were heard — one bearing the signatures of well-known church-civic figures: General M. Sadovsky, Judge Viktor Soloviy (now Bishop Varlaam of the UAOC), Prof. Mykhail Vietukhov, attorney Yevhen Tyravsky (member of the Synod of the UAOC), Dr. Mykola Pyrohov, and others; the second bearing 274 signatures collected by representatives of the "Initiative Group for Unity in the UAOC," headed by Ivan Harashchenko.

The basic idea of the first memorandum: "The acquisition of canonical hierarchy in 1942 has such far-reaching significance that today it is even difficult to assess the weight of this achievement, for only on uncontested canonical foundations will the magnificent temple of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church be built. The unity and canonicity of the hierarchy must be our sacred covenant." (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section I, Case 2, p. 63.)

The demands made to the Sobor of Bishops in the second memorandum, with the final threats of the "conciliar governmentalists" to the bishops, have been cited by us above.

After thorough deliberation on the content of these memoranda, the Sobor of Bishops resolved: a) "To gladly welcome the call in the memoranda to common work in the Church by the component parts of the Body of the Church, and in turn to call upon the believing Ukrainian citizenry to firm faith, church discipline, and Christian life; b) To address the clergy and faithful of the UAOC in emigration with a Sobor Archpastoral Epistle, in which to clearly remind them of those church-canonical principles on which our Church has stood and stands, and to order individual persons and groups to cease all plans to violate those church-canonical foundations of the Universal Orthodox Church, which plans are manifested in the attempt to impose on our Church popular rule under the guise of conciliar governance, through the printing and dissemination of literature such as the *Proceedings of the All-Ukrainian

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Sobor of 1921, The Grace-bearing Character of the Hierarchy of the UAOC of 1921*, the convening of assemblies blessed by no one, etc., with a warning of condemnation of the initiators in the case of disobedience — and to call all to unity, concord, and love." (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section I, Case 1, p. 15.)

For the fulfillment of this resolution, the Sobor Archpastoral Epistle was issued, dated May 15, 1947. In it the Sobor of Bishops announced its resolution to convene a Church Sobor with representatives of all Ukrainian Orthodox centers outside the Fatherland after their unification was completed; for the present, in emigration in Europe, to convene a Church Assembly with the participation of bishops, representatives of the clergy and faithful, which would address the needs of the current time and prepare materials for that Sobor.

"Therefore," we read in the "Epistle," "the Sobor of Bishops calls upon all the faithful to hold firmly to the spiritual guidance of their Hierarchy and to avoid all those who demand such reforms in the life and structure of the Church as the Holy Orthodox Church, being incompatible with its canons, cannot accept... Beware of uncalled reformers who, without the blessing of the Church, undertake to reform church life." (Ibid., pp. 22–23.)

This Epistle was signed by all twelve bishops of the UAOC in emigration, including Bishop Hryhoriy.

The call of the UAOC episcopate in emigration in the Sobor Epistle to unity, concord, and love of all members of the Church did not, however, reach the souls of the "conciliar governmentalists"; they did not wish to wait for the convening of the Pre-Sobor Church Assembly announced in the Epistle, but proceeded to carry out their threat in the memorandum — that if the bishops did not listen to them, they would themselves "seek paths and possibilities for the restructuring of the governance and leadership of the UAOC"...

To be sure, the actions of the conciliar governmentalist group were accelerated by the circumstance that at the same Sobor of Bishops in Munich, May 12–15, 1947, when the question of "unification in a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church outside the Fatherland of the separately operating Ukrainian Orthodox church bodies in the United States of America and in Europe" was discussed, the bishops of the UAOC resolved: "The joining of Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych shall be completed through the rite of episcopal consecration (Apostolic Canon 1; First Ecumenical Council, Canon 4; Seventh Ecumenical Council, Canon 3; Council of Antioch, Canon 23; Council of Carthage, Canon 60; Council of Laodicea, Canon 12)." (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section I, Case 1, p. 14.)

About the question of unifying Ukrainian Orthodox centers in the world outside the Fatherland into one UAOC, which was a subject of concern in those times, we shall speak in another place. Here, however, insofar as the question of the union of Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych — the sole hierarch of the 1921 consecration — with the canonically Orthodox Ukrainian hierarchy of the 1942 consecration was closely connected with that larger question, we must say that Archbishop Ioan himself, in a series of letters to Metropolitan Polikarp, to individual bishops, and to the entire Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in emigration, beginning from May 1946, took

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a position formulated by him in the following words: "When in a broadly democratic Church its administration depends on a certain elected and appointed governing collective (in Canada — the Consistory), and the bishop cannot claim autocratic governance by the force of his decisions alone, nonetheless, in the fullness of church life there are questions that in all ages of Church Conciliar Activity belonged only to the competence of the Episcopate of the Church and entered into life only with its sanction. The thoughts in my letter to Metropolitan Polikarp were precisely of such a nature..." (Letter of Archbishop Ioan to the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Emigration, dated February 28, 1947. Emphasis ours.)

These "thoughts," first expressed in a letter to Metropolitan Polikarp of June 6, 1946, concerned the manner of Archbishop Ioan's union with the hierarchy of the UAOC in emigration; thus the manner of this union the Archbishop clearly assigned to questions belonging solely to the competence of the episcopate of the Church.

On this canonical view of the matter, Archbishop Ioan stood throughout the entire period of negotiations with the episcopate of the UAOC, as we also see in his letter to Metropolitan Polikarp and members of the Sacred Synod of September 9, 1948, in which he wrote: "I shall await your reply and the outline of that act which you have in mind for our union. No, I have not forgotten that this was raised by me for the decision of 'us bishops.' While I like to give other questions to my collaborators for consideration and joint decision, this question I shall decide myself with you." (Emphasis ours.)

But the group of "conciliar governmentalists," headed by Ivan Harashchenko, looked at this matter of union of bishops — and consequently of Churches — differently. The union was to occur only on those conditions that this group would accept. To the condition stated in the well-known memorandum that "unification can be achieved only on the basis of conciliar governance" (in their understanding of it according to the "canons" of 1921), there was now added the demand for unconditional recognition "in the existing rank" of the hierarchy of 1921.

It would seem that if one were to adopt even the viewpoint of the "conciliar governmentalists" — that bishops themselves, by their own sobor, should not dare to decide any matters without a sobor that they called "full-fledged" — then upon learning of the resolution of the Sobor of Bishops of May 12, 1947, regarding the manner of Archbishop Ioan's union through the rite of episcopal consecration, they should have argued all the more strongly for the immediate convening of such a full-fledged sobor. Instead, they took the path of schism in the UAOC in emigration and hastened to convene an assembly of their like-minded adherents, which unlawfully in its decisions assumed the functions of an All-Church Sobor.

The "conciliar governmentalists," numbering 67 persons, including 7 clergy, held their assembly in Aschaffenburg on August 25–26, 1947, without publicly announcing the convening of this assembly and without informing the episcopate of the UAOC. The resolutions of the assembly (numbering 10) were sent to the bishops and published in the periodicals (in full in the journal *Nashe

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Zhyttia* of September 22, 1947). These resolutions begin with a slander against Orthodox Ukrainians abroad, alleging that among them "a decline of religious feeling is being revealed, especially among the youth, and a spread of sectarianism and godlessness," the cause of which was supposedly "insufficient church leadership" — that is to say, a lack of "popular rule."

Above we have already established with facts the great religious uplift in the eternally memorable little churches of our people's camp life in Europe, and we need not refute here the malicious falsehood of the "conciliar governmentalists" in that resolution.

The further resolutions of this assembly, as was established in the resolutions of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC on October 23–24, 1947, were likewise "built on falsehood with the aim of discrediting the episcopate of the UAOC and introducing discord into the life of the Church." (Archive of the Synod, Section I, Case 1, p. 27.)

The content of these resolutions can essentially be reduced to the following: the assembly of "conciliar governmentalists" proclaimed the twelve bishops of the UAOC in emigration apostates from the UAOC (Resolution 5), while declaring themselves, in "spiritual union with Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych," to be the primordial UAOC (Resolution 3); the apostasy of those bishops-apostates "had been ripening over the last two years and was completed at the Sobor of Bishops in May 1947," because the bishops had not listened to "the advanced segment of Ukrainian church society" (Resolution 6) — which, evidently, the "conciliar governmentalists" considered themselves to be — and had shown disrespect for the principles of conciliar governance (Resolution 7), and had also allegedly opposed the idea of unifying Ukrainian "church formations" by resolving to complete the rite of consecration over Archbishop of the primordial UAOC, Theodorovych (Resolutions 5 and 3).

Considering that after the apostasy of the bishops, the "maternal" (and obviously also "primordial") UAOC was left without a bishop, the "conciliar governmentalists" resolved: "to request the Most Reverend Archbishop Fr. Ioan Theodorovych to extend his care to Ukrainian Orthodox parishes in Europe that express their will to submit to his jurisdiction" (Resolution 9).

After such resolutions, the assembly elected a Ukrainian Orthodox (?) Church Rada of 21 persons to lead the church life of the primordial, currently bishop-less, UAOC, with Ivan Harashchenko as acting chairman and, as had been done in Kyiv in the 1920s, Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych as honorary chairman — without asking him.

It is obvious that the Aschaffenburg assembly of "conciliar governmentalists" with its resolutions was, from the standpoint of the holy canons of the Universal Orthodox Church, as well as of the "canons of 1921" of the UAOC, nothing other than insurgency in church life — a manifestation of the same sort of arbitrariness into which the idea of conciliar governance was often transformed in Ukraine too, in the life of the UAOC, as the Great Mykolaiv Assembly of 1928 in Kyiv established.

This was a phenomenon of the same order as in the beginnings of the "conciliar governmentalists'" work at the meeting of the Parish Rada in Mannheim on March 19, 1946. For by what right did a handful of people, having gathered together, call

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themselves a church assembly, condemn twelve bishops of the Church, proclaim them apostates from the Church — in other words, excommunicate the bishops from the Church — and in their place elect a Ukrainian Church Rada headed by a layman to lead church life? Could this, in the understanding of those people in Aschaffenburg, have been a "full-fledged," "constructive" church sobor?

When the resolutions of the Aschaffenburg assembly were published in Ukrainian periodicals, protests soon began arriving from the clergy and faithful to Metropolitan Polikarp and to the bishops governing individual provinces — protests against the actions of a "chance gathering of laymen and a miserable number of clergy, authorized by no one to resolve any church matters whatsoever," as the Aschaffenburg assembly was characterized in the resolution of the Parish Rada of the Holy Protection parish in the camp in Regensburg.

A comprehensive account of all the falsehood and harmfulness of the "conciliar governmentalists'" campaign and their resolutions at the Aschaffenburg gathering is found in the letter-protest to Metropolitan Polikarp signed by "Orthodox Ukrainians of the Mainz-Kastel Camp" — 142 signatures, including 10 clergy.

In this letter it is affirmed that "the participants of the 'assembly,' as persons invited to a consultation on an individual basis, including from our Mainz-Kastel camp, were not any sort of 'delegates' and therefore possessed no authority to 'resolve the most important questions and order church life'"; that "under such conditions, the appropriation of the grandly significant name 'First Church Assembly' was groundless and the use of this name was obviously intended to mislead the general public in order to achieve the long-planned goal — schism in the Church"; that "this attempt at opposition and counteraction to the effort of church unification is, from the standpoint of national politics, a crime, because it seeks to frustrate the good will of the hierarchy of both Churches by introducing disorder and anarchy into the Church"; that "the organizers and participants of the assembly, from the standpoint of church ideology, must be regarded as a sectarian group... The participation in this 'assembly' of several priests especially deserves condemnation, for all of them (except Fr. Popov, ordained by Archbishop Nikanor — I.V.), on the basis of the resolution of the Sobor of Bishops in Pinsk in 1942, were received into the bosom of the UAOC 'in the existing rank,' remain in it, and having participated in the resolutions of a sectarian assembly, they violated their priestly oath and fidelity to the Church which they served and of which they were members.

Great amazement arises upon reading the ending of point 5 of the assembly's resolution, where its participants state that the Sobor of Bishops 'has apostatized from the UAOC.' This is a great misunderstanding, for the Church headed by Metropolitan Polikarp never shared in or was based on the canons and resolutions of the Church Sobor of 1921. It must be known that the Church and Hierarchy created in 1942 stand in no legal-successional dependence on the resolutions of the Church Sobor of 1921 and have their legal foundation in the Decree of the Directorate

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of the Ukrainian National Republic of January 1, 1919 ('Law on the Supreme Administration of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church'), and their church-canonical foundation in the Tomos of the Ecumenical Patriarch of November 13, 1924.

The Church and Hierarchy of 1942, in accordance with that 'Law of the Ukrainian Government of January 1, 1919,' are a legal-canonical institution that preserves the traditional faith of the fathers and for which the name UAOC is proper. We do not, admittedly, overestimate the consequences of the resolutions of the above 'assembly,' which we accept as the resolutions of 67 persons. However, we raise our voice in this matter, and call others to do so as well, with the aim of defending and protecting the foundations of the one faith, the sanctity and inviolability of the foundations of our thousand-year-old Orthodoxy, which has until now safeguarded and cemented the Ukrainian nation and which conditions its great missionary role in the future Ukrainian state."

As a conclusion from the main ideas of the letter cited above, its signatories submit the following:

1) To recognize the "assembly" in Aschaffenburg not as an assembly of mandated representatives of camp Orthodox parishes, but as a gathering of individually recruited persons.

2) To consider the name "First Church Assembly" as inapplicable to "67 recruited persons," and the "assembly" as incompetent in the matter of resolving questions of church-canonical order.

3) Seeing in the actions of these persons a usurpation of the rights of the Orthodox citizenry united in parishes and dioceses, to condemn their activity and call upon the Orthodox parishes located within the borders of Germany, Austria, and Europe in general to issue protests and collect signatures certified by parish priests.

4) To consider the organizers and initiators of the "assembly," as well as those who would express solidarity with them, as sectarians who undermine the unity and integrity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

5) To request the Sacred Synod of the UAOC to issue an Epistle to the faithful on this matter, as well as to issue appropriate directives to parish rectors, while simultaneously applying appropriate measures regarding those priests who participated in the assembly. (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section I, Case 2, pp. 107–110. Emphasis ours.)

From the numerous responses to the appeal of the Orthodox Ukrainians of the Mainz-Kastel camp, we cite the resolution of the Diocesan Assembly of clergy and lay representatives of the Hanover region: "In connection with the information about the so-called 'Aschaffenburg Assembly' — to consider this 'assembly' an illegal phenomenon in our church life, which leads to: a) the weakening of the church and national strength and unity of our Church; b) the weakening of religious feeling in the hearts of our faithful; and c) the discrediting of the UAOC — and therefore: to condemn this 'assembly' with all the consequences flowing from it; to approve the resolution of the Mainz-Kastel parish of September 19, 1947, on the matter of that 'assembly' as just and timely; to call upon the clergy and faithful to complete unity in the bosom of the Holy Ukrainian Orthodox Church around its episcopate." (Ibid., p. 121.)

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Even three weeks before the Aschaffenburg "assembly," the Sacred Synod of the UAOC at its Sixth Session on August 7, 1947, after receiving information about the continuation of the campaign by the group of "adherents of the canons of 1921," which campaign was introducing turmoil into the life of the Church, resolved: "To charge the ruling bishops with issuing warnings to the active organizers of the above campaign to cease at last introducing turmoil into the life of the Church, as this may entail their punishment on the basis of the canons of the Holy Orthodox Church."

Now the ruling bishops had not merely to urge cessation of the campaign but to demand from the priests who had participated in the Aschaffenburg assembly explanations for their disobedience to church authority and to call them to repentance. None of them (these were Protopriests Oleksandr Popov, Demyd Burko-Koretsky, Mitrofan Yavdas-Yatsun, Petro Stelmakh, Priests Kostiantyn Danylenko-Danylevsky, and Ivan Chumak) acknowledged their guilt, none submitted repentance, and whoever among them was placed by the bishop under ecclesiastical tribunal with a prohibition on sacred ministry did not submit to that prohibition; others, anticipating the bishop's prohibition — all of them submitted written declarations to the church authority of the UAOC — some in a decent manner, others in a brutal one (one of the fathers even went so far as to compare the Sobor of Bishops in Munich to "a troika created by the NKVD") — declarations that they did not belong to the jurisdiction of the hierarchy of 1942 but had transferred, in accordance with Resolution No. 9 of the "Aschaffenburg Assembly," to the jurisdiction of Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych — and therefore all orders and prohibitions from the episcopate of 1942 did not obligate them.

Finally, Bishop Hryhoriy Ohiichuk openly joined the "advanced church activists" who at the Aschaffenburg assembly had created a schism and elected a "Main Ukrainian Church Rada" with its seat also in Aschaffenburg. At the beginning of October 1947, he sent a letter-declaration to the Sacred Synod stating "the impossibility for himself of having anything in common with Metropolitan Polikarp and those bishops whom he heads."

"My signature on the shameful protocol of the Sobor of Bishops of May 12, 1947, regarding the reconsecration of Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych," Bishop Ohiichuk added, "I am withdrawing, because I made it on the basis of deliberately false information from Metropolitan Polikarp..."

The Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC called these words of Bishop Ohiichuk in its Sobor Epistle on the occasion of the Aschaffenburg Schism an "unheard-of falsehood." The matter concerned whether Archbishop Ioan had written about "two possibilities for the act of union: either through full consecration or merely by the order of chirothesia..." (Letter of February 28, 1947, to the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC.) Bishop Ohiichuk, without any basis, leveled the accusation that the letter had been forged, and by this accusation inflicted a deep offense upon the Metropolitan, the Head of the Sobor, who had reported that letter at the session of the Sobor.

On October 17, 1947, Bishop Hryhoriy had already arrived from the British Zone to Aschaffenburg for a session of the "Ukrainian Church Small Rada" of the UAOC — Conciliar-Governed,

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chaired by Ivan St. Harashchenko; the main items on the agenda of this session were: "organization of parishes; convening of the Second Church Assembly and Church Sobor." (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section I, Case 2, p. 122.) Thus the work of spreading the division of the UAOC abroad, schism within it, was to continue further.

It is obvious that the hierarchy of the UAOC could not now turn to the "Ukrainian Orthodox Church Rada" and request that the Rada receive them, too, the bishops of the 1942 consecration, into the bosom of the "primordial UAOC," as the schismatics had proclaimed themselves.

To the warnings from the Sobor of Bishops and the Sacred Synod of the UAOC, to the persuasion and admonitions of Metropolitan Polikarp to Bishop Hryhoriy, and of the ruling bishops to the priests who had participated in the assembly, these violators of church order and national-ecclesiastical unity responded with further contempt for the holy canons of the Orthodox Church, insults to the episcopate, and plans to continue their destructive work in the church life of Orthodox Ukrainians.

As we have seen, the faithful and clergy who condemned the destructive campaign of the "adherents of the canons of 1921" in the Church were already impatiently awaiting the voice of the hierarchy on this matter and were asking for this Archpastoral voice.

It then remained for the hierarchy to establish the falling away from the UAOC of Bishop Hryhoriy and the above-named presbyters, which was carried out through the church-legal act of deprivation of sacred rank and excommunication from the Church at the Extraordinary Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC on October 23–24, 1947, in Aschaffenburg.

Dated October 24, 1947, the Sobor of Bishops issued a Sobor Archpastoral Epistle on the occasion of the Aschaffenburg Schism and its resolutions prompted by that schism.

In this extensive Epistle, the Episcopate speaks of how, in the very important and at the same time complex matter of unifying the UAOC in emigration with the American-Ukrainian Orthodox Church headed by Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych — while this matter was in the process of negotiations and agreements between the hierarchical leadership of those Churches — uncalled and uninvited people intervened to "decide this matter themselves without the competence of the bishops."

Then follows a discussion of the Aschaffenburg "gathering" (Laodicean Sobor, Canon 13), which "proclaimed itself the UAOC and declared all twelve bishops apostates from the UAOC, and with them, obviously, all that clergy and those thousands of faithful who do not express solidarity with the 'gathering of 67'..."

"We, the Bishops of the UAOC, cannot permit a schismatic group, now headed by Bishop Hryhoriy, who has joined it and whom it has elevated to the rank of archbishop, to usurp for itself the name UAOC and moreover to call itself the 'primordial UAOC.' In the church-religious consciousness and life of our pious people, their Orthodox Church from the time of its organization under the holy Grand Prince Volodymyr until today constitutes, as Orthodox, one continuous whole, whatever may have been its historical

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fate in life and structure over the course of nearly a thousand years. Let no one be deceived by the deceitful and confusing — whether conscious or, through ignorance, unconscious — assertions of the schismatic group in the Aschaffenburg resolutions about the 'primordial UAOC' to which that group claims to belong...

In reality, the tendency that is introducing this turmoil and schism in our Church is in no way 'primordial' but is connected entirely with '1921,' from which it took not the better part, which was imbued with idealism in the search for the truth of Christ in a liberated National Church, but the worse part, which manifested itself in the so-called 'canons of 1921,' which were a departure from the Orthodox teaching about the Church, unknown to our Orthodox Church from the times of the holy Prince Volodymyr...

It was not from the spirit of love, not from the spirit of unity that the actions of the initiators of the Aschaffenburg gathering arose, but from the spirit of pride, contrary to the idea of conciliarity of the Holy Universal Orthodox Church. This spirit of pride was especially manifested by those priests who, instead of restraining the faithful from rash steps of condemning the episcopate, themselves condemn and renounce their bishops, destroying our Church in the very foundations of its canonical existence and creating a schism in the Church...

In the sense of archpastoral responsibility for the state of the Native Church and for the souls of the flock entrusted to us by God, and faithful to the hierarchical oath given at holy consecration, we cannot — in the face of such violation of church order, contempt for a whole series of holy canons of the Universal Orthodox Church, and rejection of the very teaching of Orthodoxy about the Church and its structure — we cannot fail to take the necessary measures to halt that scandal and that evil which is being spread in the Church by false teachers. We cannot be indifferent or indulgent also because those false teachers, by breaking the unity of our Church here, are thereby conducting destructive work in our overall national life..."

Having then communicated to the clergy and faithful of the UAOC its resolutions — on the basis of a series of canons of the Universal Orthodox Church — on the deprivation of sacred rank and excommunication from the Church of Bishop Hryhoriy, Presbyters Oleksandr Popov, Mitrofan Yavdas, Demyd Burko, Petro Stelmakh, Kostiantyn Danylevsky, Ivan Chumak, and Hryhoriy Antokhov, and on the excommunication from the Church, as organizers of schism in the Church, of laymen Ivan Harashchenko, Arkadiy Yaremenko, Vasyl Dubrovsky, Ivan Bakalo, Pavlo Yatsevych, M. Kovshun, and Andriy Makarenko — the Sobor of Bishops addressed at the conclusion of the "Epistle":

"Beloved! It was not with a light heart that the Sobor of Bishops rendered these decisions. But the good of our Church and our Archpastoral duty commanded us to act thus. We call upon all our flock to be faithful to holy Orthodoxy. Among you, even greater schismatic propaganda will begin. They will hurl the slogans of 'conciliar governance,' as this group that created the schism has already named itself a 'conciliar-governed church.' But know that their understanding of conciliar governance is un-Orthodox; it is a 'system of soviets' — of soviet governance in the Church — unknown to our Orthodox forefathers

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... You will hear again about the blood of martyrs, but it is not for those lips to speak of this, for the blood of great martyrs would have obligated them not to shatter in emigration the unity of church and nation. We call upon the faithful not to have prayerful communion with the excommunicated former clergy, remembering the Rules of the Holy Apostles: that whoever prays with those excommunicated from the Holy Church is himself subject to excommunication (Canons 10–11).

We announce finally to the clergy and faithful that the Sobor of Bishops has resolved to convene, still in this year 1947, a Church Assembly of the UAOC in which bishops, representatives of the clergy, and faithful will participate, about which a separate directive will follow to the clergy by parishes."

This Sobor Epistle was signed by the Episcopate of the UAOC — nine hierarchs, headed by Metropolitan Polikarp; Bishop Mstyslav, whom the Sobor of Bishops had given its blessing (at the Third Session of the Sobor, May 12, 1947) to depart for Canada for episcopal ministry in the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church, was already in Canada by September 1947; Bishop Sylvester did not attend the session of the Sobor of Bishops due to medical treatment; and Bishop Hryhoriy had apostatized from the UAOC. (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section I, Case 1, pp. 30–34.)

Already after the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC on October 23–24, 1947, the letter of Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych of October 16, 1947, became known — sent by him to Ivan Harashchenko "for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council in Emigration, elected by the First Church Assembly of Autocephalists–Conciliar Governmentalists on August 25–26, 1947, in Aschaffenburg."

This letter was a response to the resolution of the Aschaffenburg assembly "to request Archbishop Fr. Ioan Theodorovych to extend his care to Ukrainian Orthodox parishes in Europe that express their will to submit to his jurisdiction."

In the "conclusions and guidelines" of the letter, Archbishop Ioan expresses the thoughts that "the UAOC, fully embodying in its life, in its ideology and practice, the primordial ideals of our people, is the goal of our aspirations, the dream of our strivings, and it can be fully realized only on our native soil"... "The UAOC of the 1942 formation may, in many of its features, not correspond to our understanding of a true UAOC," but "it could not carry into life that which the conditions of war and German violence did not permit"...

"The UAOC of the 1921 formation is truly a creation of the will and heart of our own people," but "of what the will and heart of the people created in 1921, much was not a free manifestation of our centuries-old Ukrainian churchmanship but a manifestation under the compulsion of the circumstances of that time." Among such manifestations under compulsion, the Archbishop includes "the very act of restoring our hierarchy in 1921," as well as "certain canons adopted at that time" which "do not flow naturally from the previous processes of our church history." (Emphasis ours.)

"From what has been presented, it is clear," wrote the Archbishop, "that both the UAOC of 1921 and the UAOC of 1942 have their defects and cannot be accepted as perfected embodiments of the idea of a true UAOC. It, this true UAOC, is even now

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before us as a dream of aspiration, as an ideal to approach. Our duty is to strive toward the realization of this ideal"...

In what precisely, regarding the internal structure of the Church, based evidently on the teaching of faith about the Church accepted in the Universal Orthodox Church (the Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, 1640) — the idea or ideal of the true UAOC consists, the letter does not say, but Archbishop Ioan further expresses the firm thought that "to gradually arrive at the creation of a truly Ukrainian in all attributes of that name Church — we can only by common, not divided, will"...

"Beyond all these considerations," the Archbishop concludes, "I must also point to the real needs of the Church in America, at the head of which I stand. Here, too, we have our difficult problems; these are the problems of liquidating our own local, former schisms. Progress toward this is being made here. The interests of our Church in the United States of America and in Canada decisively exclude my agreement to head your action, which, apart from yet another painful schism, promises nothing else. For the reasons indicated, I do not consider it possible to stand at the head of the movement you have initiated"...

Thus the presbyters who had renounced the jurisdiction of the UAOC even before the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC on October 23–24, 1947, submitting themselves to the jurisdiction of Archbishop Ioan, were not accepted by him under his jurisdiction, and found themselves under the "jurisdiction" of Bishop Hryhoriy, who had been excommunicated by the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, just as they themselves had been.

Was their excommunication a punishment, persecution, a pursuit for their ecclesiastical "ideology," as they and their defenders later began to say — and for ideas, for ideology, they said, one cannot be persecuted?

In this accusation against the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC regarding the condemnation of the creators of the Aschaffenburg Schism, there is much misunderstanding, the source of which must be seen in the same distortion of the concept of the Church, in the "secularization" of the Church, which produced during the revolutionary era at the Kyiv Sobor of 1921 also the so-called "canons of 1921." (See Vol. IV, Part 1 of this work, pp. 126–134.)

There was no persecution for "ideology" here whatsoever. The excommunication was an establishment of the falling away from the UAOC of a bishop, a group of priests, and a group of laypeople who had themselves departed from it, refusing to submit to its teaching of faith and its church discipline, while at the same time striving to break its unity.

The Sobor of Bishops in this case followed the commandment of the Holy Apostle Paul: "For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves." (1 Cor. 5:12–13.)

And by its proclamation of the falling away and excommunication, the Sobor of Bishops warned its flock (Acts 20:28) against the schismatics. They, according to their "ideology," formed their own church, which they named "UAOC (Conciliar-Governed)," while the one from which they had been excluded after their apostasy they began calling "UAOC–Synodal" (see the anthology The Truth about the UAOC — Conciliar-Governed. Published by the UOC Council, 1947), giving this additional appellation "Synodal" a malicious character. For,

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they claimed, "the creation of a Synod is an adoption of the ideology of the Russian Church; it never existed in the Ukrainian Church; it is non-canonical, because in Russia it was established by order of Peter I and was not established by the Universal Orthodox Church"... (From the writings of the autocephalists–conciliar governmentalists.)

We cite this to characterize the educational level of the leaders of the schism, to whom it is unknown that "synod" actually means "sobor" (council/assembly), as we see in ancient Ukrainian texts: "Didaskalia, or Teaching, which was first delivered orally to priests on the Seven Sacraments, or Mysteries, at the Local Synod in the God-saved city of Mohyliv, A.D. 1637."

"Sacred Synods," which were not established by the Universal Orthodox Church, as the Ukrainian "conciliar governmentalists" write out of their ignorance, exist throughout the Orthodox Autocephalous Churches: in the Ecumenical Patriarchate (composed of 12 metropolitans), in the Alexandrian Patriarchate (composed of the patriarch and 5 metropolitans), in the Jerusalem Patriarchate (composed of the patriarch, diocesan hierarchs, and archimandrites who are members of the Holy Sepulchre Brotherhood), in the Antiochian Patriarchate (composed of the patriarch and 4 metropolitans), in the Hellenic (Greek) Church (composed of the Archbishop of Athens and 6 metropolitans), in the Serbian Church (composed of the patriarch and 4 diocesan hierarchs), in the Bulgarian Church (composed of the patriarch and 4 metropolitans), in the Romanian Church (composed of the patriarch and all bishops — this is properly already a sobor of bishops, called there the Sacred Synod).

Thus all these Churches would have to be called "Synodal," while the Ukrainian Church alone in the Orthodox world would be "Conciliar-Governed."

But then the "conciliar governmentalists" are also unaware that by the legislative act of the Directorate of the Ukrainian National Republic — the "Law of January 1, 1919, on the Supreme Administration of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church" — it was established in Article 2: "For the administration of the affairs of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, a Ukrainian Church Synod is established, composed of 2 bishops, 1 protopriest, 1 priest, 1 deacon, and 3 laymen, plus one priest from the Military Department. Until the convening of a Sobor, which elects members of the Synod and submits them for government confirmation, the members of the Church Synod are appointed by the Supreme Republican Ukrainian Government." (Vol. IV, Part 1 of this work, pp. 62–63.)

Thus the Sacred Synod, as the permanent body of the Supreme Church Administration, elected by the All-Ukrainian Church Sobor — and not the VPCR (the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Rada, with a layman as acting chairman) — was to exist in the UAOC as well.

The violation of holy canons in the Russian Church from Peter I onward was not that the Supreme Church Administration came to be called a Synod and was collegial, but that this Synod was entirely subordinated to the state tsarist authority — there was "caesaropapism" in the Russian Church; the emperor was considered head of the Church; there were no church sobors whatsoever, not even sobors of bishops; in the Synod, the greatest authority was that of the Ober-Procurator, as a tsarist minister.

Thus the Russian Church, with the suppression in it of the principles of conciliarity by secular authority, was indeed

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deprived of freedom in its internal life, and therefore was, in the expression of the Slavophiles, "in paralysis" from the times of Peter I. But this was by no means the "ideology" of the Church itself, in which, with the fall of the old regime in Russia with the revolution in February 1917, an All-Russian Church Sobor was already opened on August 16, 1917...

Obviously, to speak of the persecution by the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in emigration of "adherents of the canons of 1921" for their "ideology" is simply laughable. Excommunicated after their apostasy from the UAOC ("Synodal"), they freely formed their own UAOC (Conciliar-Governed), and if all Ukrainian Orthodox parishes in the camps in Germany had gone over to their Conciliar-Governed Church, how could the hierarchy of the UAOC in emigration have prohibited such a transition for the parishes? What kind of persecution or pursuit of "martyrs for ideology" was this?

But Ukrainian Orthodox parishes in the camps and outside the camps in emigration in Europe did not in their mass go over to the UAOC (Conciliar-Governed) created by the Aschaffenburg Schism, and this was not, of course, because they were frightened by the authority of the Ukrainian hierarchy of 1942 and "persecutions" from it, but because they did not recognize truth as being on the side of the "conciliar governmentalists."

The UAOC in emigration, headed by that hierarchy, attested its attitude toward the campaign of the "autocephalists–conciliar governmentalists" in emigration at the "First Orthodox Ukrainian Church Assembly of Representatives of the Episcopate, Clergy, and Laity of the UAOC" in Regensburg, December 25–27, 1947, in the following resolutions:

"The Assembly affirms that in the church consciousness of the Ukrainian Orthodox population residing outside the borders of the enslaved Fatherland, the UAOC, headed by a canonically successive grace-bearing hierarchy, is an inseparable part of the Holy Universal Orthodox Church."

"The Assembly accepts without any discussion or objection the report of the Chairman of the Assembly, Archbishop Nikanor, on the Dogmatic-Canonical Structure of the UAOC, in which the eternal foundations of the Orthodox Confession are concisely formulated as the ancestral faith of the Ukrainian People, and requests the Sacred Synod to publish as quickly as possible and disseminate as widely as possible the said report, as well as the other reports delivered at the Assembly on the legal-canonical and national-historical foundations of the autocephaly of the UAOC."

"The Assembly calls upon all Orthodox Ukrainians to cease all manner of disputes among themselves and to be imbued with the spirit of unity and to see to it that all those who through their inexperience, imprudence, or excessive credulity have departed from the eternal path of their Orthodox ancestors and deviated from that true path, be brought back to it."

"The Assembly requests the Sacred Synod to take notice of the urgent need, dictated by the demands of the present moment, to publish religious-educational

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and church-informational literature that would serve as spiritual support for the Ukrainian Orthodox population and protect that population from the encroachments of hostile destructive forces and uncalled church reformers."

"The Assembly firmly condemns the act of the group of the so-called Aschaffenburg Assembly, which departed from obedience to the Supreme Spiritual Authority and by its conduct is breaking the unity of the Ukrainian Orthodox community and introducing into church life the spirit of discord, unrest, and struggle, which is moreover conducted by means that do not correspond to the principles of Christian morality. The Assembly calls upon the clergy and laity to rally around the UAOC with its Sacred Sobor of Bishops and to restore in church life the spirit of unity and fraternal love." (Archive of the Synod, I, Case No. 5, pp. 104–105.)

That it was not the spirit of intolerance or persecution, but the spirit of church truth, the good of the Church, church order, and the preservation of that treasure which the Orthodox Church was and is for the Ukrainian people — not from 1921 or from 1942 but from the tenth century after Christ — that guided the Sobor of Bishops, headed by Metropolitan Polikarp, in its attitude toward the pitiable church schism in emigration, is also evident from the way in which, in its last Sobor Archpastoral Epistle of November 5, 1949, before the dispersal of the bishops from Europe, the Sobor of Bishops wrote:

"Lamenting the sad fact of the schism that occurred in our Church in 1947, we call upon our brethren who do not maintain church unity to realize at last that church discord has neither need nor sense; apart from grave harm to our much-suffering people, it gives nothing. Only the enemies of Christ and the Church rejoice at this, striving with all their might to bring our people to division and weakness. The Church of Christ has always been the great life-giving unifying force in the history of our people. Especially must it be so in these difficult times for Ukraine. We call upon all our brothers and sisters who consider themselves Orthodox to unite around the One Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church"...

And Metropolitan Polikarp, in his resolution on a letter concerning this schism from the Head of the Department of Culture, Education, and Religious Affairs of the Ukrainian National Council, indicated the simple path of reconciliation and church unification: "Ukrainians who at one time departed into schism are received into the UAOC upon their declaration to the local priest, who informs the ruling bishop. Those of the clergy and laity who were personally condemned in 1947 must submit a petition to the metropolitan and receive forgiveness for their transgression. The fate of Mr. Ohiichuk, as a former bishop, will be decided by the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC when Mr. Ohiichuk submits to the Sobor of Bishops a letter of penitence."

Of those who were personally condemned by the resolution of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC on October 23–24, 1947: Fr. Oleksandr Popov and

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Hryhoriy Antokhiv have died; Protopriest Demyd Burko long ago left the UAOC–Conciliar-Governed and zealously serves in the UAOC under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Nikanor; Fr. Petro Stelmakh, Fr. Ivan Chumak, and Fr. Kostiantyn Danylenko-Danylevsky have also left the UAOC–Conciliar-Governed and have parishes in the UOC in the USA; and the sole Fr. M. Yavdas remains outside the three Ukrainian Orthodox Metropolitanates, united in prayer, having departed, however, from the UAOC–Conciliar-Governed headed by Bishop Hryhoriy as well. Of the laymen condemned by the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in 1947, Prof. Ivan Bakalo, who was chairman of the Aschaffenburg Assembly, has for several years already been an active worker in the UAOC in emigration, as has Mitred Protopriest Demyd Burko.

5. The Church Assembly of the UAOC in Regensburg, December 25–27, 1947. Ratification of its resolutions by the Sobor of Bishops in Augsburg, April 19–20, 1948. The question of union of the UAOC in emigration with the American Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Canada; the difficulties of this matter. Election by the Extraordinary Sobor of the UGOC in Canada of Bishop Mstyslav to the archiepiscopal cathedra in it. The "Circular Informational Epistle" of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Emigration on the matter of prayerful communion with Autocephalous Orthodox Churches; correspondence on this matter with Metropolitan Anastasiy of the Russian Church Abroad. The funeral of Metropolitan of Polissia Oleksandr by the hierarchs and clergy of the UAOC in Munich, February 12, 1948. The matter of mutual relations of the UAOC hierarchy with the hierarchs of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in the former General Government (Poland).

Already at the Second Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in March 1946, the question was raised of convening a Church Assembly of the UAOC in emigration composed of bishops, representatives of the clergy, and laity. The Sacred Synod was then charged with thoroughly studying and developing this question and submitting a proposal to the Sobor of Bishops. The Synod created a "Commission on the Convening of a Pre-Sobor Assembly (Church Assembly)" under the chairmanship of Archbishop Mykhail, the report on whose activity was accepted at the Sobor of Bishops on May 12, 1947.

After that, the Synod of the UAOC called an "Organizational Commission on the Convening of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Assembly of the UAOC in Emigration" under the chairmanship of Archbishop Nikanor. After the preparatory work for the Assembly was completed, the resolution of the Sobor of Bishops on convening the Assembly was adopted at its session on October 23, 1947.

The Ukrainian Church Assembly in Emigration took place December 25–27, 1947, in the city of Regensburg.

Participating in the Church Assembly were: Chairman of the Assembly — Deputy Metropolitan Archbishop Nikanor; members of the Synod — Archbishop Ihor, Archbishop Henadiy, Bishop Platon, Prot. Borys Yakovkevych, attorney Yevhen Tyravsky; from the episcopate by their wish — Archbishop Mykhail and

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Bishops Sylvester, Volodymyr, and Viacheslav. Elected delegates from the diocesan provinces numbered: from the clergy — 12 protopriests, 3 priests, and 1 deacon; from the laity — 18 persons and a 19th delegate, Colonel Oleksandr Kuzminsky from Austria.

Representatives of institutions and Ukrainian organizations invited by the Synod: Prof. P. Kovaliv and Prof. V. Petriv — from the Theological-Pedagogical Academy; Prof. V. Hryshko — from the Theological-Scholarly Institute; Prof. L. Biletsky — from the Academy of Sciences; Prof. B. Ivanytsky and Prof. V. Domanytsky — from the Ukrainian Technical-Economic Institute; General M. Sadovsky — from the Brotherhood of Mercy; Prof. I. Korovytsky and Col. M. Rybachuk — from the Military Combatants; Prof. M. Vietukhov — from the Central Representation of Ukrainian Emigration; Prof. I. Rozhin — from the UO Rada in Munich; Liudmyla Ivchenko — from the Women's Organization in Munich; Prof. Ivan Wlasowsky, Prof. Filimon Kulchynsky, and Prot. Artemiy Selepyna — as theological advisors.

Members of the Assembly with a deciding vote numbered 60; guests at the Assembly — 88; among them were Archbishop Paladiy of Krakow-Lemko-Lviv and Protopresbyter Pavel Kalynovych as a representative of Metropolitan of Polissia and Pinsk Oleksandr.

Elected as Vice-Chairmen of the Assembly were Prot. F. Biletsky and Prof. A. Kotovych; as secretaries — Prot. V. Varvarov and Prof. I. Korovytsky. The Credentials Committee consisted of: Prot. Yuriy Peleshchuk, Judge Viktor Soloviy, and Prof. V. Zavitnevych. The Resolutions Committee consisted of: Prot. V. Vyshnevsky and Professors V. Zavitnevych, A. Kotovych, B. Lysiansky, and O. Yurchenko.

Among the written and oral greetings read at the Assembly, the greeting of Metropolitan of Polissia Oleksandr, read by Protopresbyter P. Kalynovych, was heard by those present standing. In it, Metropolitan Oleksandr wrote, among other things: "I was very moved by the warm words of the invitation from the Sacred Synod, which acknowledges my sincere and loving attitude toward the Holy Ukrainian Church. Indeed, I am devoted with my entire soul to the sacred interests of the Ukrainian Church. My attitude toward it is such that I, following the Apostle Paul, can say: 'I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake' (Col. 1:24); 'Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?' (2 Cor. 11:29)... On the table at which the Presidium of the Church Assembly sits, there undoubtedly lies the Holy Gospel, the Cross, and the Book of Rules of the Holy Apostles, the Ecumenical and Local Sobors, and the Holy Fathers. All this enables the creation of a Legal Canonical structure of the Ukrainian Church as part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church."

At the Assembly, reports were delivered and discussions held on the following topics on December 25: "The Dogmatic-Canonical Structure of the Holy Orthodox Universal Church" — speaker Archbishop Nikanor; "Canonical and Historical Foundations for the Autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church" — speaker Prof. Ivan Wlasowsky; "The Internal Structure of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Emigration" — speaker Ivan Wlasowsky.

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December 26: "Theological Education in Emigration" — speaker Prof. Filimon Kulchynsky; co-report on the "Theological-Pedagogical Academy" by Prof. P. Kovaliv; "Organization of Missionary Work in Emigration" — speaker Prot. Artemiy Selepyna; "Religious Education of Contemporary Youth in Schools and Beyond" — speaker Prot. Vasyl Varvarov.

December 27: "Ukrainian Orthodox Church Brotherhoods" — speaker attorney Yevhen Tyravsky; "Church Publishing Activity of the UAOC in Emigration" — speaker Ivan Wlasowsky; "Financial-Economic Affairs of the UAOC in Emigration" — speaker Bishop Platon.

Of these reports, the following were published: "The Dogmatic-Canonical Structure of the Holy Orthodox Universal Church" by Archbishop Nikanor and "Canonical and Historical Foundations for the Autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church" by Ivan Wlasowsky in the Bohoslovsky Visnyk (Theological Herald), No. 1, 1948 (the latter also published as a separate brochure); "Religious Education of Contemporary Youth" by Prot. V. Varvarov in the Bohoslovsky Visnyk (organ of the UAOC in Emigration), No. 2, 1948.

The Church Assembly of the UAOC in Emigration in Regensburg, December 25–27, 1947, was obviously not a legislative sobor for the UAOC in emigration; from a church-legal standpoint, its resolutions on the reports, which covered, as can be seen, almost all areas of church life, should be considered as the advisory voice of the Church to the Sobor of Bishops in matters requiring the implementation in church life, in practice, of this or that church task for the development of that life.

But, in our opinion, the greatest significance of that Church Assembly in Regensburg lay in the fact that the representatives of the Church at it — of the episcopate, clergy, and laity — professed their credo, answered the question: what does the UAOC in emigration believe? — which was necessary in view of the malicious agitation in the camps by the excommunicated "autocephalists–conciliar governmentalists." The first three reports of December 25 were prompted by this need of church life.

And the representatives of the Church, with full authority, composed of elected delegates and invited theologians, answered the question of the Church's "credo" with clear resolutions, the most important of which was the following:

"The Ukrainian people under Volodymyr the Holy received baptism from the Greek Orthodox Church. Together with the Christian faith, they also received the structure of the Orthodox Universal Church — its dogmas, canons, and order of divine worship. This heritage, as a precious treasure, the people preserved through the difficult centuries of their historical existence unchanged and inviolable. Fidelity to the canons of the Universal Church, as the pledge of its union with the One Holy Universal Church, the UAOC maintains inviolably to this present time of fiery trial and prays to God that He may help it persevere until the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ...

Bowing in pious reverence our heads before the blessed memory of all those who laid down their lives for the Christian faith and the Native UOC, both in the ancient times of the history of Ukraine and in the twenties and thirties

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of the current century fell victim to godless Communism, and in its forties to godless National Socialism, the Ukrainian Church Assembly of the UAOC in Emigration calls upon all Ukrainian Orthodox people, both on the native land and in the diaspora, to stand firmly and unshakably on the dogmatic-canonical foundations of Universal Orthodoxy as the faith of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers from the time of the baptism of Ukraine...

The Assembly affirms that in the church consciousness of the Ukrainian Orthodox population residing outside the borders of the enslaved Fatherland, the UAOC, headed by a canonically successive grace-bearing hierarchy, is an inseparable part of the Holy Universal Orthodox Church...

The Assembly requests the Presidium of the Assembly to convey to Metropolitan Polikarp expressions of its deepest respect, filial obedience, and boundless devotion, and at the same time calls upon all the faithful of the UAOC to unite even more closely around the hierarchy of the Native Church, headed by His Eminence Metropolitan Polikarp." (Minutes of the First Orthodox Ukrainian Church Assembly, December 25–27, 1947, in Regensburg.)

The resolutions of the Assembly regarding the Aschaffenburg Schism have been cited by us above.

At the Fifth Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Emigration, held in Augsburg on April 19–20, 1948, Archbishop Nikanor, as Chairman of the Church Assembly in Regensburg, reported on the proceedings of the Assembly, after which all the Assembly's resolutions were read; the Sobor of Bishops accepted them, recognized the convening of the Assembly — which "unites the component parts of the Church into one" — as very beneficial, and confirmed in the positions of members of the Synod of the UAOC those elected at the Assembly: the second representative from the clergy, Mitred Protopriest Yuriy Peleshchuk, and another representative from the laity, Prof. Anatoliy Kotovych.

The idea of creating a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the free world — that is, outside the enslaved Fatherland — had been raised, as we have seen, already at the Sobor of Bishops in March 1946 in Esslingen. Among the resolutions of the Church Assembly in Regensburg, we find on this subject the resolution: "The Assembly sincerely welcomes the resolution of the Sobor of the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Canada of November 13, 1947, on the matter of uniting the Ukrainian Orthodox churches, as a new expression of the aspirations of Orthodox Ukrainians toward the creation of a single UAOC."

Nearly two years passed between the raising at the Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen of the great problem of "unifying Ukrainian Orthodox centers in the world outside the Fatherland into a single Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church" and the Church Assembly of the UAOC in Regensburg, which welcomed the resolution on this unification adopted at the Extraordinary Sobor of the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Canada on November 12–13, 1947. The complex problem of such unification — not achieved, as is known, even to this day after nearly 20 years since the camp life of the UAOC in emigration — in those times had, in its main outline, the following course.

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In the middle of 1946, epistolary negotiations began between Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych, who at that time had in his jurisdiction the American-Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA, the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Canada, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Mission in Brazil, and Metropolitan Polikarp, the Primate of the UAOC in Emigration.

From Archbishop Ioan's letter to Metropolitan Polikarp of June 6, 1946, it is evident that Metropolitan Polikarp had written to Archbishop Ioan as early as January 22, 1946, but Archbishop Ioan received that letter only recently before June 6. This indicates how greatly postal communication was hampered in those postwar times, and consequently how hampered were negotiations on matters.

In his letter of June 6, 1946, Archbishop Ioan, "guided by the understanding that the UAOC should be, especially outside the borders of the Native land, only one, indivisible, and strong in its indivisibility," informed the metropolitan that he had recently sent letters of identical content to the five addresses of bishops of the UAOC known to him, asking them to initiate the clarification of the relationship of the UAOC in Europe to the UAOC on the American continent under his leadership.

In the complex of questions in deciding how to achieve the union of Ukrainian churches, how to create a single UAOC outside the borders of the Native land, the hierarchical question came to the fore: the origin of the episcopate of the UAOC in emigration — that is, the hierarchy of 1942 — on the basis of the operative canons of the Universal Orthodox Church, and the different consecration to the episcopate of Archbishop Ioan at the Kyiv Sobor of 1921, which, although performed by two bishops — Vasyl Lypkivsky and Nestor Sharaivsky — had itself been accomplished at that same Sobor not in accordance with the operative canons.

This is the hierarchical question about which we wrote above — that a group of uncalled "conciliar governmentalists" headed by Ivan Harashchenko interfered in its resolution in emigration, contrary to the position of Archbishop Ioan himself, who did not consider it possible to subject this question to general discussion.

Archbishop Ioan, in his letter of June 6, 1946, to Metropolitan Polikarp, affirming "that the Church (under his spiritual guidance) will never agree to having its Archbishop reconsecrated," further wrote: "By what act the elevation to the rank of Metropolitan (of the Archbishop of the American-Ukrainian Orthodox Church) will be accomplished — whether it will be an act of chirothesia, a blessing, or whether it will be an act of full episcopal consecration — this will already depend on us, the bishops of the Church"...

Only nine months after this letter from Archbishop Ioan to Metropolitan Polikarp came his next letter to Metropolitan Polikarp and the same Sobor of Bishops, dated February 28, 1947. The letter begins with the information that Archbishop Ioan "has finally received a copy of Metropolitan Polikarp's letter in response to his letter of June 6, 1946; the original, however, he did not receive — it was lost somewhere."

In this letter of February 28, 1947, Archbishop Ioan thanks the metropolitan for "agreeing in principle to those proposals that were made by the Archbishop in his letter of June 6, 1946."

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Then follow valuable details about the resolution of the Seventh Sobor of the American-Ukrainian Orthodox Church, by which that Sobor "charged the Archbishop, in the name of the Church, to conduct negotiations, communications, and correspondence with the episcopate of the UAOC in Emigration for the purpose of creating a single UAOC for the entire Ukrainian Orthodox people." Simultaneously with this resolution, the Sobor, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of their Archpastor's episcopate, asked him to accept the title of Metropolitan, for which honor the Archbishop thanked them but "deferred the acceptance of the title of metropolitan to a time when it would better serve the interests of the Church."

The second item of information concerned a different attitude toward the problem of church union and the hierarchical question in it from the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Canada — specifically, its administrative leadership. Not at the Sobor of the Church but at a Pre-Sobor Conference of the clergy, the leadership of the Canadian Church did not find it possible to agree with Archbishop Ioan's views regarding the competence of bishops alone in deciding the hierarchical question.

As a consequence of this disagreement, when "the Canadian Church did not consider it possible to entrust this matter to the competence of its Archpastor" — writes Archbishop Ioan — he "saw no other way than merely to ask the Church to release him in peace and to take his leave of it, which he did." The Sobor of the Canadian Church on July 28–30, 1946, however, asked Archbishop Ioan to care for the Church "until the time of finding and calling a new Archpastor for it."

With the primary aim of finding a candidate for the cathedra of Archpastor of the UGOC in Canada among the bishops of the UAOC in Emigration, a journey to Germany took place in the second half of January and the beginning of February 1947 by the Administrator of the UGOC in Canada, Fr. S. V. Savchuk.

Archbishop Ioan also mentions this journey in his letter of February 28, 1947: "The arrival among you of the Reverend Fr. S. V. Savchuk, Administrator of the Canadian Church, was of his own initiative. It is possible that he had for this some basis in a certain resolution of the Consistory, but such a resolution was not brought to my knowledge. I think it is very good that Fr. S. V. Savchuk was able to become acquainted with all of you and to present personally the understanding of the leading circles of the Canadian Church."

This "understanding" concerned the method of union of the Churches through a solemn concelebration of the Divine Liturgy by Metropolitan Polikarp and other bishops, or a bishop of the UAOC in Emigration, with Archbishop Ioan, for which purpose Metropolitan Polikarp with bishops, or with one bishop, would need to make a journey to America. (Letter of Fr. S. V. Savchuk to Metropolitan Polikarp, dated February 10, 1947.)

The Archbishop writes to the Sobor of Bishops that should the Sobor accept this method of union, he would be "supremely glad." "I would see in this a simplification of the accomplishment of our union in a Single Church, a simplification that we would all here joyfully welcome."

In the event of non-acceptance of these "representations of Fr. S. V. Savchuk," the Archbishop requests, as in his letter of June 6, 1946, that the matter be decided precisely and clearly: the completion of the act of union "either through full consecration or merely

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by the order of chirothesia." In any case, the Archbishop again repeats that "the process of future negotiations must proceed only through the Archbishop of the Church," and not bypassing the Head of the Church, and concludes: "In one thing only I have given the Canadian Church complete independence of action, and that is in the matter of inviting a bishop or bishops to it. I shall accept its decision and shall meet its Chosen One or Chosen Ones, as Archbishop of the Church, with joy."

The Canadian Spiritual Consistory, in a letter of March 7, 1947, to Metropolitan Polikarp, addressed the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC with a request to send a bishop to the UGOC in Canada, naming Bishop Mstyslav as the desired candidate.

On May 12–15, 1947, the Third Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC was held in Munich with the participation of all twelve bishops of the Church and the invited Metropolitan of Polissia Oleksandr, who had co-consecrated with Metropolitan Polikarp the first two bishops of the UAOC in February 1942; Metropolitan Oleksandr was present at the first session of the Sobor.

In his opening address at this Sobor, Metropolitan Polikarp said: "The present session of the Sobor must decide very important matters and create a single UAOC throughout the entire world, to the glory of God and to the glory of our Ukrainian People"...

At the session on May 12, having heard the letters of Archbishop Ioan of June 6, 1946, and February 28, 1947, and the Canadian Spiritual Consistory's letter of March 17, 1947, the Sobor of Bishops, after due discussion of the matters raised in the letters, resolved:

"To joyfully welcome the intention and desire of the Canadian Greek Orthodox Church to unite into one the two branches of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church for the good and glory of the Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian People" and "To bless Bishop Mstyslav, Bishop of Pereiaslav, for hierarchical ministry in the Canadian Church, in accordance with its wish."

Further: "To joyfully welcome the appeal of the Sobor of the Ukrainian American Orthodox Church on the need for unification in a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church outside the Fatherland of the separately operating Ukrainian Orthodox church bodies in the United States of America and in Europe... To entrust the completion of the act of unification, in accordance with the binding canons of the Universal Orthodox Church, to Metropolitan Polikarp and Archbishop Nikanor... The joining of Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych shall be completed through the rite of episcopal consecration. (Apostolic Canon 1; Council of Carthage, Canon 60; First Ecumenical Council, Canon 4; Seventh Ecumenical Council, Canon 3; Council of Antioch, Canons 10, 23; and Council of Laodicea, Canon 12.)" (Minutes of the Session of the Third Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, May 12, 1947 — Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section I, Case No. 1.)

As subsequent events showed, the bishops' joy over the "union into one of the branches of the UAOC," entirely understandable at the time, was premature. Three months later, the Sixth Session of the Synod of the UAOC was held in Mainz-Kastel, at the session of which, on August 5, 1947, "a letter from Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych, received on July 17, 1947,

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was heard on the matter of unification of the UAOC in Emigration and the UAOC in America, in which Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych, reporting that he does not consider it possible to accept the decision of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC of May 12, 1947, on this matter, requests the Sacred Synod to review and decide it anew in accordance with the previous practice of the UAOC, pursuant to the resolution of the Sacred Sobor of Bishops in Pinsk of February 10, 1942.

Resolved: The Sacred Synod fully agrees with the proposal of Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych to resolve the matter of his union with the UAOC in Emigration on the basis of the resolutions of the Pinsk Sobor of 1942. The Sacred Synod affirms that the resolution of the Pinsk Sobor, based on the 52nd Apostolic Canon, when carried out, equally has in view the joining of both presbyters and bishops. It was not applied to bishops only because at that time there were none in Ukraine. Thus Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych may be joined in his existing rank according to the rite established by the Holy Universal Orthodox Church. The mystery of joining shall be completed in accordance with the resolution of the Sobor of Bishops of May 12, 1947, at the location, in accordance with the instruction appended hereto. The Sacred Synod likewise considers that the method of reception indicated by church practice belongs to the competence of the bishops of the Church, to whom alone the authority to decide questions of this kind has been given by the Holy Spirit. Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych is to be informed of this resolution." (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section I, Case 1, pp. 136–137.)

As is further evident from Archbishop Ioan's letters to Metropolitan Polikarp of October 18 and October 20, 1947, in the leading circles of the American-Ukrainian Orthodox Church, after receiving this resolution of the Synod of the UAOC, thoughts began to intensify — thoughts that had arisen even earlier — that if their Archbishop "must take the path of canonization of his episcopal rank, this should be accomplished in the manner most beneficial for the entire Ukrainian Church in the United States of America."

And this more beneficial manner would be receiving the "canonization of the episcopal rank" from the Ecumenical Patriarch, whereby there would come about a unification of the American-Ukrainian Orthodox Church with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Bishop Bohdan Shpylka in America, which was, as a diocese or diocese, under the jurisdiction of the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch. At the head of the united UOC in the USA would be Archbishop Ioan, and Bishop Bohdan would be a vicar.

The realization of this project, it was argued, would also have great significance for the recognition by the Ecumenical Patriarch of the UAOC in Emigration.

Archbishop Ioan shared this conception. Action in this direction was then initiated by the leading circles headed by Archbishop Ioan and with the assent of Bishop Bohdan.

The matter of unification of Metropolitan Ioan's Church with Bishop Bohdan's Church became stuck for a long time in Constantinople; the matter of union with the UAOC in Emigration from that time remained without movement, all the more so as the resettlement from Europe to various countries, including Canada and the USA, soon began in 1948,

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Ukrainian displaced persons, as well as the clergy and bishops of the UAOC.

As for the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Canada, as is evident from the wording of the resolution of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Munich on May 12, 1947, the Sobor — in the appeal of the Consistory of that Church requesting that Bishop Mstyslav be sent to Canada for the spiritual ministry of that Church — already saw the "intention and desire" of the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Canada "to unite into one" with the UAOC in Emigration. Having blessed Bishop Mstyslav for hierarchical ministry in the Canadian Church, the bishops of the UAOC considered that thereby the UGOC in Canada had come under the jurisdiction of the hierarchy of the UAOC in Emigration. This is evident, for example, from the Synod resolution of the UAOC of October 21, 1947: "To charge the Chairman of the Sacred Synod, Metropolitan Polikarp, with demanding from Bishop Mstyslav a detailed report on his work in America and Canada," as well as from the resolution of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC of November 4, 1949, on "reaching an understanding with Archbishop Mstyslav on the matter of sending official communications about the life of the UGOC in Canada."

The understanding of the UGOC in Canada itself regarding its mutual relations with the UAOC in Emigration was clearly expressed in the resolutions of the Extraordinary Sobor of that Church on November 12–13, 1947: The Sobor "elects and requests His Grace Bishop Mstyslav (Skrypnyk) to become the ruling Bishop of the UGOC in Canada with the title 'Archbishop of Winnipeg and All Canada,' with his seat in the city of Winnipeg. At the same time, it affirms that the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Canada remains henceforth independent and self-governing in its internal life and administration of the church organization in Canada. The Extraordinary Sobor of the UGOC in Canada considers the UAOC in Emigration a Sister Church, kindred to it in spirit and aspirations, the main characteristic of which churches is the fundamental desire to preserve their independence from foreign church centers and influences and to be simultaneously, like other Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, a part of the Universal Orthodox Church."

At this same Extraordinary Sobor of the UGOC in Canada, a resolution was also adopted on the matter of church unification of Orthodox Ukrainians in the world outside the Fatherland — the resolution that the Church Assembly of the UAOC in Regensburg welcomed — namely: "The Extraordinary Sobor of the UGOC in Canada considers that a real form of single spiritual leadership and a symbol of church unification of all Orthodox Ukrainians in the world would be the recognition of one Metropolitan as the Spiritual Leader of all Orthodox Ukrainians in the world, under whom there would function a Metropolitan Rada with representatives of the organized and operating independent Ukrainian Orthodox Churches. To achieve this, the Sobor considers it essential that in the shortest time a World Ukrainian Orthodox Sobor take place... The Extraordinary Sobor considers it expedient that the initiative for convening such a Sobor be assumed by the UGOC in Canada, and therefore charges

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the Leadership of the UGOC in Canada to enter into an understanding with the leadership of the UAOC in Emigration in Europe and the American-Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA and jointly with them to establish the time, place, and program of the World Sobor."

In the acts of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC in Emigration, we find that a letter from Archbishop Mstyslav of June 7, 1949, on the matter of convening a "World Church Sobor of Orthodox Ukrainians residing outside Ukraine" was heard at the session of the Eleventh Session of the Synod on June 17, 1949. In its resolution, the Synod recognized the idea of convening such a Sobor as "entirely acceptable and necessary," but expressed the opinion that "such an important matter as the convening of a World Church Sobor of Orthodox Ukrainians residing outside Ukraine can be held only (?) with the blessing of the Most Holy Ecumenical Patriarch."

It was resolved to appoint a Pre-Sobor Commission composed of Metropolitan Polikarp, Archbishop Nikanor, and Bishop Platon, "with the right to co-opt an appropriate number of commission members from the clergy and faithful of the UAOC." At the Sixth Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, held on November 3–5, 1949, the following resolution was adopted: "Returning to the question of convening an All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Sobor, the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC declares that the UAOC in Emigration will take part in the proceedings of an All-Ukrainian Sobor when it is convened. If the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch, mentioned in the Synod's resolution of June 17, 1949, despite all measures taken, should not be granted, the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC considers it possible, out of necessity, to convene that Sobor even without that blessing." (Minutes of the Session of the Synod of the UAOC in Munich, June 17, 1949; Session of the Sixth Sobor of Bishops, November 4, 1949, in Dillingen. Archive of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC, Section I, No. 1, pp. 201, 59.)

When this resolution was adopted by the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Emigration — the last from the era of camp life of Orthodox Ukrainians in Europe — in the United States of America the process of union of the American-Ukrainian Orthodox Church, headed by Archbishop Ioan, with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in America, headed by Archbishop Mstyslav (until the Extraordinary Sobor of this Church on December 8–9, 1948, in Allentown — by Bishop Bohdan Shpylka, under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch), was proceeding with great difficulty. The events of that process, in which the UAOC in Emigration did not participate, concluded with the Sobor of Union of the two named Churches into one Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA on October 14, 1950.

In the Sobor Epistle on the occasion of this historic event, the episcopate of the united UOC in the USA declared: "The historic weight of our Sobor resolutions lies also in the fact that they constitute the first stage toward a World Sobor of all parts of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church existing outside the borders of the enslaved Ukraine."

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The hierarchy of the UAOC in Emigration, headed by Metropolitan Polikarp, joyfully welcomed the events in the church life of Orthodox Ukrainians in the USA connected with the creation of one UOC in that country — and most importantly, that on the path to church unification there no longer stood the hierarchy of the UAOC of two "formations," as they were called at the time — the "formation of 1921" and the "formation of 1942" — but only one Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchy, which without any dogmatic-canonical obstacles could have prayerful communion among themselves.

But the World Church Sobor of all parts of the UOC outside the Fatherland never came to pass; its convening, and all the more so for the creation of a single UAOC in the world outside the enslaved Ukraine, has remained only an idea.

An idea it has remained, and so it remains to this day, the aspiration of the episcopate of the UAOC abroad to enter into prayerful communion with other Autocephalous Orthodox Sister Churches of other nationalities.

The "Circular Informational Epistle" to "the Most Holy Patriarchs, the Most Blessed Metropolitans, the Most Reverend Archbishops, and the Right Reverend Bishops of all Autocephalous Churches of the Eastern Universal Orthodox Church of Christ," adopted at the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Esslingen on March 17, 1946, was sent to the patriarchs: Maximos of Constantinople, Alexander of Antioch, Christophoros of Alexandria, Timotheos of Jerusalem, Nikodim of Romania; to Archbishop of Athens Damaskinos; to the metropolitans of the Russian Church Abroad Anastasiy, the Latvian and Estonian Churches; and to Archbishop of the Belarusian Autocephalous Church Philotheos. (Minutes of sessions of the Synod of the UAOC, June 17 and August 24, 1946.)

It is not even known whether, in those times of disordered life after the terrible Second World War and abnormal international postal communication, the Heads of the named Autocephalous and non-Autocephalous Orthodox Churches received that "Circular Informational Epistle" of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Emigration; responses to the "Epistle," apart from a response on behalf of the Hierarchical Synod of the Russian Church Abroad from Metropolitan Anastasiy, were not received.

Between Metropolitan Anastasiy and Metropolitan Polikarp, however, there arose, on account of the "Epistle," extensive correspondence (Metropolitan Anastasiy's letters of July 17/30, 1946, and January 7/20, 1947; Metropolitan Polikarp's of October 17, 1946, and May 17, 1947) — very instructive and characteristic, which would deserve publication in full.

The Hierarchical Sobor of the Russian Church Abroad, in a resolution of May 8, 1946, expressed the view of the UAOC in Emigration that it was a "graceless community" created by Ukrainian nationalists for political purposes, from which "the Orthodox flock must be defended by all means." But after Metropolitan Polikarp's detailed analysis of this resolution of the Hierarchical Sobor in his letter, demonstrating precisely the political character of the Sobor's resolution itself and a number of assertions that fall under the concept of "the feat of falsehood,"

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the second letter of Metropolitan Anastasiy no longer contains the characterization of the UAOC in Emigration as a "graceless community," and with the acknowledgment of the grace-bearing nature of the hierarchy and priesthood, the question was reduced by the Hierarchical Synod only to the degree of "responsibility for violations of canonical rules of each bishop or cleric of the UAOC jurisdiction," should anyone "wish to unite individually with the Russian Church Abroad."

To this, Metropolitan Polikarp replied: "As the Sobor of Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, we have not asked and do not ask to be received with our clergy and flock into the jurisdiction of the Russian Church Abroad, only in the case of which request could one understand the reply of the Hierarchical Synod that it would examine the case of each petitioner individually... We have turned to you as one of the Orthodox church organizations, independent in its governance, with a request to extend to us the fraternal hand of prayerful communion as Church to Church, the Church of the Ukrainian Orthodox people. In doing so, we did not enter into considerations about the canonical position of your Church, although well-known canonical sanctions have been imposed on its primates by the Moscow Patriarchate...

For us, church truth is not in these divisions and canonical disputes, the source of which lies in earthly interests and the wisdom of this age. We see in your church organization first of all brothers in faith who sincerely profess the teaching of the Holy Orthodox Eastern Church, which our Ukrainian Orthodox Church also professes."

On February 9, 1948, Metropolitan of Polissia Oleksandr suddenly died in Munich. At the sorrowful news of the unexpected death of Metropolitan Oleksandr, there was no doubt among Ukrainians that the departed Metropolitan would be buried by Ukrainian bishops — first and foremost by those consecrated by him and Metropolitan Polikarp to the episcopate on February 9–10, 1942: Archbishops Nikanor and Ihor. But on the day of the removal of the body of the Departed to the house church that Metropolitan Oleksandr had in Munich, it became known that the liturgy and funeral on February 12 were to be officiated by Russian hierarchs, who had demanded that bishops and clergy of the UAOC not celebrate a memorial liturgy in the metropolitan's church even on the preceding day, Wednesday, February 11.

This news deeply disturbed Orthodox Ukrainians, especially when they learned that now, after the death of Metropolitan Oleksandr, the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad had annulled even its own resolution of March 26, 1947, on the cessation of prayerful communion with him; that Synodal resolution had been provoked by Metropolitan Oleksandr's celebration of the Divine Liturgy and the Great Blessing of Waters at Theophany on January 19, 1947, with clergy of the UAOC concelebrating, for two Ukrainian parishes in the camps at Schleissheim and Freimann near Munich, where thousands of people prayed at the "Jordan."

Obviously, over the coffin of the Metropolitan of Polissia, a political game was to be played: not to allow the hierarchy of the UAOC to celebrate the Divine Liturgy and funeral of a Hierarch whose grace-bearing nature and canonicity of

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episcopate stand beyond all doubt in the eyes of the entire Russian Church.

A Ukrainian delegation, organized by the author of this work, immediately appeared for an audience with Metropolitan Anastasiy as the Head of the Hierarchical Synod of the Russian Church Abroad; at the audience, the full moral right and sacred duty of the UAOC to bury the Departed Benefactor, Metropolitan Oleksandr, who, with the blessing of his Kiriarch Metropolitan Dionisiy, had participated in the consecration of bishops for Orthodox Ukrainians, was made clear.

Metropolitan Anastasiy, evidently fully sharing the just demands of the delegation, its moral intentions, and understanding the mistake and un-Christian step of the Synod, told us, the delegation, to go to the church of the departed, where he, the metropolitan, would soon be himself. Metropolitan Anastasiy came to the church, where also the bishops of the former Autonomous Church in Ukraine appeared — Archbishop Panteleimon Rudyk, Fedor Rafalsky, and Yevlohiy Markovsky — who had been received into the jurisdiction of the Russian Church Abroad. Metropolitan Anastasiy conducted a panakhyda over the tomb of the Departed, after which he called me over and said that they were yielding, not having prayerful communion with the UAOC, to the hierarchy of which they were turning over the church services connected with the funeral of Metropolitan Oleksandr.

The funeral of Metropolitan Oleksandr was conducted magnificently. The Memorial Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Archbishop Nikanor with numerous clergy, and in the funeral service and procession to the final resting place at the "Waldfriedhof" cemetery in Munich, the hierarchs Nikanor, Ihor, Mykhail, Henadiy, and Volodymyr participated with a great number of priests. The funeral procession, in which priests carried the coffin with the body of the departed, stretched for over a kilometer, accompanied by the singing of two choirs — one singing in Ukrainian, the other in Church Slavonic.

In the graveside and funeral addresses, the bright image of the departed Metropolitan Oleksandr emerged vividly — an Archpastor with a deep Christian worldview, far from any feelings of a chauvinistic character, with a highly cultured soul; particularly highlighted was the role of the Departed Metropolitan in the history of the revival of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. (Bohoslovsky Visnyk, Nos. 1, 2, 1948. K.M. — I. Wlasowsky. "Metropolitan Oleksandr Inozemtsev," pp. 68–75; 64–66.)

In matters of church unification, we find in the acts of the Synod of the UAOC also the raising of mutual relations between the UAOC and the Ukrainian hierarchs of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in the former General Government — Metropolitan Ilarion and Archbishop Paladiy. In connection with the plans of these hierarchs to organize their parishes in those settlements where UAOC parishes already existed, the Synod resolved: "To address Metropolitan Ilarion and Archbishop Paladiy with a proposal, as Ukrainian archpastors, to join the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC for common work for the benefit of the Holy UOC and the Ukrainian people." (Minutes No. 4, Session of the Synod of the UAOC, Sixth Session, August 8, 1947.)

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To this proposal, Archbishop Paladiy replied that since the hierarchy of the UAOC had been established with the blessing of Metropolitan Dionisiy, and he was under his jurisdiction, he was thereby in prayerful communion with the hierarchy of the UAOC.

Metropolitan Ilarion, on the other hand, demanded various information about the establishment of the UAOC hierarchy and its work in Ukraine and set as a precondition that, having examined the matter, he would give his final word. (Minutes No. 2, Orthodox Ukrainian Church Assembly in Regensburg, December 26, 1947.)

As is evident from Minutes No. 2 of the Session of the Synod of the UAOC on April 16, 1948, in Augsburg, this final word at that time was a letter from Metropolitan Ilarion from Winnipeg of November 1, 1947, with a declaration of "breaking off relations with the Sacred Synod of the UAOC until better times." The Synod resolved to "attach this letter of Metropolitan Ilarion to the file." (Archive of the Synod, Section I, No. 1, p. 170.)

6. Difficult conditions for conducting theological-educational work in the life of the UAOC in Emigration. Obstacles to the development of church publishing. The founding by the Synod of the "Theological-Scholarly Institute" and its tasks. The matter of unification of liturgical texts in the UAOC. Publication of liturgical rites. Church press. Calendars. Religious instruction in camp schools; textbooks. The matter of preparing candidates for the priesthood. The Synod's confirmation of the "Statute of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy of the UAOC," presented by an initiative group of professors. Great difficulties in operating the Academy. The inadequacy of the curriculum of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy; changes to the curriculum. Conflict between the Synod and the Professorial Rada and Senate of the Academy. Confirmation of a new "Statute of the Theological Academy" by the Sobor of Bishops on November 3, 1949. Vain hopes for the transfer of the Theological Academy in corpore to America. Liquidation of the Theological Academy of the UAOC abroad.

In the conditions of émigré life in the camps as a transitional time, when the source of the material existence of the displaced persons was the charity of the victorious states, it was difficult to hope for broad development of cultural-educational activity in general, and particularly in the life of the UAOC. Noting the discouraging state of church publishing in the UAOC in Emigration, the speaker on this topic at the Ukrainian Church Assembly in Regensburg said:

"Whatever we might touch upon — the needs of the liturgical cult, the teaching of the Law of God in our camp schools, the missionary literature for wide use, homiletic literature, the needs in knowledge of our church history, or all the more so, deeper theological and religious-philosophical knowledge, and finally, information and coverage of our current church life and the life of other Christian churches through some church journal or periodical — everywhere there are shortcomings, lacks, poverty, everywhere a wide field, often neither plowed nor sown, a field for work"...

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Incidentally, it may be recalled here that the revival of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as a National Church in general began and proceeded under very unfavorable external conditions for the development of church-publishing activity in it — it was poor, not commensurate with the breadth of tasks demanded of a National Orthodox Church of a many-millions-strong people. On the state of this church-publishing activity of the UOC and the obstacles to it in Eastern Ukraine before the Second World War, we have written in Section II, Vol. IV, Part 1, pp. 207–214; in Western Ukraine under Poland, in Section III, Vol. IV, Part 2, Subsection 12; in all of Ukraine during the Second World War under German occupation, in Section IV, Vol. IV, Part 2, Subsection 5.

Obviously, the church authority of the UAOC in Emigration could make use first of all for liturgical worship of what had already been published in translations into the living Ukrainian language before the emigration, reprinting those editions. But the very limited capabilities for printing, with the small financial resources of the UAOC in Emigration, depended above all on the general difficulties of printing in Germany, regulated after the terrible war by certain legal restrictions caused especially by a shortage of paper.

Therefore, in the first months, the church publishing of the UAOC was limited to the mimeograph method of publication, or, as they said at the time, it was the "era of cyclostyle publishing." When ordering the printing of a book or periodical at a printing house, a license from the authorities, or permission to print, was required, and to obtain this permission, one had to demonstrate an allotment of paper needed for this or that publication. But the paper allotment for the Ukrainian press was exhausted, and the Church had been bypassed in the distribution of licenses.

In the second half of 1947, however, the Council of the World Alliance of Christian Churches came to the aid of the UAOC, donating and sending from Sweden to the UAOC in Emigration a quite sufficient quantity of needed paper, so that after this, difficulties remained only in obtaining the censorship permission to print, which also required considerable time.

The institution under the Sacred Synod of the UAOC that was called upon to manage church-publishing activity was the Ukrainian Orthodox Theological-Scholarly Institute, founded on the basis of the resolution of the Sobor of Bishops of the Church on March 16, 1946. The Statute of this Institute was confirmed by the Synod on June 16, 1946.

The Synod appointed Prof. Ivan Wlasowsky as Director of the Institute; upon his departure in August 1948 to Canada, the Synod appointed Archbishop Nikanor as Head of the Institute. The Organizational Assembly of the Institute's members took place on September 17, 1946.

The Basic Scholarly Collegium was constituted by the Synod in the following composition: Bishop Volodymyr, Bishop Sylvester, Protopresbyter P. Kalynovych, Prot. M. Ovcharenko, Prot. O. Popov, Prot. I. Hubarzhevsky, Prof. I. Wlasowsky, Prof. D. Doroshenko, Prof. F. Kulchynsky, Prof. P. Kovaliv, Prof. Levytsky, and the Institute's secretary-member N. Kybaliuk.

At the organizational assembly, in accordance with Articles 4 and 5 of the Statute, the following new members were co-opted: Archbishop Mykhail, Prot. A. Sahaidakivsky,

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Prot. Borys Yakovkevych, Prot. A. Selepyna, Priest M. Karachkivsky, Dr. D. Olianchyn, Prof. V. Petrov, Prof. H. Vashchenko, Prof. M. Markevych, and Docent V. Hryshko.

The following commissions were organized from among the Institute's members: Editorial-Publishing (chairman I. Wlasowsky), Translation (chairman P. Kovaliv), School (chairman F. Kulchynsky), and Missionary (chairman Fr. P. Kalynovych).

According to the concept of the "Statute of the Ukrainian Orthodox Theological-Scholarly Institute" under the UAOC in Emigration, this was a theological-scholarly collegium whose purpose was "to organize the scholarly forces from among the Ukrainian Orthodox emigration for the development and expression in scholarly works of Ukrainian Orthodox theological thought and church-historical research, to assist the Sacred Synod in the systematization of liturgical texts in the living Ukrainian language, and to be an auxiliary body of the Synod in the dissemination and deepening among the faithful of the UAOC of religious education and Christian-moral upbringing."

However, with the opening in November 1946 of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy of the UOC, whose professorial body was itself to serve as the theological collegium for the development of Ukrainian Orthodox theological scholarship, there occurred in fact a narrowing of the tasks of the Theological-Scholarly Institute under the Synod: it became essentially a "Church-Publishing Institute," charged with reviewing literature, translations of liturgical rites, and textbooks on the Law of God that were submitted to the Sacred Synod for obtaining a blessing for their publication or for use in church life.

For, as is evident from the communiqué of the Chancellery of the Sacred Synod of April 8, 1946, the Sobor of Bishops, in its resolutions of March 16, 1946, centralizing church-publishing activity under the Synod with regard to the publication of books of Holy Scripture, liturgical books, and school textbooks on the Law of God, did not intend to monopolize the publishing itself. That communiqué states that the Synod "will gladly welcome any private initiative in the matter of publishing books of Holy Scripture, liturgical books," and so on; the concern was only about the approbation and blessing of such publication by the Supreme Church Authority, with the aim of ordering sacred texts, verifying the composition and content of religious instruction textbooks, and systematic planning in the publication of church instructional books.

The matter of unification of prayer and liturgical texts in general, in translations into the living Ukrainian language, was in those times one of the most important matters in the life of the UAOC in Emigration. The chaotic practice of clergy using in the churches in emigration various Ukrainian liturgical texts — sometimes even from "notes" — and the equally varied use of Ukrainian prayer books for schools with different prayer texts attracted the attention of the Sobor of Bishops already in March 1946, but the unfavorable conditions for printing described above did not provide the opportunity even to begin the struggle against this chaos.

The Church Assembly of the UAOC on December 25–27,

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1947, in Regensburg also noted that "the difficult conditions of postwar life did not allow the Sacred Synod to develop church-publishing activity," but "in view of the fact that circumstances have now improved, the Assembly requests the Sacred Synod: 1) To activate this area of church-religious life and in an accelerated tempo to establish the publishing enterprise and bring it to the proper level. 2) To take all measures toward the unification of liturgical book texts and to publish the most necessary of them, as well as to publish an expanded prayer book with daily prayers and the most important parts of the divine services; also to publish church musical compositions. 3) To publish once a month a journal that would cover the life of the UAOC in general and would provide material of a religious-moral content for the broad circle of the faithful." (Minutes No. 3, Session of the Ukrainian Church Assembly in Regensburg, December 27, 1947.)

As for the unification of liturgical texts in the UOC, this important matter nevertheless remains to this day in many respects a "pium desiderium" (pious wish). Without citing numerous examples of the diversity of texts, we may note how even in one and the same UGOC in Canada, even the hierarchs differ in the hierarchical exclamation during the singing of "Holy God" at the Divine Liturgy: one exclaims: "Look down from heaven, O God, and behold" (Zghliany z neba Bozhe i podyvys), while the other says: "Gaze, O God, from heaven and see" (Pohlian Bozhe z neba i pobach)...

Of liturgical books, the Synod of the UAOC in Emigration published in printed form the Sluzhebnik (Service Book, 1949), in translation into the Ukrainian language by the Commission at the Ukrainian Scholarly Institute in Warsaw, with corrections made by the Commission in 1944 in Breslau and in the final redaction by a Commission chaired by Archbishop Nikanor, composed, besides him, of Archbishops Ihor and Henadiy (resolution of the Sacred Synod at its Ninth Session, April 15, 1948). In 1950, the Chasoslov (Horologion) was published from the Lutsk edition (of the Society named after Metropolitan Petro Mohyla), edited by Archbishop Nikanor, in a quantity of 1,500 copies — mimeographed for lack of necessary finances.

Also by mimeograph, even earlier, the Sviatochna Mineia (Festal Menaion) was published — a reprint from Kyiv translations (Church Administration of the UAOC in Esslingen, 1946), as well as akathists to the Holy Prince Volodymyr, the Pochaiv Mother of God, the Venerable Iov of Pochaiv, and the Venerable Martyr Athanasiy, Hegumen of Brest (published by the Sacred Synod). With the blessing of Metropolitan Polikarp, a Molytvonnyk (Prayer Book, 127 pages) was published in printed form in 1946 (Cooperative Publishing House "Zahrava"). Individual booklets of church services for great feasts (reprints from the Esslingen Church Administration edition) were published by the General Church Administration of the UAOC in Great Britain.

The periodicals of the UAOC in Emigration during the mimeograph era were Tserkva i Zhyttia (Church and Life; Church Administration for the province of Württemberg-Baden) and Tserkovnyi Visnyk (Church Herald; Bavaria-Munich). As the organ of the UAOC in Emigration, after the Church Assembly in Regensburg, the monthly Bohoslovsky Visnyk (Theological Herald) began publication in 1948; blessing

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its publication, Metropolitan Polikarp wrote to its editorial board: "Among our people in emigration there are not a few believing souls who, in conditions of material deprivation, in the uncertainty and unknowingness of the future, bring their sorrow to God, find in Him consolation, and rise in spirit above earthly cares and afflictions... May the Lord help the Bohoslovsky Visnyk, the organ of our Holy Church abroad, to promote the deepening of the knowledge of God and the Christian worldview, to enlighten on the basis of the Word of God those who abide in darkness, and to turn away from unhealthy and false teaching, gently instructing opponents, that God may grant them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth" (2 Tim. 2:25).

Unfortunately, the Bohoslovsky Visnyk appeared in only two issues — No. 1 for June and No. 2 for July–December 1948 — the currency reform in Germany made it impossible to continue the publication. From September 1952, the organ of the UAOC abroad in Europe became Ridna Tserkva (Native Church; now a quarterly). The organ of the General Church Administration of the UAOC in Great Britain became, from 1950, the journal Vidomosti (Reports; now a quarterly).

The Sacred Synod of the UAOC in Emigration published the Ukrainian Orthodox Calendar for the years 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1950. These calendars are a valuable record of the life and activity of the UAOC during the camp life of Ukrainian exiles in Western Europe. Valuable there are the liturgical-typikon instructions given to priests, reviews of events in the church life of the UAOC for the previous year, and articles of an ideological character.

In one of them we read: "In the hands of God is the future of the Ukrainian people, its statehood, its Holy Church. But with faith in God's help, let us by our own efforts build our life, advancing toward the high goals set before us, illuminated by lofty Christian ideals... The future Ukraine, especially after the horrors of the godless experiments of organizing life without God, cannot be imagined by us otherwise than as a Christian state. And if so, then to the Church of Christ in a Christian Ukraine belongs a high place. The mutual relations of Church and State must be deeply pondered and soundly grounded views developed — based not on borrowings from foreign doctrines, however fashionable and novel they may be, but on the history of the people, on the national psyche of the Ukrainian people...

Harmony, coordination in the actions of Church and State, both equally called by God for the good of humanity, must lie at the foundation of church-state relations... Let us believe that the disregard of the Church, the habit of using it as an instrument for political demonstrations, will yield their place to a deeper attitude toward the national-church problem, in the understanding of the role and significance of the Church in the life of the State, particularly in the upbringing of the young generations — the future citizens of Ukraine." (Ukrainian Orthodox Church Calendar for 1949, article "Church and State," pp. 111–112.)

Concerns for the religious upbringing and religious education of Ukrainian children and Ukrainian youth lay close to the heart of the leadership of the UAOC

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in Emigration during this era of camp life of Ukrainian displaced persons. In the elementary schools at camp parishes and in the camp gymnasiums, with the blessing of the ruling hierarch, the Law of God was taught by priests and lay instructors. Curricula for the teaching of the Law of God, developed by Archbishop Mykhail (for elementary schools) and Prot. Il. Nahirnyak (for gymnasiums), with the assistance also of draft programs submitted by Prot. M. Liashchuk, Prot. Antokhiy, and Priest M. Karachkivsky, were confirmed by the Sacred Synod on August 23, 1946, and provided to the clergy for use in teaching religious instruction.

At the session of the Synod on November 12, 1948, a revised program of religious instruction for seven-grade elementary schools was confirmed; the new program was developed by Prot. Filimon Kulchynsky, who served until his departure for Canada as the school inspector under the Sacred Synod for religious instruction in the schools.

The textbooks for the Law of God in elementary schools at parishes were: A Short Course in the Law of God: Old Testament by Archbishop Ihor; Sacred History of the Old Testament and Sacred History of the New Testament by Priest M. Karachkivsky; published by the Synod of the UAOC was the Short Orthodox Christian Catechism by Prot. S. Haiuk (for elementary schools and lower gymnasium grades); the Expanded Catechism of the Orthodox Church of Christ for Secondary Schools by Archbishop Mykhail; published by the Theological-Scholarly Institute was A Short History of the Orthodox Church, prepared by the Institute's Director, Iv. Wlasowsky — the first part of the textbook ("General Church History") was based on the History of the Orthodox Church, a textbook for Orthodox students published by the Sacred Synod of the Orthodox Church in Poland, while the second part — "The Ukrainian Orthodox Church" — was composed almost entirely anew.

At the Tenth Session of the Synod of the UAOC on November 12, 1948, the Synod resolved: "With the aim of deepening knowledge about the dogmatic and canonical foundations of the Holy Orthodox Church, to obligate religious instructors to introduce in the seventh grade of elementary school and in the corresponding gymnasium grade a course on the Church, after completing the course on Church History, and in teaching this valuable and educational subject to use as textbooks the brochures published with the first issue of the Bohoslovsky Visnyk: Archbishop Nikanor's The Dogmatic-Canonical Structure of the Holy Orthodox Church and Prof. Ivan Wlasowsky's The Canonical-Historical Foundations of the Autocephaly of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church."

By the resources of the Theological-Scholarly Institute under the Sacred Synod of the UAOC, a monograph was published in 1946: "Ireneus (Iv. Wlasowsky). The Ukrainian Orthodox Church during the Second World War — 1939–1945." The edition was mimeographed (by the labor of the Institute's technical collaborator Arkadiy Tkachuk), in 120 copies; from the end of 1947 and over the course of several months of 1948, this monograph was reprinted in the Visnyk of the UGOC in Winnipeg with the aim of

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producing a separate book, but for reasons independent of the monograph's author, it was not published as a separate book.

Already at the beginning of émigré life, the episcopate of the UAOC, residing for nearly three months in Breslau, conducted, as recounted above (Subsection 1), a "Theological Seminar" for the advancement of the clergy's theological education. Now, in the organization of the church life of the UAOC in Emigration after the end of the Second World War, the problem not only of improving the qualifications of the clergy — whose composition, from the standpoint of educational level, was quite diverse — but above all of preparing new cadres of clergy for the UAOC, became urgent. Moreover, as the belief in a speedy return to the Fatherland still persisted at that time, these cadres were to be prepared also for service in the UAOC in the Fatherland.

The episcopate of the UAOC was conscious of this task when at the Sobor of Bishops in Esslingen on March 16, 1946, it resolved: "To charge the Sacred Synod with seeing to the immediate founding of pastoral and cantor courses in one of the most suitable cities in emigration." The Sobor recognized Munich as such a city, because "there are many scholarly-professorial forces there." And further: "To charge the Sacred Synod with seeing to the founding of a Theological Department at one of the Higher Schools existing in emigration." (Minutes No. 3 of the proceedings of the Second Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Emigration, held on March 16, 1946.)

In the acts of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC, there are no data on what was done by the Synod for the "immediate founding of pastoral and cantor courses." However, on the matter of founding a Theological Department at one of the Ukrainian Higher Schools in emigration, there is correspondence between Bishop Sylvester and the Secretary of the Synod, Bishop Platon, from which it is evident that in the Ukrainian camp of Neu-Ulm an "Initiative Group for the Founding of a Theological School" at the Ukrainian University in the Neu-Ulm camp had been formed.

From this group, Bishop Sylvester, who had been invited by it to serve as acting rector of the Theological School, sent to the Synod on April 30, 1946, the minutes of the group's meeting of April 27, 1946, with an attached list of subjects and designated lecturers at the Theological School; at the same camp, as Bishop Sylvester wrote in his letter to the Synod, a dormitory for 50 students of that school would be arranged.

"Warmly welcoming the initiative undertaken by the Group," the Secretary of the Synod, Bishop Platon, in a letter of May 3, 1946, to Bishop Sylvester, informed him that "the proposed project for founding a 'Theological School' in Neu-Ulm will be reviewed at the session of the Synod of the UAOC, which is anticipated in mid-May (1946) in Esslingen." (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section per register V, Case 31, pp. 302–308.)

At the session of the Synod, held June 14–17, 1946, the Synod heard oral reports from Prof. P. Kovaliv and Ya. Moralevych on the matter of "opening a Pedagogical-Theological Institute in Munich"; after hearing them, the Synod resolved: "To postpone consideration of this matter until the written submission of the Statute, program, and

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composition of professors of the Theological-Pedagogical Institute." After this, at the same session on June 16, a report by the Secretary of the Synod, supplemented by Bishop Sylvester who was present, was heard on the matter of opening a Theological School in Neu-Ulm, and the Synod resolved: "To defer the final decision on this matter until the clarification of the question of premises for the school and students and their maintenance."

Two weeks after this session of the Sacred Synod, in the journal Nashe Zhyttia (Augsburg), the June 29, 1946, issue carried an announcement: "It is hereby brought to the attention of the Ukrainian public that in Munich, with the blessing of the Sacred Synod, a Theological-Pedagogical Institute with a four-year course of study has been founded. Student enrollment is underway for the faculties: theological and pedagogical. A gymnasium will exist at the Institute; those who do not yet have a matriculation certificate may enroll in the gymnasium. Simultaneously, enrollment is being conducted for auditors to six-month pastoral courses being opened at the Theological-Pedagogical Institute and intended to prepare priests. Apply in person at the address: Munich, Dachauerstr. 9, parish premises. Send letters to the address: Munich, Blumenstr. 30/III. Consistory of the UAOC. The Rectorate of the Theological-Pedagogical Institute in Munich announces a competition for the filling of vacant positions on the Theological Faculty. All interested persons may submit applications to the address: Munich, Blumenstr. 30/III. Consistory. We request that this announcement be reprinted in all Ukrainian periodicals. The Rectorate."

At the Third Session of the Sacred Synod, held August 23–26, 1946, the agenda already included only the matter of opening the "Theological-Pedagogical Academy (not 'Institute') of the UAOC in Munich"; the matter of the "Theological School" in Neu-Ulm was no longer on it.

At the session of the Synod of the UAOC on August 24, 1946, the following documents sent to the Synod by the Rector of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy, Prof. P. Kovaliv — reviewed and confirmed by the Professorial Rada of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy — were heard: 1) The Statute of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy; 2) The Curriculum of the Academy; 3) A preliminary list of the Academy's professors. Explanations of these documents were also heard from the professors present: P. Kovaliv, Ya. Moralevych, and V. Petrov.

The Synod accepted the Statute "for confirmatory review" with the following changes or additions: "The full name of the Academy shall be: Theological-Pedagogical Academy of the UAOC in Munich; deans and professors of the Theological Faculty shall be elected by the Professorial Rada and confirmed in their positions by the Synod of the UAOC; the dean of the Theological Faculty must be a clergyman; on the Theological Faculty all subjects shall be taught by persons of the Orthodox confession."

The Synod confirmed the curriculum of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy, proposed that the list of its professors be finalized, and that the list of professors of the Theological Faculty, headed by the dean, be submitted for its confirmation by the next session of the Synod. In accordance with Article 39 of the adopted Statute of the Academy, "the supreme governing body of

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the Theological-Pedagogical Academy" was the "Curatoria," composed of a Chairman and 6 members. "The Chairman of the Curatoria is a Bishop appointed to this position by the Synod, and the Vice-Chairman is the Rector of the Academy." To this position of Chairman of the Curatoria, termed "Acting Curator," the Synod appointed Archbishop Mykhail, and Metropolitan Polikarp was named "Honorary Curator" of the Academy. The Synod appropriated 3,000 German marks for the initial needs connected with launching the Academy.

The date of August 24, 1946, came to be regarded as the founding day of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy of the UAOC in Emigration, a founding which, as the Rector of the Academy wrote in a letter to the Synod of the UAOC, "is a great event in the history of our Church, as proof of the unity and high aspirations of our society to have its own highly educated dignitaries of the Church, as other peoples of Europe have." (Ibid., p. 289.)

The Sacred Synod of the UAOC in Emigration, whose decision on the opening of a higher theological-pedagogical school within the UAOC had been anticipated two months before by the Rectorate's announcement in Ukrainian periodicals of such a school (the "Theological-Pedagogical Institute"), including that a gymnasium would be opened at it and also six-month pastoral courses — did not at all pause or reflect, as is evident from the Synod's resolutions at its session on August 24, 1946, on the opening of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy, on the question of whether it — and by extension the UAOC in Emigration — had the capacity to operate such a higher school, and whether the very curriculum presented to the Synod by the Professorial Rada of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy, which already existed and had confirmed that plan on July 16, 1946, was expedient under the given conditions of life.

There is no indication that even the thought arose of referring the final decision on such an important matter as the opening of a higher theological school of the UAOC to the Sobor of Bishops of that Church. While the Synod, on the matter of opening the "Theological School" in Neu-Ulm, quite rightly deferred its decision until "the clarification of the question of premises for the school and students and their maintenance," when confirming the "Statute of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy of the UAOC" and its extensive curriculum, the Synod mentioned nothing about premises for the higher school, nor about a dormitory for students, nor about the maintenance of an enormous professorial staff, nor about a library for professors and students, nor about scientific equipment, offices, laboratories, and so on for the "Natural Sciences Department" of the Pedagogical Faculty...

Obviously, the Synod satisfied itself regarding these needs — which constitute the conditio sine qua non of a school's existence, all the more so a higher school — with the paragraphs of the "Statute" stating that the "Curatoria" — this "supreme governing body of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy" (Article 39) — "seeks and collects material resources for the maintenance and development of the Academy's activities" (Article 40, b), and also that "Under the Senate of the Academy there exist experts

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on the following questions: economic, financial, legal, ecclesiastical (?), and administrative" (Article 26).

There was nothing surprising in the fact that with such a theoretical resolution of the great matter of operating a half-spiritual, half-secular higher school in the UAOC — with all the noble aspirations of both the Synod and the professors to have such a higher school in the transitional era of life of the UAOC abroad — the enterprise immediately encountered insuperable difficulties and tribulations.

Not having premises for academic lectures, it was nevertheless decided to solemnly open the Theological-Pedagogical Academy, although the Secretary of the Sacred Synod, Bishop Platon, in a letter to the Rector of the Academy of October 21, 1946, advised against this, lest "an embarrassing story result: the opening was held, but there is nowhere to study"...

There was a proposal from the Curatoria of the Academy to hold the planned session of the Synod in November in Munich, so that the Synod would participate in corpore in the ceremony of opening the Academy, in order that this "act of historical significance be underlined in its meaning for our Church and in general for our cause, both before our emigration and before the cultured world." (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section V, Case 31, p. 263.)

But this did not happen; the opening of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy took place on November 17, 1946, in the premises of the Ukrainian Committee (Rosenheimer Str. 46a), and the session of the Synod was held November 19–23, 1946, in Kornberg (province of Gross-Hessen).

The solemn founding of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy of the UAOC in Munich was documented in an "Act" signed by the Curator of the Academy, Archbishop Mykhail, and the Rector of the Academy, Prof. P. Kovaliv. (Bulletin of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy, No. 2, Bavaria, 1946.)

On November 18, 1946, lectures began at the Academy in the premises of the Holy Protection Church of the UAOC in Munich — initially in the narthex, and later in a half-destroyed cold room, as the Rector of the Academy reported to the Synod for the period from the beginning of instruction to March 1, 1948.

In the "Act of Inspection of the State of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy in Munich, conducted by the Commission under the chairmanship of Bishop Volodymyr of the UAOC on September 23, 24, 30, and October 1, 10–11, 1947," "the Commission notes that during the past winter (semesters I and II of 1946–47), the professorial-teaching staff of the Academy and the students sacrificially worked in the terrible conditions of a cold winter in an unheated room"...

In this same premises, instruction continued during the winter of 1947–48 as well. Much effort and time were expended before the Academy's administration obtained from the Germans the right to repair a half-destroyed premises in Munich — Wilhelmstr. 6/III, where it was necessary to build a roof, ceiling, windows, and so on.

"Difficulties began with the repairs," the Rector of the Academy reported; "no one among the Ukrainians dared to take on this burden. Much time passed before a person devoted to the cause was found and undertook this difficult work. This was Engineer Ye. Mykulovych"...

Only on February 1, 1948, did the Academy solemnly celebrate the consecration of its premises, and on

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November 21 of that same year, the consecration of the academic chapel in the name of the Holy Archangel Michael took place in those premises. However, this did not end the Academy's tribulations with its premises. The building administration where the Academy was housed began in the summer of 1949 to demand payment of rent for both the past year 1948 and the current year 1949; the renovation of the premises at the Academy's own expense served as grounds for a moratorium on rent for 1948, but the question of paying rent in 1949 — approximately 150 new German marks per month — threatened, as the Academy wrote to the Sacred Synod on August 22, 1949, the liquidation of the Academy's home and a return to premises at the Holy Protection Church.

At the beginning of 1950, the Rector of the Academy informed the Synod that "the German building administration has again begun to demand payment for the premises."

In general, the material conditions for operating the Academy were at all times difficult, if not "simply terrible." Reviewing in the "Archive of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC in Emigration" Case No. 31 on the "opening and operation of the Theological Academy of the UAOC in Emigration," one constantly remains under the impression of poverty and complaints about the absence or insufficiency of funds and material resources for conducting normal instruction of students, as well as for developing scholarship "by cadres of scholarly workers and researchers in questions of church-religious order" (Article 2 of the "Statute of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy").

"The Academy's library has almost no books; several books on Greek and Latin languages and individual publications were acquired, such as Religion and Science (M. S. — Metropolitan Seraphim Lade, mimeographed ed.) and others. Thus the absence of a library is the sorest point of the Academy." (From the "Act of Inspection of the State of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy" by the Commission headed by Bishop Volodymyr in the autumn of 1947.)

"The weakest point in the Academy's work," writes the Rector, Prof. P. Kovaliv, in his "Report" on the state of the Academy from its opening to March 1, 1948, "is the library, or rather, the absence of a library. The Academy began its work literally without a single book. A special appeal to the public was composed and published in the newspaper, calling for book donations, but it appears that during the reporting period no one donated a single book... Perhaps something could have been acquired during this time, but funds were insufficient in connection with the capital repair of the premises"...

"Unfortunately, students have not yet written term papers due to the absence of a library. But for the future it is absolutely necessary to make it obligatory that at least in the most important theological disciplines such papers be written. For this, the primary source can be the Bible, as well as some German publications"...

In the "Reports" on the state of the Academy, which were sent monthly in a prescribed form by the Rector of the Academy to the Synod Chancellery, there was a column: "What difficulties were encountered in the Academy's work during the reporting month?" The most frequent answer: "Absolute absence of funds. Lack of a typewriter." About that "typewriter," there was endless writing

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separately as well, for "without a typewriter it is impossible to run the office, or correspondence education, or the Academy's publishing." The Academy received it (not new, but in good condition) from the Synod only in May 1949, when the Rector of the Academy, thanking Bishop Platon for the typewriter sent, wrote: "We had to cease our publishing activity due to the absence of funds." (Letter of May 12, 1949.)

This was already at the time when the currency reform had been carried out in Germany (in June 1948), during which the situation of the emigration was bound to worsen further. On the economic state of the Academy at the beginning of the 1949/50 academic year, a letter to the Synod from the acting Rector of the Academy, Prof. H. Vashchenko (Rector Prof. P. Kovaliv had departed for the USA on May 27, 1949), testifies.

Informing the Synod of the receipt, after long efforts, of a one-time grant from the Bavarian Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs in the amount of 3,000 new German marks, Prof. Vashchenko writes: "At last, in the life of the Academy, the possibility has arisen of paying the professorate and staff their arrears for their work during the 1948–49 academic year. The Academy owes its collective of workers approximately 1,300 new marks in total. Adding to this our debt for electricity and the pressing need for the immediate completion of several scripts on theological disciplines that have long awaited printing, the Academy must pay from the received subvention approximately 2,000 marks immediately. For the conduct of this academic year, a small sum will remain, which will not suffice even for half the current expenses. The Ministry's subvention only rescues the Academy in its catastrophic, hopeless situation, making possible the liquidation of the great debt, without which it would have been impossible to calmly conduct the current academic year, but it does not yet create the foundations for normal work. Therefore, the Rectorate asks the Synod not to discontinue the ongoing campaign of payments by parishes of the UAOC of their small donations from the plate collection (half of the collection on the last Sunday of each month — I.V.) and other sporadic donations from individual dioceses, because they are equally needed as before." (Letter of October 22, 1949.)

On the curriculum of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy, confirmed by the Synod of the UAOC on August 24, 1946, the Rector of the Academy, Prof. P. Kovaliv, wrote in his accompanying letter to the Synod that this program "was developed by the Senate of the Academy on the basis of the programs of the old Russian Academies and the Warsaw Theological Faculty, as well as the new demands of the present day"... (Archive of the Synod, Case No. 31, p. 289.)

Obviously, the old Russian Theological Academies, like the Orthodox Theological Department at the University of Warsaw (for the curriculum of this Department, see Subsection 11, Section III, Vol. IV of this work), could not serve as a basis for creating at the Academy, alongside the Theological Faculty, a Pedagogical Faculty and moreover with a division into Humanities and Natural Sciences Departments. This was already an obvious competition by the Church with secular higher schools, universities, and institutes.

The pre-revolutionary Theological Academies in Russia (Kyiv, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan), being centers for the development of theological and church-historical scholarship, schools for the learned monasticism from which the episcopate of the Church was formed, also producing candidates for the priesthood with a higher education for major cities, possibly had their greatest significance in preparing instructors, teachers, and educators for the numerous schools operated by the Russian Orthodox Church: in theological seminaries, theological schools, church-teacher schools, diocesan women's schools, and so on. But for teaching physics-mathematical and natural science subjects, the Theological Academies had no professors and did not prepare cadres of teachers in these subjects.

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It is unknown what grounds the school's initiators, and indeed the Synod, had for the UAOC in Emigration to undertake, and moreover in the transitional period of life, the preparation of teachers of natural science subjects — possibly there were candidates for teaching "physics — experimental and theoretical, inorganic and organic chemistry, vertebrate and invertebrate zoology, botany — morphology and physiology, geology and mineralogy, methods of geography, mathematics, natural science, physics, and chemistry" — all these disciplines were in the curriculum of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy confirmed by the Synod on August 24, 1946.

But not even a year had passed after the opening of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy before the Senate of the Academy resolved, and the Professorial Rada confirmed that resolution at its session on July 8, 1947, "to close the Natural Sciences Department of the Pedagogical Faculty due to the lack of laboratories, and to retain only the Humanities Department," to which, however, the Council added such disciplines as: philosophy of mathematics, biology, chemistry, and geography with elements of astronomy (the last also for theology students). (Minutes No. 8 of the session of the Professorial Rada of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy, July 8, 1947, in Munich, Dachauerstr. 9.)

The Senate and Professorial Rada motivated the closure of the Natural Sciences Department of the Pedagogical Faculty of the Academy not by acknowledging its inexpediency in a higher theological school of the Church, but by "the lack of laboratories" — as if they had not known from the beginning that such laboratories were needed...

At the next session of the Professorial Rada of the Academy, held on April 9, 1948, a further change in the structure of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy of the UAOC was adopted, proposed by the Senate of the Academy, which at its session on February 28, 1948, in the presence of Prof. P. Kovaliv, Protopresbyter P. Kalynovych, Prof. V. Petrov, and Prot. P. Dubytsky, resolved to carry out a reorganization of the Academy's structure, as a result of which the very name of the Academy would change: it was henceforth to be called the "Theological Academy of the UAOC in Munich" — that is, the word "pedagogical" was dropped from the name; in other words, the "Pedagogical Faculty" was closed, including its "Humanities Department."

As noted in "Minutes No. 9 of the session of the Professorial Rada of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy of the UAOC in Munich on April 9, 1948"

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(point 7), the change in the Academy's structure was carried out "on the basis of the resolutions of the Ukrainian Church Assembly" held in Regensburg on December 25–27, 1947. The Ukrainian Church Assembly, having heard the reports of Prof. F. Kulchynsky and the Rector of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy, Prof. P. Kovaliv, and having conducted a broad discussion on the questions of theological education in the UAOC in Emigration, did indeed adopt the following resolutions:

"To ensure proper spiritual care for all believers of the UAOC, both now in the wandering and in their future places of settlement — to immediately proceed with the organization of pastoral, cantor, and choir-director courses in both auditorium and correspondence formats." Having welcomed in the next resolution the founding of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy of the UAOC in Munich, "which has already celebrated its first anniversary and continues its work," the Assembly nonetheless resolved: "With the aim of concentrating our efforts in the direction of training pastoral cadres and advancing Ukrainian Orthodox theological scholarship, it is necessary to transform the existing Theological-Pedagogical Academy into a Theological Academy with three divisions: historical, literary, and classical."

This "transformation" of the Academy was constructed entirely on the model of the curriculum of the Kyiv Theological Academy in the last years of its existence before the revolution of 1917; in the years 1904–08, when the author of this work studied there, it had, like the other Russian Theological Academies, two departments: literary and historical.

Taking an entirely practical approach to the matter of pastoral preparation, the Assembly in Regensburg further resolved: "For the supplementation, deepening, and broadening of the knowledge of clergy and religious instructors, even before the resettlement, it is necessary to organize short-term pastoral-missionary and religious-instruction courses." (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section I, Case 5, p. 113.)

In connection with the reorganization of the Academy's structure by the Senate (to the divisions in the curriculum of the Theological Academy — linguistic-literary, historical, and classical — the Senate on its own added a department of "church musicology"), cardinal changes were also made in the Academy's "Statute," likewise adopted by the Professorial Rada of the Academy. All these materials on the reform of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy were sent on April 13, 1948, by the Rector of the Academy "for consideration" to the Sacred Synod of the UAOC, which was to hold its Ninth Session on April 15–17, after which the Fifth Session of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC took place on April 19–20, 1948, in Augsburg.

The Synod, at its session on April 17, 1948, without stating its reasons in the resolution, resolved: "Not to accept the changes to the Statute of the Academy, proposed by the Senate of the Academy and confirmed by the Professorial Rada, and to charge the newly appointed Curator of the Academy (Bishop Volodymyr) with looking more closely into the life and work of the Academy, and after that, jointly with the Professorial Rada, to draft changes to the Statute of the Academy, taking into account the resolution of the First Orthodox Ukrainian Church Assembly of the UAOC of December 27,

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1947." Why the Synod did not accept the reorganization of the Academy's structure, carried out precisely in accordance with the resolutions of the Church Assembly, is difficult to understand.

Simultaneously, at the same session, the Synod "noted that the life and work of the Academy are not developing as would be proper in the interests of the UAOC, and also that the Synod's wish that a bishop hold the position of Rector of the Academy has been bypassed by the Professorial Rada."

The Professorial Rada, having elected at its session on April 9, 1948, Prof. P. Kovaliv as Rector of the Academy for the next academic year, acted entirely on the basis of the Academy's "Statute" (Article 31), confirmed by the same Synod on August 24, 1946. But the Synod, without changing the Academy's "Statute," resolves: "Accepting the information that Prof. P. Kovaliv occupies the position of Rector of the Academy temporarily, the Sacred Synod of the UAOC reaffirms the principle that at the head of the Theological Academy must stand a clergyman."

Then followed the Synod's resolution on the recall of Archbishop Mykhail from the position of Acting Curator of the Academy, in view of "his overtired condition, which seriously threatens his health," with the expression of "sincere gratitude for his strenuous and selfless work in this responsible position." The Synod appointed Bishop Volodymyr as Curator of the Academy for the 1948–49 academic year.

Finally, the Synod recognized the "preliminary budget of the Academy for 1948 as unrealistic and proposed that the Rector of the Academy develop a new budget proposal on more realistic bases." (Minutes No. 3, Session IX of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC in Emigration, held April 17, 1948, in Augsburg.)

All these Synod resolutions on the Theological-Pedagogical Academy were presented for the information of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC at the session of the Fifth Sobor on April 20, 1948, and the Sobor accepted them without discussion.

As for the pastoral, religious-instruction, cantor, and choir-director courses, the immediate implementation of which had been resolved at the Ukrainian Church Assembly in Regensburg, neither at the sessions of the Ninth Session of the Synod nor at the sessions of the Sobor of Bishops — whose Fifth Session had as its main subject "the adoption of resolutions connected with the resolutions of the First Ukrainian Church Assembly in Regensburg" — was there any mention of those courses.

Despite the fact that the Synod, and after it the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, did not accept the changes to the Academy's "Statute" by which the Theological-Pedagogical Academy was being transformed into the "Theological Academy," the Secretary of the Sacred Synod, Bishop Platon, himself already in his cover letter to the Rector of the Academy of May 6, 1948, accompanying the extract from the minutes of the Ninth Session of the Synod of April 17, 1948, on Academy matters, began using the name "Theological Academy" rather than "Theological-Pedagogical Academy."

Likewise, in the "Act of Transfer of Affairs of the Curatoria of the Academy" from Archbishop Mykhail to Bishop Volodymyr, dated May 25, 1948, the Academy is called

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the "Theological Academy of the UAOC in Munich." The reports on the state of the Academy to the Synod, which were sent by the Rector of the Academy for some reason every month, no longer included data on the number of students in the pedagogical faculty, because it had been closed.

As is evident from the "Report on the Activity of the Theological Academy of the UAOC during 1948–49" by the Rector of the Academy, Prof. P. Kovaliv, the Theological Academy in this academic year 1948–49 had also transitioned in its curriculum to the new study plan, with a predominance, obviously, of theological disciplines, which likewise was not fully implemented that year "for lack of funds for paying professors' honoraria and travel costs."

"The Theological Academy," we read in the "Report," "counts 40 persons of registered — that is, confirmed by the Professorial Rada — professorial-lecturing staff" (the Kyiv Theological Academy, with approximately 200 students, had in our time 25 persons of professorial staff). Of those 40 persons, 7 had departed for other countries, as stated in the "Report." "Only the following professors actually taught their disciplines in the reporting year: P. Kovaliv, V. Petrov, V. Derzhavyn, M. Markevych, H. Vashchenko, P. Kurinnyi, Ye. Lebedev, O. Ohloblyn; Docent Yu. Blokhyn, Protopresbyter P. Kalynovych, and Prot. P. Dubytsky" — 11 persons in all, due to the reduction of the lecture schedule.

"As for the students of the residential department (there was also a correspondence department), of their number (nineteen), approximately fourteen regularly attend lectures; the rest, living far away, limit themselves to coming several times a year." (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section per register I, Case No. 4, pp. 194–199.)

The life of the Academy, as is evident, was already proceeding as life circumstances dictated, especially after the currency reform in Germany in the summer of 1948. The formal change of the inflated 1946 "Statute of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy of the UAOC in Emigration" and its curriculum with faculties came at the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC only at the end of 1949, at the Sixth Session of the Sobor on November 3–5, 1949, in Dillingen.

In the revised "Statute of the Theological Academy of the UAOC," twice as short as the previous "Statute of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy of the UAOC" of 1946, the Academy's task of "increasing the cadres of educators who are believing and nationally conscious, who would conduct educational work in consolidation with the Church" (Article 2 of the previous Statute) was excluded, and after the abolition of the Pedagogical Faculty, the curriculum was also changed, as we have already noted.

Regarding this curriculum, at the session of the Sobor of Bishops on November 3, 1949, the new Acting Curator of the Academy, Bishop Volodymyr, "made (as recorded in the minutes) his observations regarding the deletion of some non-theological subjects." These observations, sound and valuable for the history of attempts to operate a higher Theological school in the UAOC in emigration, are found in Bishop Volodymyr's report to the Synod of the UAOC a year earlier, dated November 15, 1948. There the Curator of the Academy wrote:

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"For my part, I wish to offer my considerations connected with the changes to the Statute: 1) The Academy should be solely Theological, and therefore the linguistic-literary, historical, and especially classical departments are not expedient, insofar as the task of the present day must be the preparation of highly educated pastors of the Church, and not teachers, whom the University prepares. With the insignificant number of students available, creating bifurcation in the curricula is neither profitable nor expedient. 2) The nomenclature of the Academy's disciplines needs to be supplemented with the discipline 'Methods of Teaching the Law of God.' 3) The Curatoria should be abolished, and instead a bishop should be placed at the head of the Academy as Rector, with a lay person possibly serving as pro-rector... One should not be afraid that something in the Statute might not correspond to the structure and tasks of theological schools of the old times, for our present day sets its requirements under entirely different conditions. I would not be the least bit afraid to exclude Old Hebrew entirely from the curriculum. It is completely unnecessary. To console ourselves that we can produce highly qualified scholars, we cannot, if only because we do not even have the kind of library that existed in any modest theological seminary." (Archive of the Sacred Synod, Section I, Case 4, p. 200.)

The observations of the Curator of the Academy, Bishop Volodymyr — a hierarch with a university education who had inspected the state of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy already in September 1947 — were not taken into account by the Sobor of Bishops, which confirmed the draft Statute of the Theological Academy "with the changes made to it, having reviewed in detail the draft statute and also having thoroughly discussed the difficult state of the Academy" (words from the Minutes of the Sobor session of November 3, 1949).

Most difficult to understand in this detailed review and discussion by the Sobor of changes to the Statute is that the revised "Statute of the Theological Academy" retained from the previous statute the provision regarding the Rector of the Academy, according to which "the Rector of the Academy is elected by the Professorial Rada from among the professors of the Academy," and nothing at all was said about the Rector of the Academy needing to be a bishop, or at least a clergyman, as the Synod had repeatedly insisted earlier, even declining to confirm changes to the Academy's Statute on April 17, 1948, for precisely this reason, since the Professorial Rada had elected, contrary to the Synod's insistence, a layman — Prof. P. Kovaliv — as Rector for the new academic year.

Moreover, in the old statute, the Acting Curator of the Academy could only be a bishop appointed by the Synod of the UAOC; in the revised "Statute of the Theological Academy," the Sobor of Bishops abandoned this rule as well. For instead of: "The supreme governing body of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy is the Curatoria. The Chairman of the Curatoria is a bishop appointed to this position by the Sacred Synod of the UAOC" (Article 39), the revised statute reads: "The supreme representative of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC at the Theological Academy is the Acting Curator of the Academy" (Article 14). Thus, according to this wording in the "Statute," even a lay person could be the Synod's representative at the Academy.

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So it was that a bishop or indeed any clergyman never occupied the position of Rector of the Theological Academy of the UAOC in Emigration until its end; after the departure of Prof. P. Kovaliv for America, the Rector of the Academy was Prof. H. Vashchenko, who in a letter to the Sacred Synod of November 2, 1949, also wrote: "The Academy must be preserved as a Theological school — that is, with the complete predominance in its curriculum of theological disciplines over secular ones... At the head of the Academy must stand a bishop, for otherwise it will have no authority as a Theological school."

Why the Sobor of Bishops, in confirming the revised "Statute of the Theological Academy," did not take into account this view of the acting Rector of the Academy, alongside the views of its Right Reverend Curator, remains unknown. But a positive aspect of the Academy's leadership under the longtime pedagogue Prof. H. Vashchenko as its Rector was that he himself had a higher theological education, being a Candidate of Theology from the Moscow Theological Academy.

The clergyman at the Academy, by resolution of the Synod when confirming the "Statute of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy" on August 24, 1946, was to be the Dean of the Theological Faculty, and Protopresbyter Fr. Pavel Kalynovych was elected to this position at the session of the Professorial Rada on July 8, 1947.

"In the hands of Protopresbyter P. Kalynovych," as Bishop Volodymyr wrote to the Synod (October 16, 1948), "is the overwhelming majority of theological disciplines, which he teaches well, but unfortunately he does not belong to our Church but to the Russian" (Church Abroad)... "I consider such a situation entirely abnormal, and one ought somehow to find a way out of such a position"...

Indeed, when the task of the Theological Academy of the UAOC included the upbringing of pastors of the Church "in the spirit of deep national consciousness" (Article 1a of the Statute of the Theological Academy), one cannot but acknowledge the justice of the Curator of the Academy's observations: Fr. P. Kalynovych, a good diocesan missionary in Polissia in the Orthodox Church in Poland, was not at that time among the ranks of Ukrainian church leaders, did not become one in emigration, and upon moving to America, where he later reposed, served in pastoral work under the jurisdiction of the Russian Metropolitanate.

The idea of transferring the Theological Academy of the UAOC overseas, to Canada or the USA, "in corpore," as they said, arose already at the beginning of 1947, when at the end of January of that year the Administrator of the UGOC in Canada, Fr. S. V. Savchuk, came to Europe with the main aim of finding a candidate for the episcopal cathedra for the UGOC in Canada from among the numerous hierarchy of the UAOC.

After the Rector of the Academy met with Fr. Administrator S. V. Savchuk, the matter was noted on the agenda of the session of the Professorial Rada of the Academy on February 24, 1947: "Prospects for ties and the future move to Canada." Again, at the session of the Professorial Rada on July 8, 1947, in the Rector's report to the Council, we read: "With Canada, despite the fact that when the representative of the Ukrainian Church in Canada, Prot. S. Savchuk, was in Munich, he was thoroughly informed about the state and life of our Academy

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and certain projects and wishes were put forward regarding the defense of the Academy's interests in Canada before the Ukrainian civic and influential circles — no reply has been received to this day." (Minutes No. 8, session of the Professorial Rada of the Academy, July 8, 1947.)

However, the hope that the Theological Academy of the UAOC was to be transferred to America was nurtured further. When the Rector of the Academy, Prof. P. Kovaliv, was departing for America, the Professorial Rada of the Academy at its session on May 3, 1949, resolved "to consider that the Academy in the future is to be transferred to America, when the ground for this has been created, the preparation of which it entrusted, by way of assignment, to Prof. P. Kovaliv as Rector"... (From the letter of Prof. P. Kovaliv to Metropolitan Polikarp of May 21, 1949.)

The acting Rector of the Academy, Prof. H. Vashchenko, in November 1949 in a letter to the Synod of the UAOC expressed confidence that a significant majority of the Academy's professors and students would move to America, and that "already here in Germany, professorial cadres must be assembled, first of all professors-theologians, because lecturers of secular disciplines can easily be found in America as well."

And the Secretary of the Synod of the UAOC, Bishop Platon, in a letter to the Rectorate of the Theological Academy of January 24, 1950, wished "the Professors and pious students of the Academy success in completing the 1949–50 academic year and in moving in corpore overseas for further work on the education and upbringing of future pastors of our Church."

And here again, only the Curator of the Academy, Bishop Volodymyr, proved to be a realist, writing in his report to the Synod for the 1948–49 academic year on June 10, 1949: "The firm conviction of the Rector, expressed at the sessions (of the Professorial Rada — May 3 and the Senate — May 18, 1949), that the Academy will be transferred in the future to America, is in my opinion merely a 'pium desiderium' and has no real basis, if only because the professorial staff and the microscopic number of students who have all along stayed with the Academy can emigrate only as workers, which means they will be scattered everywhere, and very old professors have little chance of emigrating. So 'happy is he who believes,' and therefore this idea should be nurtured. Today there exists the idea of the Academy, and this is good, because the internal achievements are few, despite the selfless dedication of many professors"...

It seems that both the Rectorate and the professorate of the Academy, lacking proper connections, were disoriented regarding the possibilities of transferring the Theological Academy of the UAOC overseas "in corpore." The detailed acquaintance of Fr. Administrator of the UGOC in Canada with the Academy's structure in 1947, which had "40 persons of professorial-lecturing staff," surely immediately decided the question of its transfer to Canada negatively. Such "scales" of the Church's conduct of spiritual-secular higher education did not at all correspond to either the capabilities or the needs of the UGOC in Canada.

Its leadership limited itself to bringing over, on behalf of the UGOC, Prof. Dm. Doroshenko, Iv. Wlasowsky, and Prof. F. Kulchynsky. Compared with the broad

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scope of founding a higher theological-pedagogical school by the UAOC in emigration, this was, of course, quite meager. For, for example, Prof. Iv. Wlasowsky in the academic years 1948–49 and 1949–50 taught: Dogmatic Theology, Fundamental Theology or Christian Apologetics, Moral Theology, History of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, Canon Law, Homiletics, and the Ukrainian Language. But the school was not a higher one either. It was the "Theological Department of St. Andrew's College in Winnipeg." Now, instead of "Theological Department," it has been given the name "Theological Faculty."

But does this "Theological Faculty," with its wonderful new premises, equal even an old Theological Seminary in its educational process? As the Visnyk reported (November 1, 1964), in the 1964–65 academic year, from among theological subjects, three lecturers across three years of the faculty taught Liturgics, Old and New Testament (the nomenclature is entirely unclear), Dogmatics, Homiletics, and some subject called "Currents in the Christian Faith." Other subjects were: Ukrainian Language, Church Slavonic, Greek Language, History of the Ukrainian Church, History of the UGOC in Canada, History of Philosophy (which?), church singing, and the church typikon (a part of Liturgics?)...

The preparation of pastors for the UOC outside our Fatherland remains an important problem in the life of the UAOC. And one must still regret that the UGOC in Canada and the UOC in the USA, as the largest centers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in our times — not only abroad but in the entire world — did not take advantage of the corresponding scholarly resources that the Theological Academy of the UAOC in Emigration could have given them. All the more so since St. Andrew's College with its Orthodox Theological Faculty in Winnipeg has been associated since 1962 with the University of Manitoba.

The task of this faculty, as was written in the Visnyk on the occasion of the opening of the "New College," is not only that "well-prepared graduate specialists" emerge from it — that is, in this case, educated pastors of the Church — but "that extraordinary scholarly works of its professors should also emerge as the fruits of their scholarly-research work, which would occupy an honorable place among the works of scholars from other academic schools"... "St. Andrew's College," they wrote further, "is not an institution of the type of our boarding-school institutes for students and pastoral courses for training candidates for the priesthood, but something far broader and deeper. Its purpose is to be a temple of the Ukrainian spirit, a forge of Ukrainian intellect at the heights." (Visnyk, Nos. 14–15, 1964, article "The New College is Open.")

Obviously, what is meant here is the development in Ukrainian Orthodoxy of theological-philosophical thought, theological-philosophical scholarship, as a lofty task, alongside the preparation of an educated pastorate, of the Theological Faculty of St. Andrew's College. For now, these fine words remain only words...

The thought of Fr. Rector of St. Andrew's College, Protopresbyter S. V. Savchuk, expressed around

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1957, remains in full force, and Fr. Dr. S. V. Savchuk said: "It is very difficult to raise funds for the construction of representative buildings for the College at the University, but an even greater concern is the matter of filling the new College with appropriate content"... (Ibid. Emphasis ours.)

The book production of the Theological-Pedagogical (later only Theological) Academy of the UAOC in Emigration, considering the terrible circumstances described above in which its (the Academy's) activity took place, could be neither broad nor deep. As a memorial there remain the Bulletins of the Academy, mimeographed publications in large format, of which approximately six issues appeared in the years 1946–49. The editor, as was indicated in some of these issues, was a student, V. Ivashchuk.

The Academy's Bulletins presented the chronicle of the life and activity of the Academy and contained articles of a theological and church-historical character by the Academy's professors and lecturers — these were predominantly their papers at scholarly sessions of the Theological Faculty, with discussions following the presentation; one also encounters sermons delivered by students of the Academy in the church.

The "Ukrainian Student Society at the Theological Academy of the UAOC," organized in May 1947, later had its own publication, Bohoslov (The Theologian); professors also contributed to it; Issues 4–6 of Bohoslov in 1949 had already come from the printing press.

Published by the same "Society of Students of the Theological Academy of the UAOC" on the mimeograph were some lectures delivered at the Academy, such as: Prof. O. Ivanytsky, Introduction to Theology, 1948 (14 pp.); Prof. Dr. N. Vasylenko-Polonska, History of the Ukrainian Church, 1948 (in condensed presentation, 28 pp.); Bishop Viacheslav, Homiletics, 1950; Prof. O. Polisky, Dogmatic Theology (three lectures); Protopresbyter P. Kalynovych, Liturgics, Parts I (1947) and II (1950); Prof. Dm. Chyzhevsky, Logic with a Collection of Logical Exercises, 1947 (69 pp.); the same author, History of Philosophy, Part 1, Ancient Philosophy, 1947 (45 pp.); Prof. H. Vashchenko, Pedagogy, 1947; Prof. A. Kocevalov, Textbook of Ancient Greek Language, Parts 1 and 2. (Ridna Tserkva, No. 1, 1952, "Survey of the Book Production of the Theological Academy over Six Years (1946–1952).")

The Acting Curator of the Academy, Bishop Volodymyr, left the position of Curator of the Academy shortly after the Sobor of Bishops of November 2–5, 1949, at which he declared that he had "assurance" for departure to the USA.

Residential instruction at the Theological Academy continued in the academic year 1949/50 as well. The Academy's students in this year, as stated in the "Report on the State of the Theological Academy" for December 1949 from the Rectorate of the Academy, numbered 14. In view of the expiration of the term of the former Rector of the Academy, Prof. P. Kovaliv, who had departed for the USA, the acting Rector, Prof. Hr. Vashchenko, was elected Rector of the Academy.

In July 1950 came the first graduation of the Academy's graduates, founded in November 1946. Five students completed the Academy; of these, two who presented works for the degree of Master of Theology graduated with the title of "Master of Theology."

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At the same time, the Senate and Professorial Rada awarded the scholarly degree of Doctor of Theology honoris causa to Bishop Viacheslav (Lysytsky) and Prof. H. Vashchenko, while the first Curator of the Academy, Archbishop Mykhail, and its first Rector, Prof. P. Kovaliv, were awarded honorary certificates. (Tserkva i Narid [Church and People], Nos. 9–10, 1950, pp. 35–36.)

After the 1949–50 academic year, the Academy apparently ceased residential instruction for lack of students and lack of funds (there are no data on this in the archive of the Synod, which was transported by Bishop Platon to Canada in February 1951) and switched to correspondence instruction. How long and with what success this correspondence instruction was conducted, we have no materials.

On April 22, 1959, in the city of Schwäbisch Gmünd in Germany, a session of the Supreme Rada of the Metropolitanate was held under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Nikanor. At it, on the matter of the Theological Academy of the UAOC, the following was resolved: "The Supreme Rada of the Metropolitanate considers that the Theological Academy of the UAOC, which performed important and useful work for our Church, with the departure of students and the majority of professors from Germany, has been in the stage of liquidation since 1952 and does not exist within the UAOC. Scholarly degrees of Doctor of Theology conferred by it after this date are to be considered invalid." (Ridna Tserkva, No. 39, 1959, p. 13.)

7. Participation of the UAOC leadership in the resettlement campaign; memorandum to the UN. Parishes of the UAOC in Germany and Austria. New distribution of territories of archpastoral work among the bishops; blessing for departure to Belgium for Archbishop Mykhail. Concerns of the UAOC leadership in resettlement matters in contact with the Main Resettlement Council and its Board. Composition of the clergy of the UAOC in Emigration. Organization of UAOC church centers in France, Belgium, England, Australia, South America. The Sobor Epistle of the last Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, November 3–5, 1949. Resettlement of Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs to North America. Intensification, in connection with their arrival, of the problem of unification of UOCs in the USA. The hierarchical question in the UGOC in Canada; the role in its normalization of the hierarchy of the UOC from Europe. The repose on October 22, 1953, in Paris of the Primate of the UAOC, Metropolitan Polikarp.

The Sacred Synod of the UAOC, in its Epistle to the clergy and God-loving faithful of the UAOC in Emigration of June 17, 1946, wrote:

"Closely connected with the matter of our internal strengthening in church-religious life is the further fate of our sojourn abroad. It would be a great misfortune for us to be scattered as individual persons and families throughout the world. Our efforts must be directed toward ensuring that in the event of necessary resettlement, we might compactly, in groups, resettle with our Church and pastors, with our teachers, with our cultural-educational and other civic

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institutions. We stand before an unknown future, we find ourselves in an unclear legal position. The Church is actually our only institution legally recognized abroad. And therefore even greater significance is acquired by order and discipline in the life of the Church, so that forces hostile to us cannot say of us that even in the Holy Church we have no order...

The hierarchical leadership, in the sense of its responsibility not only for the souls of the faithful entrusted to it by the Lord but also for the earthly fate of the people who are with it abroad, will do everything possible to alleviate this common fate. The Sacred Synod addresses the United Nations Organization and the High Governments of individual states with a request to take closer care of our fate and to resolve it in the spirit of high humanity, justice, and genuine democracy."

In the memorandum to the UN, adopted by the Synod of the UAOC at its session on August 23, 1946, and sent to the hands of the Secretary General of the UN, the Synod wrote that "in emigration in Europe there are 12 Ukrainian hierarchs of the UAOC headed by Metropolitan Polikarp, 52 parishes have been formed with 60,000 faithful organized in 7 dioceses governed by bishops and served by priests. Return to territories subject to or controlled by the Soviets is impossible for all believing members of the UAOC, given the terroristic extermination by the Bolsheviks of the Church's faithful. Therefore all faithful of the persecuted UAOC are political émigrés who are presently under the care of UNRRA and under the protection of the democratic states of the world.

Considering that Ukrainians — members of the UAOC — constitute a whole from the national, linguistic, cultural, and confessional standpoint, we turn to you with a request: to put before the UN the question and to submit a proposal that the UAOC, persecuted by atheists — the rulers of the Soviet world — be resettled in corpore to a country designated by the UN and settled there in an organized manner — by dioceses and parishes, providing appropriate initial means of existence and useful work for our peasants, workers, and intelligentsia." (Archive of the Synod of the UAOC, Section per register 1, Case 3, p. 15.)

This idea of the possibility of resettlement by entire parishes — it is unknown on what basis it arose in 1946 — persisted in the Synod until the spring of 1948, when its hopelessness became apparent, about which we shall speak below.

As noted in the Memorandum of the Synod of the UAOC in Emigration to the UN, the number of parishes of the UAOC in camps and outside camps in Germany, occupied by the Allied armies, was in the summer of 1946 — 52 parishes. Approximately the same number remained in the spring of 1949, despite the fact that already in 1948 the resettlement of displaced persons overseas was underway, on the demand for physical laborers from those countries.

In the composition of parishes, following the liquidation and consolidation of some camps (Kiel-Korigen, Bathorn, Karlsruhe, Mainz-Kastel, Kaufbeuren, Bad Wörishofen), changes occurred — some closed, new

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ones opened. For the historical record, we present the list of those parishes of the UAOC in Germany that still existed in April 1949.

I. British Zone: 1. Hanover. 2. Burgdorf. 3. Fallingbostel. 4. Kiel-Friedrichsort. 5. Bielefeld. 6. Hodenau. 7. Braunschweig. 8. Delmenhorst. 9. Göttingen. 10. Heidenau. 11. Hallendorf. 12. Errel. 13. Halle and Rheine. 14. Seedorf. 15. Wentorf-Hamburg. 16. Rede.

II. American Zone. Munich Church District: 1. Munich-Dachauerstr. 9/II. 2. Munich-Freimann. 3. Munich-Schleissheim. 4. Munich-Feldmoching. 5. Munich-Laim. 6. Mittenwald-Jäger-Kaserne. 7. Mittenwald-Pionier-Kaserne. 8. Weissenburg. 9. Stephanskirchen. 10. Pfarrkirchen. 11. Landshut. 12. Kraiburg-Pirten. 13. Berchtesgaden. 14. Dinkelsbühl.

Regensburg Church District: 1. Regensburg. 2. Bayreuth. 3. Erlangen. 4. Reitersaich. 5. Schweinfurt. 6. Neumarkt. 7. Winzer.

Augsburg Church District: 1. Neu-Ulm. 2. Leipheim. 3. Dillingen.

Aschaffenburg Church District: 1. Aschaffenburg-Artillerie-Kaserne. 2. Aschaffenburg-Bois Brûlé. 3. Kornberg. 4. Hersfeld. 5. Butzbach. 6. Giessen.

Württemberg-Baden Church District: 1. Ettlingen. 2. Pforzheim. 3. Ellwangen. 4. Zuffenhausen. 5. Ludwigsburg. (Archive of the Synod of the UAOC, Section V, Case 31, p. 72.)

In all, this list of UAOC parishes in emigration from the Synod Chancellery for the spring of 1949 contains 51 parishes in Germany. However, as is evident from the "Report on the Work of the Sacred Synod for 1946" at the Third Session of the Sobor of Bishops, May 12–15, 1947, the highest number of parishes in Germany was 71, in the following church districts at that time: Hanover — 12 parishes, Westphalia — 5, Munich — 20, Augsburg — 6, Bayreuth — 5, Gross-Hessen — 13, Württemberg-Baden — 8, Bad Kissingen — 2. (Archive of the Synod, Section I, Case No. 3, p. 64.)

By 1949, such parishes as those in Augsburg, Aschaffenburg (La Garde), Mainz-Kastel, Ingolstadt, Falkenberg, Herrensburg, and others no longer existed.

Under the jurisdiction of the UAOC in Emigration were also parishes of Ukrainian Orthodox displaced persons in Austria. A memorial of the church life of these displaced persons in Austria is the church-religious anthology Pid Pokrovom (Under the Protection), published by mimeograph in 1947 in Salzburg, with the blessing of Metropolitan Polikarp, by the Brotherhood at the Church of the Holy Protection in Salzburg.

As we have noted above, the spiritual care of the faithful of the UAOC in Austria was entrusted by the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Esslingen to Archbishop Henadiy, but, given the generally difficult connections between Austria and Germany at that time, Archbishop Henadiy did not receive permission to enter Austria.

Thus Orthodox Ukrainians in Austria remained until their resettlement without a bishop on site; care for them was to be the duty of Metropolitan Polikarp himself, who, residing in the British Zone, was the farthest of all UAOC bishops in Germany from Austria.

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The actual center of church life of the UAOC in Austria was the parish of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God in Salzburg, with its very active Brotherhood at the church [see the article by M. Mohylnytsky (Prof. M. Mukha) in the anthology Pid Pokrovom — "From the Life and Activity of the Parish at the Church of the Holy Protection of the UAOC in Salzburg"].

The significance of this parish lay not only in the fact that it itself lived an elevated church-religious and cultural-educational national life, but also in the fact that its activity was not limited to Salzburg itself. With the participation of its clergy and church leaders, branches and independent parishes were formed in places of concentration of Orthodox Ukrainians. Thus parishes of the UAOC arose in Hellbrunn, Birmos, Vöcklabruck, Wels, and Kremsmünster; in Upper Austria — in Schärding, Andorf, Ried, Linz, Villach, Weifendorf, Braunau, and Graz.

Much labor was contributed here by Fr. Fotiy Dm., Fr. Stefiuk P., Fr. Melnychuk V. — who are now in Canada — and Fr. Ariychuk Borys, who now heads the Pokrova Brotherhood in Buenos Aires (Argentina).

The rector of the UAOC parish in the camp at Landeck (Tyrol, Austria), Mitred Protopriest Ananiy Sahaidakivsky, whom the Sacred Synod of the UAOC appointed as Administrator of the UAOC parishes in Austria after it became clear that Archbishop Henadiy could not travel to Austria. Upon the departure of Prot. A. Sahaidakivsky to the French Zone, which was under the care of Bishop Serhiy, to the position of its dean, the administrators of the UAOC parishes in Austria were successively Fr. V. Sahaidakivsky (briefly — he departed, having left the UAOC clergy, for Canada), Fr. Dm. Fotiy, and Fr. P. Stefaniuk.

Until the Sobor of Bishops in Munich on May 15, 1947, Archbishops Nikanor and Henadiy and Bishop Serhiy were not engaged in church administration. At this Sobor, Archbishop Nikanor was entrusted with archpastoral care over part of the Württemberg-Baden church district (the camp parishes of Ettlingen and Forstner-Kaserne near Karlsruhe); Archbishop Henadiy was assigned the camp parishes in Aschaffenburg — "La Garde," "Artillerie-Kaserne," and "La Brühl"; Bishop Serhiy was given care of the faithful in the French Zone. The Gross-Hessen church district, in view of the departure of its archpastor, Bishop Mstyslav, to Paris for the care of the faithful in France, England, and Belgium, was entrusted at the same Sobor to the care of Bishop Platon.

At the next Fourth Session of the Sobor of Bishops, October 23–24, 1947, in Aschaffenburg, new changes took place in the distribution of territories of archpastoral work among the bishops. In view of the overburdening of work of the Secretary of the Sacred Synod, Bishop Platon, he was

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relieved of administering the church districts of Gross-Hessen and Württemberg, leaving under his care only the camp parish of "Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen." The Gross-Hessen district was transferred to the care of Bishop Viacheslav; the camp parish in Württemberg, "Ellwangen," was entrusted to the care of Archbishop Nikanor. In connection with the deprivation of episcopal rank and excommunication from the Church of Bishop Hryhoriy Ohiichuk, all UAOC parishes in the British Zone once again came under the church administration of Metropolitan Polikarp himself. At the 5th session of the Sobor of Bishops on April 19-20, 1948, in Augsburg, added to these responsibilities of the Metropolitan was his care over the faithful of the UAOC Church in France, England, Switzerland, and Italy, since Archbishop Mstyslav was already in Canada by September 1947 and at the Sobor of the UGOC on November 12-13 in Winnipeg was elected to the cathedra of that Church. At the same 5th session of the Sobor of Bishops, Archbishop Mykhailo was blessed to depart for Belgium, where a considerable number of Ukrainian displaced persons had gone to work in coal mines. Archbishop Mykhailo was to extend his archpastoral care also to the faithful of the UAOC in Holland and Luxembourg. Archbishop Ihor and Bishop Sylvestr were blessed to depart for Argentina, where Ukrainian displaced persons had also begun to emigrate in response to labor demands. With the departure of Archbishop Mykhailo to Belgium, the Munich church district was entrusted by Metropolitan Polikarp to the leadership of Archbishop Henadiy, which assignment was confirmed by the Sacred Synod at its session on November 13, 1948, in Ellwangen.

The matter of resettlement of Ukrainian displaced persons, as evident from the Synod's Epistle of June 17, 1946, cited at the beginning of this subsection, was from the very start a subject of great concern for the UAOC Church leadership abroad. In this matter, the fundamental principle for the hierarchical leadership of the Church was to assist by all means the conduct of the resettlement effort by the duly authorized all-Ukrainian resettlement organizations. The representative of the UAOC Church at the general "Resettlement Congress," which took place on October 4-5, 1946, at the Schleissheim camp near Munich, was Bishop Mstyslav. From the Bishop's report at the Synod session on November 19, 1946, in Kornberg, it became apparent that the resettlement effort was gaining urgency and organizational form. To the Resettlement Council, organized on the basis of the Congress's resolutions, the Synod delegated as its representatives the Secretary of the Synod, Bishop Platon, and the Director of the Synod Chancellery, Ivan Wlasowsky. The delegates were given the directive: "in their work on the matter of resettlement, to strive so that resettlement would occur, as far as possible, by religious Orthodox communities to those countries that best correspond in their climatic conditions and in which the preservation and development of the spiritual, cultural, and national values of the Ukrainian people would be guaranteed."

On the state of resettlement affairs, the representatives of the Synod in the Main Ukrainian Resettlement Council submitted reports at the sessions of the Synod

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and Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, and through their cooperation in the Council (Iv. Wlasowsky was a member of the Presidium of the Council, or its Executive, which was based in Munich and convened quite frequently) — they assisted, as much as they could, in the conduct of the general national Ukrainian cause. In July 1947, the resettlement effort among Ukrainians unexpectedly took on a different character. On the initiative of Pope Pius XII, a "Pontifical Emigration Commission" was established to work within the framework of the IRO. As one of the committees of this "Commission," there arose, under the leadership of Apostolic Visitator Fr. N. Voyakovsky, the "Vatican Ukrainian Emigration Committee," whose deanery divisions were to complete by September 15, 1947, the registration of all Ukrainian Catholics (with the exception of Volksdeutsche) in camps and emigrants outside camps. As reported, on July 10, 1947, a Conference took place in Frankfurt with the participation of two American bishops, two Argentine prelates, representatives of the American army, and various consulates; at the Conference, matters of Catholic emigration were discussed. The IRO was to finance the emigration, the military was to provide food during transit, and the Pontifical Emigration Committees were to see to settlement arrangements at destinations. The departure of emigrants was expected within a year. ("Shchodenni Visti" [Daily News]. No. 46. 1947. Augsburg).

Having heard at the 6th session of the Sacred Synod on August 5-8, 1947, in Mainz-Kastel, the report of its representatives on the channeling of the resettlement effort among Ukrainians onto a separatist path, along confessional lines, the Synod resolved to address a memorandum to the Pontifical Emigration Commission. In this memorandum, the Sacred Synod, welcoming the intentions to come to the aid of Ukrainian displaced persons — victims of intolerance in the present time of tribulations — at the same time expressed regret that this relief effort was limited to Ukrainian Catholics, which aroused hostility among Ukrainians and brought division among Ukrainian displaced persons of various faiths, and therefore the Synod expressed hope that in the name of general Christian humanitarianism, the Pontifical Emigration Commission would change its policy of assisting exclusively Catholics. The Sacred Synod of the UAOC itself confirmed then and thereafter the guidelines of its work on the resettlement matter in full contact with the Main Ukrainian Resettlement Council and its Executive. In agreement with them, the Synod also ordered, through Church Administrations in the church districts, the registration of its faithful in parishes for resettlement. In addition, the Synod adopted a number of resolutions to intensify work on the resettlement matter, such as appeals to the World Council of Churches, to IRO institutions, to the governments of European and overseas countries to which Orthodox Ukrainians were already departing for work; on the matter of church-religious care for these resettlers by clergy of the UAOC, the Synod appealed to the governments of England, Belgium, Brazil, and Argentina. By the spring of 1948, as evident from the report of the Synod's representative in the Resettlement

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Executive, at the Synod session of April 15-17, 1948, in Augsburg — "the failure of the resettlement effort along confessional lines of the Pontifical Emigration Commission became apparent; the resettlement matter proceeds more along national lines, and national groups are given greater consideration; all hopes are directed toward Ukrainian Relief Committees in various countries. The Resettlement Executive under the CPUE in Germany has already joined the Bureau of the representative of the Ukrainian Relief Committee in America for Germany, Dr. Smuk; in general, the resettlement matter currently stands quite difficult, and it would be well for bishops and clergy to make efforts toward individual departures." And the Synod then resolved: "In view of the difficult state of the resettlement matter, which offers no hope for group departure, to advise the clergy and bishops to begin efforts toward individual departure to those countries where the faithful of our Church are going." (Protocol No. 2 of the session of the 9th session of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC on April 16, 1948, in the Ukrainian camp "Sommer Kaserne" in Augsburg). Likewise, the Sobor of Bishops, which convened after the 9th session of the Synod in the same Augsburg on April 19-20, 1948, resolved, having blessed Archbishop Mykhailo to depart for Belgium and Archbishop Ihor and Bishop Sylvestr for Argentina: "The remaining Bishops may endeavor to depart from Germany to one country or another where our faithful are going, for spiritual care over them and for the organization of UAOC Church life there."

The Chancellery of the Sacred Synod established contacts on the resettlement matter with Ukrainian Relief Committees in England, France, Belgium, Italy, the USA, Canada, Argentina, and Brazil. To the letters sent, replies were received from the Committees in England, France, Belgium, the USA, Argentina, and Brazil with readiness to assist with advice and on the ground upon arrival, it being emphasized that the Committees make "no religious distinction in seeking resettlement for displaced persons." The resettlement of clergy of the UAOC Church from Germany, begun in 1948, proceeded very intensively during 1949; about 60 priests departed during that time. ("Ukrainian Orthodox Church Calendar" for 1950. Stuttgart, p. 70). When it was difficult to depart as clergymen, some departed for work as laborers. During the camp era of the UAOC Church abroad, there was no shortage of clergy. As stated in the "Ukrainian Orthodox Church Calendar for 1949," published by the Sacred Synod of the UAOC, at the end of 1948 in Germany and Austria there were 103 priests and 18 deacons; some priests served as rectors of parishes, their deputies, religious instructors, and the rest were in reserve (p. 117). From the Report of the Secretary of the Synod of the UAOC, Bishop Platon, on the work of the Synod for 1947, the educational qualifications of this clergy appeared, according to survey data, as follows: 23 persons had higher theological education, 18 had seminary education, 13 had higher secular education, 15 had general secondary education, 9 had old theological school education, and 4 had lower education. (Archive of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC. Section I. File 2, p. 182).

The beginnings of organizing church centers of the UAOC Church in various countries following the resettlement of the UAOC faithful to them were presented

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in the written reports of Metropolitan Polikarp to the Sacred Synod at its penultimate 11th session, which took place in Munich on June 15-17, 1949. During a brief stay in France, Bishop Mstyslav organized a Ukrainian parish in Paris, and engineer Sozontiv built a church at his own expense, which Bishop Mstyslav consecrated in honor of St. Simon. Bishop Mstyslav did not manage to obtain permission for the entry into France of UAOC priests, as he had to depart for Canada, but engineer Sozontiv, after great efforts, eventually succeeded in obtaining permission for two priests who were to serve the spiritual needs of Orthodox Ukrainians in France. On August 25, 1948, Archpriest Volodymyr Vyshnevsky arrived in Paris from Germany, whom Metropolitan Polikarp appointed as rector of the UAOC Church parish in Paris. On September 9, 1948, Archpriest Oleksander Novytsky arrived in France and began ministering, traveling throughout France, to Orthodox Ukrainian workers employed in factories. In the fall of 1949, Fr. Novytsky departed for Canada, while Fr. Vyshnevsky, in his position as rector of the above-named parish in Paris and simultaneously as Administrator of the UAOC in France (after the death of Metropolitan Polikarp on October 22, 1953), reposed in July 1961. At present (1965), there are 6 UAOC priests in France in emigration.

In Belgium, before the arrival there in September 1948 of Archbishop Mykhailo, Archpriest Ivan Bachynsky organized four church communities of the UAOC Church. There were up to 200 families of coal mine workers in these communities. Belgium was one of the first countries to recruit workers from among the emigrants in Germany. This explains the Synod's mission assignment of Archbishop Mykhailo to Belgium, upon whose arrival "our people, as Metropolitan Polikarp wrote, were greatly comforted, for they felt someone kindred near them, to whom they could tell their sorrows and worries." With the arrival of Archbishop Mykhailo, who was based in Liège, a broader spiritual care of Orthodox Ukrainians scattered across the mines began, when three more priests arrived in Belgium at the Metropolitan's invitation — Fr. M. Ovcharenko, Fr. Ye. Chyzhiv, and Fr. Tarnovetsky. But the conditions of work and life for our people in Belgium were unfavorable, and therefore, as soon as the contracts of our miners with their employers ended, people took measures to depart from Belgium, primarily overseas. Thus the service here of both the Archbishop and the priests became temporary. With the departure of the flock, there was no need for clergy.

The Consistory of the UGOC in Canada turned to Metropolitan Polikarp with a request that he bless the candidacy of Archbishop Mykhailo as ruling bishop of the UGOC in Canada. With this blessing, Archbishop Mykhailo left Belgium, met with Metropolitan Polikarp in Paris, and departed for Canada in May 1951. Fathers M. Ovcharenko and Ye. Chyzhiv also transferred to serve in the UGOC in Canada. At present (1965), in Belgium, in Brussels, in the jurisdiction of the UAOC in emigration, Protopresbyter Ivan Bachynsky continues his pastoral

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service, having arrived in Belgium with the first contingent of Ukrainian workers in 1947. The organization of church life of the UAOC Church in England began in mid-1947. Among its faithful were Orthodox Ukrainian soldiers who had been in the Polish corps of General Anders, and a very significant number of workers who arrived from displaced persons camps in Germany. An initiative group among them established contact with the leadership of the UAOC Church, and in August 1947, Bishop Mstyslav arrived in England, to whose spiritual care the centers of Orthodox Ukrainians in France, England, and Belgium had been entrusted by the resolution of the Sobor of Bishops on March 15, 1946. Bishop Mstyslav entered into close relations with the "Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain," then headed by Mykyta Bura (a former member of the Polish Sejm), and with the Ukrainian Relief Bureau headed by Captain Bohdan Panchuk (from Canada). Having visited prisoner-of-war camps containing Orthodox Ukrainians and other places with concentrations of Ukrainian displaced workers, Bishop Mstyslav held conferences with representatives of English civic organizations and initiated the organization of the UAOC Church in England. He organized the first "Church Council of the UAOC Church for Great Britain." Priests of the UAOC Church here in 1947 were Hieromonk Iov Skakalsky, who had come to England from Italy together with prisoners of war, Fr. L. Opoka and Fr. O. Dovhal from the American Zone in Germany, and Fr. A. Myroshnychenko from the British Zone — all three came to England as workers. Bishop Hryhoriy Ohiichuk had also come to England without the knowledge or blessing of Metropolitan Polikarp, but the Ukrainian Relief Bureau in England firmly opposed his appearance, and he, having been in London for several days, had to return to Germany. (From Metropolitan Polikarp's report to the Synod, June 10, 1949).

In March 1948, Archpriest Ihor Hubarzhevsky arrived in London and took charge of the Church Rada. "When I saw," wrote Metropolitan Polikarp in his report to the Synod, "that the work of Archpriest Hubarzhevsky was getting organized, I replaced the Church Rada by establishing the 'General Church Administration of the UAOC Church in Great Britain,' appointed Archpriest Hubarzhevsky as Head of the Church Administration, with members Hieromonk Iov Skakalsky, priest L. Opoka, and 3 lay persons elected by the Congress of UAOC faithful on October 10, 1948... Archpriest Hubarzhevsky attends various meetings and sessions as a representative of the UAOC, convened by the Anglican Church. He conducts visitations of parishes and carries out my instructions, corresponding with English government officials. I follow his work very attentively, and every time he does something wrong, I point it out to him, and often in categorical form, but I know that only he who does nothing makes no mistakes, and therefore with my directives I try to correct the errors." (Archive of the Sacred Synod. Section I. File 4, p. 207 verso). However, these "errors" of the Head of the Church Administration accumulated to such an extent that after the Metropolitan's visitation of the UAOC Church in Great Britain

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in the summer of 1950, the Metropolitan was compelled to dismiss Archpriest Ihor Hubarzhevsky from all his positions, strike him from the list of UAOC clergy in England, and forbid him from celebrating Divine Services in England. And in response to these prohibitions, Fr. Hubarzhevsky raised a "revolt" against the Metropolitan in the church life of the UAOC Church in England, as his conduct was characterized in a publication of the "General Church Administration of the UAOC in Great Britain" under the title: "Commemorative Book of the Fifteenth Anniversary of the UAOC in Great Britain (1947-1962)," London, 1962. To this valuable publication, in which not only the "revolt" and attempts to disrupt church life are described, but the entire history of this life with its creative work is presented in detail, we shall permit ourselves to direct those for whom the idea of the Native Church and its fate abroad is dear. Such a publication does credit to the General Church Administration of the UAOC in Great Britain. After the removal of Fr. I. Hubarzhevsky, the Head of this Church Administration was Archpriest V. Ilchuk, who served in this position for only 8 months — on July 9, 1951, Fr. Ilchuk reposed. Metropolitan Polikarp then appointed Metropolitan Archpriest Serhiy Molchanivsky as Administrator and Head of the General Church Administration of the UAOC in England, who now for the 15th year, currently in the rank of Protopresbyter, directs the church life of the significant Orthodox Ukrainian center in England. The clergy of the UAOC in England currently numbers 14 persons (1965).

To Australia, at the beginning of 1948, Archpriest Ananiy Teodorovych departed, a member of the Church Administration of the UAOC in the Württemberg-Baden district in Germany. Fr. Teodorovych departed as a laborer, but Metropolitan Polikarp forwarded to him authorization to organize parishes of the UAOC Church in Australia and to minister spiritually to Orthodox Ukrainians there, which, while simultaneously working as a laborer, he zealously began to fulfill, becoming the Administrator of the UAOC Church in Australia. At the end of June 1949, Bishop Sylvestr of the UAOC Church arrived in Australia, having received permission to immigrate to Australia as a family member, with the obligation of his maintenance. Bishop Sylvestr did not have authorization for archpastoral work in Australia; on the contrary, by resolution of the Synod of the UAOC at its session on June 16, 1949, composed of Metropolitan Polikarp, Archbishops Nikanor, Ihor, and Henadiy, and Bishop Platon, Bishop Sylvestr was "temporarily suspended in his episcopal functions" until such time as his case could be reviewed at the next session of the Sobor of Bishops. The case of Bishop Sylvestr consisted in the fact that even before his departure for Australia he had submitted to the press ("Ukrainski Visti" [Ukrainian News], May 12, 1949) a broad "Archpastoral Announcement" over his signature, in which, as in his letters to the Sobor of Bishops dated April 23, May 10, and May 14, 1949, "he untruthfully — as stated in the Synod's resolution — illuminated certain facts of UAOC Church life, such as the 'temporariness' of Metropolitan Polikarp's chairmanship of the Synod — a hierarch of a 'neighboring church' (the Polish one), and also threatened that 'spiritual-cultural work in Australia would be conducted by an "Independent Episcopacy of the UAOC" under the leadership of Bishop Sylvestr, as on

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the American continent the "Metropolia of three hierarchs" (Metropolitan Ilarion, Bishops Bohdan and Orest), and considered himself to have departed from the episcopate of the UAOC.'" The Sobor of Bishops, which convened on November 3-5, 1949, recognized this Synod resolution as just, but Bishop Sylvestr, in a letter to the Synod dated September 21, 1949, had already retracted his letters of April-May, as well as his new offensive letters of July 9 and August 15, 1949, considering them "non-existent," and expressed regret that such a "conflict" had occurred. The Sobor of Bishops acknowledged this repentance, but demanded of Bishop Sylvestr that he retract through the press his writings in the press as well, and that he promise in writing that "in the future nothing similar would be done again, and that he would endeavor to live with all his brethren in harmony, love, and peace."

Upon fulfillment of this, "it will be possible to finally liquidate the conflict that arose through the fault of Bishop Sylvestr and to lift the suspension and to determine Bishop Sylvestr's canonical competencies." (Archive of the Synod of the UAOC. Section I. File No. 1, p. 199. 53. Section IV. File No. 27).

As the press reported ("Yednist" [Unity], April 16, 1950), "The Australian Ministry of Immigration gave its consent to the arrival in Australia of Archbishop Nikanor of the UAOC Church." "According to the latest reports from Europe," it was also stated in the journal "Tserkva i Narid" [Church and Nation] (No. 7-8. 1950. Canada), "Archbishop Nikanor, Deputy Metropolitan of the UAOC, at the end of July of this year is moving to Australia, where he will head the clergy and faithful of the UAOC Church." The physicians did not permit this move for Metropolitan Nikanor. "The poor state of health of Archbishop Nikanor became an obstacle to this, and Divine Providence relieved him of this burden and preserved him for other, more important work," we read in the organ of the Consistory of the UAOC in Australia. ("Nash Holos" [Our Voice], No. 4. 1963. P. 7). In September 1952, Bishop Ioan Danyliuk was consecrated for Australia by Metropolitan Polikarp and Archbishop Nikanor, but he was able to arrive in Australia only on April 1, 1953. He began, in the rank of Archbishop of Sydney and Australasia-New Zealand, creative archpastoral work, but already after 7 months he was no more: on November 7, 1953, unexpectedly, from a heart attack, he reposed in the Lord. The turbulent events in the life of this "autonomous" church province of the UAOC Church, which followed some time after the death of Archbishop Ioan and continue to this day, are indeed a burden for the present bishop, Varlaam, who was consecrated for Australia in the USA on November 30, 1958. (See "On the Path to a United UAOC Abroad." Sydney-Melbourne. 1957, and also "Nash Holos," a church-civic quarterly publication of the Consistory of the UAOC Church in Australia). At present (1965), in the jurisdiction of Metropolitan of the UAOC in emigration Nikanor, there are two dioceses in Australia, with 12 clergy in one and 8 in the other.

At the last Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in Germany before the resettlement on November 3-5, 1949, Bishop Serhiy (Okhotenko) asked for a letter of release for transfer to the Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church at the request of the faithful of that

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Church. For the BAOC Church had been orphaned in emigration; its hierarchs, consecrated in 1941-43, abandoned it, having transferred to the Russian Church Abroad. The Sobor resolved to satisfy this request, connected with the request of Orthodox Belarusians. At the same Sobor of Bishops, at the session of November 4, 1949, it was resolved: "On the basis of petitions from organized Orthodox Belarusian citizenry for the consecration for the BAOC Church of a bishop, with the presentation of a candidate for this high spiritual position — Hieromonk Vasyl Tomashchyk — to assist our Belarusian brothers in the revival of their native hierarchy." With the blessing of Metropolitan Polikarp, the consecration (chirotonia) of Archimandrite Vasyliy (Tomashchyk) as Bishop of Vienna was performed on December 19, 1949, in Rosenheim by Bishops of the UAOC Platon, Viacheslav, and Serhiy. (Archive of the Synod of the UAOC. Section III. File No. 23). Bishop Serhiy (now Archbishop) transferred to Australia in 1951 as Head of the BAOC Church. (Tserkva i Narid. 1951, No. 5, p. 16).

The last Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC abroad before the resettlement from Europe — the 6th — which took place in Dillingen on November 3-5, 1949, addressed to the clergy and faithful a heartfelt Conciliar Archpastoral Epistle, signed by the participants of that Sobor: Metropolitan Polikarp, Archbishops Nikanor, Ihor, and Henadiy, and Bishops Volodymyr, Platon, Viacheslav, and Serhiy. In this Conciliar Epistle, the Episcopate of the UAOC Church wrote:

"We address you at a time when, by God's permission, the paths to Ukraine become overgrown with thorns for us all, and a thorny, unknown path stretches to distant overseas foreign lands... Wherever you may find yourselves by God's will, do not forget that you are sons and daughters of our Mother-Sufferer — Ukraine, descendants of the pious Ukrainian people, who in the hardest times of their history did not forget God, did not lose hope in Him, gathered around their Church, honored its pastors, and always saved their neighbor in time of need. Guard as your most precious treasure our Orthodox faith and love your Native Church... Beware as of evil poison materialism and the godless, for they breed violence, bondage, and injustice... And the Sobor of Bishops also entreats you: do not tear apart the living body of Mother Ukraine with partisan disagreements and quarrels, do not create schisms in the Holy Church, do not rend the robe of Christ to the joy of enemies... Grieving over the sad fact of the schism that occurred in our Church in 1947, the Sobor of Bishops calls upon our brothers, who do not hold to church unity, to realize at last that church discord has no need or sense, and apart from grave harm to our long-suffering people, gives nothing... To those whom the Lord has already destined to find a new Fatherland on foreign soil, do not forget Mother Ukraine, build anew your native church life in your new place, organize yourselves into parishes, gather into Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods, establish sacred places, build holy Temples, found Native Schools for your children. In your temples, pray for Ukraine, for the Native Church, for those who in heavy bondage

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yearn for you, for the entire Ukrainian People. Do not forget also those infirm who are unable to cross the seas, help them both with counsel and with deeds, so as to dry their tears... We convey our Archpastoral blessing to all faithful sons and daughters of our Great Fatherland, both to those who bear the burden of wandering in exile, and to those who have remained in the Fatherland, and to those who bear the sacrifice of their blood on the altar of love for the Fatherland. 'Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you' (1 Peter 5:6-7)." (Tserkva i Narid. No. 1. 1950. Pp. 24-25).

In January 1950, Metropolitan Polikarp gave the order for the liquidation of the Chancellery of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC Church; during 1949, the intensive resettlement of Ukrainians from Germany to overseas countries — the USA, Canada, Australia, and also partly to Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela — was already underway; about 60 UAOC Church priests had departed. When the Chancellery of the Synod of the UAOC abroad was in the process of liquidation, it was replaced by the Metropolitan Chancellery of the UAOC, which was located with the Metropolitan in the Heidenau camp, district of Harburg, British Zone. In April 1950, Metropolitan Polikarp left Germany and moved to France. On April 22, he arrived in Paris; the Ukrainian community warmly greeted the Metropolitan, led by engineer S. V. Sozontiv. "Thank you to engineer Sozontiv," wrote the Metropolitan upon his arrival in Paris to the author of this work in Canada, "I now have everything I need. He takes care of me like his own father." Together with Metropolitan Polikarp came the Director of the Metropolitan Chancellery of the UAOC, Mr. Yuriy Kovalenko. A villa in a picturesque suburb of Paris, 10 km from the capital, was rented for the Metropolitan's residence. In his Paschal Archpastoral Epistle before his departure from Germany, Metropolitan Polikarp wrote: "More than one of you, in your distant dispersal across the world, will recall warmly — perhaps with regret that this is no more — will recall our Paschal divine services in camp churches in Western Europe. This sorrow is not sinful on this joyous Paschal Feast, for it ennobles the soul, uplifts us, and warms us in love for one another, and this love is the source of a quiet and constant joy that we, though scattered across the world, form one family"... (Tserkva i Narid. No. 4. 1950. P. 2).

The last Sobor of Bishops in Germany on November 3-5, 1949, at its session on November 4, resolved: "To confirm its resolution of April 20, 1948, on the departure of Archbishop Ihor to Argentina, extending the territory of his Archpastoral care to all countries of South America." (Protocol of the 6th session of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, No. 2. Archive of the Synod. Section I. File 1, p. 58).

The UAOC Church leadership's contacts with South America, primarily with Argentina, began in the fall of 1946, when Archpriest I. Yaroslavsky turned to Metropolitan Polikarp, having reached Argentina in 1946 from Switzerland with the help of some charitable organization. At the request of Fr. Yaroslavsky, Metropolitan Polikarp issued to him on

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September 14, 1946, authorization to minister to Orthodox Ukrainians living in Argentina and belonging to the UAOC. Archpriest I. Yaroslavsky celebrated divine services in Buenos Aires, in the hall of the local "Prosvita" [Enlightenment Society], began collecting funds for the construction of a church, and also traveled to Paraguay for services, but unfavorable reports about his activities soon began reaching the Metropolitan, which is why the Metropolitan refrained from appointing him Head of the UAOC Administration in Argentina, the establishment of which, pending the arrival of Archbishop Ihor, was requested by the local Brotherhood of the Holy Protection. In 1949, Archpriest B. Ariychuk and Priest Symon Shumakov arrived in Argentina from Austria. Metropolitan Polikarp appointed Fr. Borys Ariychuk as Guardian of the Brotherhood and Rector of the Holy Protection Church in Buenos Aires. Archbishop Ihor never arrived in Argentina but moved instead to the USA. The UAOC Church in Argentina was under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Polikarp, but in 1953 it left his jurisdiction due to the unfortunate consecration in Paris of Fr. Pylypenko as bishop for South America. Then the Brotherhood of the Holy Protection turned to Archbishop Ihor to accept them under his jurisdiction, that is, under the UAOC in exile; the request was granted. In 1962, a change occurred. In view of Archbishop Ihor's prolonged illness, the General Executive of the Brotherhood of the Holy Protection asked him how they should proceed. Archbishop Ihor replied that the faithful should decide this themselves. Then the General Assembly of the Brotherhood resolved to request spiritual care from Metropolitan of the UOC in the USA, Ioan. On May 11, 1962, the UAOC in Argentina was received into the UOC in the USA. Metropolitan Ioan blessed that church to commemorate after him in the divine services: "and our Father, the ailing Archbishop Ihor." ("Dzvin" [The Bell]. 1962. September, pp. 1-6; June, p. 2). At present (1965), in Argentina — the Administrator of the UOC Church is Protopresbyter B. Ariychuk and 2 priests.

With Brazil, contacts began in August 1948, when Metropolitan Polikarp ordered his chancellery to send to the address of Colonel Dolud, who had arrived in Brazil, the "Bohoslovsky Visnyk" [Theological Herald] and the Calendar for 1949. Colonel Dolud then sent a request to give certain authorizations to Priest O. Butkov for organizing parishes for the UAOC in Brazil. For Brazil, the UAOC Church was not a novelty, for as early as the 1930s (from 1931), the "Ukrainian Orthodox Mission" operated here, headed by Archpriest Dmytro Sidletsky, who had come from North America with the blessing of Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych. The activity of this mission, its clergy and laity, such as the late Prokip Morkotun, amid the hostile attitude toward the UAOC of the local Basilian Fathers and the struggle that arose from that quarter — is described in detail in the "Commemorative Book of the UAOC Church in Brazil on the Occasion of Its 25th Anniversary (1930-1955)." By 1938, up to 20 parishes and mission points of the UOC Church had been founded in Brazil. For various reasons, however, some parishes began to decline, especially after the death of Fr. Dm. Sidletsky (1945), when in 1945-47 the Ukrainian Orthodox parishes and mission points in Brazil were served by a single priest, Hieromonk Vasyl Postolian.

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The revival of church life came with the arrival of the new emigration, including clergy of the UAOC Church in emigration, and especially with the appointment by Metropolitan Polikarp of Archpriest Filimon Kulchynsky to the position of Administrator of the UAOC in Brazil, who arrived in Brazil from Canada in September 1951. Neither Archbishop Ihor nor Bishop Sylvestr, who had been assigned to Brazil by the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC, were able to depart for South America. In December 1951, Archbishop Mykolay Soloviy of the Russian Church, who had lived in Uruguay (Montevideo) since 1924, turned to Metropolitan Polikarp with a request to be received into the UAOC Church. On the basis of, after inquiry, the consent of all bishops of the UAOC, Metropolitan Polikarp by decree of January 15, 1952, received Archbishop Mykolay into the episcopate of the UAOC Church with the title "Archbishop of the UAOC Church for all South America." Archbishop Mykolay organized the "South American Consistory of the UAOC Church" composed of: Archimandrite Oleksiy (Pylypenko), Protopresbyter B. Ariychuk, Protopresbyter St. Rykhlytsky, and Messrs. P. Bulba, P. Yashenko, and M. Horlenko. ("Ridna Tserkva" [Native Church]. No. 1. 1952. P. 10). This appointment of Archimandrite Oleksiy Pylypenko as a member of the Consistory, and soon thereafter his consecration as bishop of the UAOC in Paris, became the cause of the departure of clergy and faithful of the UAOC in Brazil — as had also happened in Argentina — from the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Polikarp.

Only the Orthodox Ukrainians of Brazil immediately decided at an Extraordinary Congress on June 28, 1953, to return to the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Ioan Theodorovych, under which they had been previously until 1948. Archimandrite Oleksiy Pylypenko was indeed a very active figure in the Neo-Uniate movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland and the sole dean of the "Eastern rite" in union with Rome in Volyn, but the "odiousness" of his person did not lie in that (Rector of the Kremenets Theological Seminary Fr. P. Tabynsky also went to union); before his conversion to union, Fr. Pylypenko had illegally sold the church land of the Orthodox parish in the village of Tsehova, committed abuses with metrical records and marriage divorces, and served time in prison for this... (K. N. Nikolaev. The Eastern Rite. Paris. 1950, p. 149). Yet into the narrative of this sad event of the consecration of Fr. Pylypenko as bishop on the pages of the "Commemorative Book" of the General Church Administration of the UAOC in Brazil, we cannot fail to introduce one correction. It states there: "Archbishop Mykolay also did not recognize this appointment (of Bishop Oleksiy as vicar of Archbishop Mykolay) and also submitted protests against the episcopal consecration of Oleksiy" (p. 23). Metropolitan Polikarp wrote to me in a letter dated December 1, 1952:

"You have absolutely no idea how the matter of our Church stands in Argentina... The ruling Archbishop of the UAOC in South America, Mykolay, personally received Fr. Pylypenko into the Orthodox Church, tonsured him as a monk and elevated him to the rank of Archimandrite. After that, he informed me about this, noting that he would like to have Fr. Pylypenko as his assistant in the rank of bishop. Until that time, I did not know that Pylypenko was living in Argentina and nobody had written to me about him.

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When the local Basilians raised an uproar over Pylypenko's return to the Orthodox faith and began spreading various unworthy rumors about him, Metropolitan Mykolay wrote to me how things actually stood and asked me to appoint Fr. Pylypenko to assist him as a Bishop-Vicar, since his ailments were overcoming him and he needed to have an assistant bishop for handling church affairs"... (Emphasis mine.)

The "Commemorative Book of the UAOC in Brazil" contains not only the general history of our Church in Brazil but also the histories of individual parishes of the Church, as does the "Commemorative Book of the UAOC in Great Britain." Obviously, both are of great value for the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In Brazil, there are currently (1965) 6 priests of the UOC Church. In South America, there is also a Ukrainian Orthodox parish in the capital of Venezuela, Caracas, founded in 1949 through the efforts of the Executive of the Ukrainian Community, correspondence regarding the assignment of a priest to Caracas was conducted with the UAOC leadership in Germany in 1949 by physician L. Stakhovsky, the business secretary of the Executive. At present, that parish in Caracas is also already under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Ioan Theodorovych.

In the article "Under the Sign of Resettlement" in the Ukrainian Orthodox Calendar published by the Sacred Synod of the UAOC in emigration for 1950, it was written that "the majority of priests, as well as the faithful, are resettling from Germany to the USA and to Canada, where in their pastoral work they join the clergy of the existing Ukrainian Orthodox Churches, helping local clergy in their work of caring for the old and new Orthodox Ukrainian emigration and taking under their care entire communities." (P. 71). As transpired after the publication of this calendar, the majority of the hierarchs of the UAOC Church in emigration also moved to the USA and to Canada. As we know, already in 1947, Metropolitan Mstyslav came to Canada at the invitation of the leadership of the Ukrainian Greek-Orthodox Church in Canada. Also at the invitation of that Church, Archbishop Mykhailo came to Canada in mid-May 1951. Other bishops of the UAOC Church arrived from Germany to North America privately: Archbishop Henadiy to the USA in August 1950, Bishop Volodymyr to the USA on January 25, 1951, Bishop Platon to Canada on February 18, 1951, Archbishop Ihor to the USA on February 26, 1951, and Bishop Viacheslav to the USA in May 1951. Also arriving in North America from Europe were two hierarchs of the former "Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government" (the former Polish Commonwealth): Metropolitan Ilarion, brought by the Ukrainian community of the Holy Protection Cathedral in Winnipeg ("Jubilee Book in Honor of Metropolitan Ilarion." 1958. Winnipeg. P. 213), which at that time was not part of the UGOC in Canada, arrived in Canada simultaneously with the arrival of Metropolitan Mstyslav in September 1947, and Archbishop Paladiy, who was the last Ukrainian Orthodox bishop to arrive in the USA on February 22, 1952.

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The arrival of so many Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs in North America naturally should have reactivated the problem of unifying all Ukrainian Orthodox communities in the world outside the Fatherland, where the UAOC Church had ceased to exist once the godless communist government returned there. About the raising of the unification question at the beginning of the UAOC hierarchy's emigration and its course, we wrote in subsection 5 of this section. There it was stated that "the hierarchy of the UAOC in emigration, headed by Metropolitan Polikarp, joyfully welcomed the events in the church life of Orthodox Ukrainians in the USA connected with the formation of one UOC Church in that country, and most importantly, that on the path to church unification there no longer stood the hierarchy of the UAOC of two 'formations,' as they were then called, the 'formation of 1921' and the 'formation of 1942,' but only one Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchy, which without any dogmatic-canonical obstacles could have prayerful union among themselves."

Although the UAOC in emigration did not participate in these events, as noted there as well, it must not be forgotten that Archbishop Mstyslav did participate — and most actively so — blessed by the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC for work in the UGOC in Canada. The events that led to the "Sobor of Unification of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA" on October 14, 1950, were threefold.

First, the Extraordinary Sobor of the UOC Church in America (canonically — the Ukrainian diocese in the jurisdiction of the Greek Archdiocese of the Exarch in America of the Ecumenical Patriarch) took place in Allentown, Pa., December 8-9, 1948, at which Archbishop Mstyslav was elected bishop of that Church.

Second, the canonical regularization of Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych was completed during the Divine Liturgy on August 27, 1949, in the concelebration of Metropolitan Christophoros of Pentapolis — Exarch of the Alexandrian Patriarch, Archbishop of Winnipeg and Canada Mstyslav, and Archbishop Ioan, in "the sequence of prayerful acts defined by the canons of the Holy Ecumenical Orthodox Church." By this act, "the difficulties that had hindered the unification of the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches were removed once and for all." ("On the Events of August 26-28, 1949, in the UOC Church in America." "Tserkva i Narid," No. 6-7. 1949. Pp. 16-19).

Third, the Extraordinary Sobor of the UOC Church in America on April 18-19, 1950, in Wilmington, Del., was convened by the Consistory of that Church. At this Sobor, the election of Archbishop Mstyslav as ruling hierarch of the Church was confirmed, and he was authorized to immediately assume all archpastoral duties in the UOC Church in America, no longer waiting for the decision of the Patriarchal Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate regarding the acts of the Church Sobor in Allentown, Pa., from which a year and 3 months had passed. ("Ukrainian Orthodox Herald," No. 3. 1950).

The counteraction to these events, preparatory to the act of unification of the UOC Church in the USA, was the "episode of the creation of the 'Ukrainian and Carpathian-Russian Metropolia of All North and South America'" by three hierarchs — Metropolitan Ilarion, Bishop Bohdan Shpylka, and Bishop Orest, who was, like Bohdan, in the

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jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch. This "episode" lasted about a month and a half. The hierarchal Divine Service of the three named hierarchs took place on March 13, 1949, at the cathedral of Bishop Bohdan in New York, serving as the enthronement on the metropolitan cathedra of the UOC Church of all North and South America of Metropolitan Ilarion ("Ukrainsky Visnyk." Church-national periodical, No. 4. 1949). Soon after, the Board of Trustees and Consistory of the American-Carpatho-Russian Eparchy, assembled on April 28, 1949, under the chairmanship of Bishop Orest, rejected and condemned the creation of the Ukrainian and Carpatho-Russian Metropolia. They characterized it as "the swallowing of the Carpatho-Russian people and their subjection to this newly-contrived metropolia without the knowledge of the people." Bishop Orest expressed regret that his well-intentioned act, done for the greater consolidation of Orthodox hierarchs, had been deliberately distorted "to strengthen the shaken positions of the Ukrainian bishops," and declared that he was breaking with the metropolia... (Ukrainian Orthodox Herald, No. 6. 1949. P. 14). Most affected by this "episode" was Bishop Bohdan, who by participating in this metropolia had abandoned his UOC Church or diocese in the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch, which was justly held against him by the clergy and faithful.

Of the Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs who arrived from Europe to North America after all these events, Archbishop Henadiy was a participant in what was already the final act of the unification effort of the two UOC Churches in the USA, namely the "Sobor of Unification" on October 14, 1950. By resolution of that Sobor, Archbishop Henadiy was received into the episcopate of the UOC Church in the USA. From that time, the UOC Church in the USA, consisting of Metropolitan Ioan, Archbishops Mstyslav and Henadiy, for the first time in its history had a full hierarchy, necessary for the independence of the Church, so that the Church could itself consecrate new bishops rather than borrowing a bishop or seeking someone who would consecrate a bishop for it. (Apostolic Canon 1; Canon 8 of the Third Ecumenical Council). Bishop (now Archbishop) Volodymyr, who arrived in the USA after the "Sobor of Unification," further joined the episcopate of the UOC Church in the USA. The second Church Sobor in 1953 assigned him a cathedra in the city of Detroit.

A different position toward the united UOC Church in the USA was taken by Archbishops Ihor and Paladiy and Bishop Viacheslav. This was notable in the case of hierarchs Ihor and Viacheslav, who by resolution at the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC on November 4, 1949, in Dillingen, together with all members of the Sobor, had "welcomed with joy the events of August 27, 1949 (the canonical regularization) of Archbishop Ioan and expressed prayerful wishes that the act accomplished then would contribute to the strengthening of the Holy Ukrainian Orthodox Church." (Protocol of the 6th session of the Sobor of Bishops of the UAOC in emigration, November 4, 1949 — Archive of the Sacred Synod. Section I. File 1, pp. 59 and 61).

Shortly after their arrival, on May 27, 1951, Archbishop Ihor and Bishop Viacheslav celebrated Divine Liturgy with Bishop Bohdan in Allentown, in concelebration with them and Protosynkellos K. Kazanas, as representative

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of the Exarch of Constantinople, Archbishop Michael. After the Divine Service, a banquet was held in honor of the three hierarchs; the speeches delivered at the banquet by the three hierarchs were directed against the leadership of the UOC Church in the USA. Bishop Bohdan spoke: "I sincerely welcome my concelebrants and brethren, hierarchs Ihor and Viacheslav. I fully agree with their speeches, for we are henceforth of common mind and common action. Our enemies will perish soon, for God is with us." (Ukrainsky Visnyk. Diocesan organ of the UOC in America, No. 4. 1951, pp. 11-13). From this it would follow that Archbishop Ihor and Bishop Viacheslav at that time saw the unity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in subordination to the Ecumenical Patriarch. But Bishop Viacheslav, who had served as a canonical hierarch in churches under the jurisdiction of the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch, five months after the "solemn hierarchal service" of May 27, 1951, became an archimandrite and was re-consecrated on October 28, 1951, at the Holy Protection Cathedral in New York of the Russian Orthodox Metropolia as bishop (of Pittsburgh). The Senate and Professorial Rada of the Theological Academy of the UAOC in Munich, at their session on February 17, 1952, stripped him for this of his degree of "Doctor of Theology honoris causa" (it is unknown, truly, for what it had been awarded to him), and the Church Sobor of the UAOC on September 15-16, 1952, struck Bishop Viacheslav from the ranks of the UAOC Church. Bishop Viacheslav died in the USA on December 14, 1952.

Archbishop Ihor, without uniting with the UOC in the USA, into which many faithful, clergy, and three hierarchs of the UAOC who arrived from Europe had already entered, formed several parishes of newly arrived persons under his jurisdiction. Archbishop Paladiy, upon arriving in the USA, joined on May 5, 1952, the Ukrainian Eparchy headed by Bishop Bohdan, as he himself writes in an "Open Letter," and having been received into that diocese, offers this opinion: "It is entirely natural and from a canonical standpoint indicated that all Ukrainian episcopate and priesthood arriving from Europe should join precisely this Ukrainian Eparchy. In this way, it would be possible to build up the Ukrainian Church in America." (Ukrainsky Visnyk. Diocesan organ of the UOC in America. No. 3. 1952. P. 6. Emphasis ours). But a couple of years later, in October 1954, Archbishop Paladiy, titling himself Archbishop of Kraków, Lemko, and Lviv, jointly with Archbishop Ihor, issued an epistle in which they announced that "by God's grace and the blessing of the Most Holy Patriarchal Throne of Constantinople," they "for the strengthening of the UAOC Church and its hierarchy unite into one church-canonical entity, which henceforth shall bear the name: 'The Episcopate of the Holy UAOC Church, in Exile,' which stands in canonical union with the Ecumenical Throne of Constantinople." ("Holos Tserkvy" [Voice of the Church], No. 1(2). 1954-55. P. 11). The authors of this "Epistle," invoking the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch, did not at all present any act of the Patriarch by which their UAOC Church "in exile" would have been recognized — the church that Archbishop Paladiy began to create after

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having already left the "Ukrainian Eparchy" of Bishop Bohdan, into which he had previously called "all Ukrainian episcopate and priesthood" to join.

But this new creation of yet another UAOC Church in emigration ("in exile") of Archbishop Paladiy's formation was apparently destined to share the fate of the "Ukrainian and Carpatho-Russian Metropolia of All North and South America." For in 1961, the parish of the Holy Trinity in New York — the cathedra of the now ailing Archbishop Ihor — returned together with its Archbishop Ihor to the jurisdiction of the Primate of the UAOC Church abroad, Metropolitan Nikanor, following a court case brought against that parish by Archbishop Paladiy. ("Ukrainian Orthodox Word." July-August. 1961. P. 20). Finally, regarding the fate of the UAOC hierarchs who arrived in the USA in emigration, it should be noted that Archbishop Henadiy, after 12 years of archpastoral service in the episcopate of the UOC Church in the USA, left that Church effective September 1, 1962, and currently, since November 15, 1964, together with his parish of the Holy Trinity in Chicago, is in the jurisdiction, as Archbishop-Vicar, of the diocesan hierarch Bohdan Shpylka under the omophorion of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. ("Holos Pravoslavnoho Bratstva Sv. Troytsi v Chikago" [Voice of the Orthodox Brotherhood of the Holy Trinity in Chicago]. No. 2-3. 1965).

At the time of the arrival in Canada of the UAOC Church hierarchs — Bishop Platon and Archbishop Mykhailo — the UGOC in Canada was without a bishop, for at the Sobor of that Church in Saskatoon on June 18-19, 1950, by a vote of 96 against 91 members of the Sobor, the resignation from the cathedra of bishop of that Church of Archbishop Mstyslav, who had headed the UGOC since November 12, 1947, was accepted. The hierarchical question in the Ukrainian Greek-Orthodox Church in Canada had always been, so to speak, the "Achilles' heel," that painful spot, touching which, it was difficult to assert the "independence" of the UGOC from anyone, that it was created by the "citizens" of Canada themselves and therefore was "autocephalous" and so forth — such, to put it mildly, "canonical misunderstandings" are repeated to this day in the organ of that Church, "Visnyk" [Herald]. (See "Visnyk" of January 15, 1965, article "The UOC in the USA Seeks Restoration of Its Rights").

"The first founders and organizers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada were lay people themselves. At the Church Congress of 1918 there was not a single priest, not a single theologian, not a single person who could be considered an authority in church, dogmatic-canonical matters," says Archpriest S. V. Savchuk. ("Fundamental Principles of the Ukrainian Greek-Orthodox Church in Canada." Winnipeg. 1950. P. 3). Does not the cause of the vagueness of the concept of the Church as a Divine Institution for the salvation of people, and hence the unresolved state of the hierarchical question in the UGOC in Canada for 33 years (1918-1951), lie hidden in these words of the long-serving Fr. Administrator of the UGOC in Canada, one of its founders, himself then also a layman and a young man — as though the church hierarchy were not an essential thing in the organization and life of the Orthodox Church?

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Thus in the years 1946-51, following the appearance in emigration in Europe of the numerous hierarchy of the UAOC Church, the establishment of relations between it and Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych, his renunciation of care over the UGOC in Canada, and the election at the Sobor of the UGOC in Canada of Archbishop Mstyslav to the cathedra of Archpastor of that Church, a turning point came in the history of the UGOC in Canada, principally in the matter of regularizing the hierarchical question in the life of that Church, and "turning point" was the very name given to the events of that period in the life of the UGOC in Canada in the Ukrainian Orthodox monthly "Tserkva i Narid," which with the blessing of Archbishop Mstyslav was published in Canada in 1949-51. (See the article "At the Turning Point" in Nos. 7-8, pp. 10-25 and Nos. 9-10, pp. 17-22 of "Tserkva i Narid" for 1950).

The conflicts between Archbishop Mstyslav and the Consistory of the UGOC, which became widely known among the clergy and flock, the appearance of the journal "Tserkva i Narid," in which ideas about the role and significance of canonical hierarchy in the teaching and history of the Universal Orthodox Church began to be promoted, and then the open polemic with the un-Orthodox views of "Visnyk," the work of the Statute Commission on the revision of the UGOC Statute (the draft of the new Statute was prepared, by commission of the Consistory, by I. Wlasowsky, professor at St. Andrew's College) with debates in the Commission and Consistory on the topic of "episcophobia" in the UGOC in Canada — all this compelled, even before the Sobor of the UGOC in June 1950, reflection on the hierarchical question in the Canadian Church by the less radical portion of the UGOC leadership as well, and by many Orthodox Ukrainians in the provinces who had always valued their Church and now grieved over the disorders in its life. As a result, the role of the ruling bishop or archbishop in the UGOC in Canada was elevated in the new Statute of the Church, which was proposed in the draft of the Statute Commission for the Sobor of June 18-21, 1950, and adopted at the Sobor; in certain points, the Sobor emphasized the significance of the bishop in the Church even further.

The question of the number of bishops was raised more than once at sessions of the Statute Commission and Consistory, and also in the press, by the author of the draft Statute of the UGOC 1950, when he argued that the "autocephaly" of the UGOC in Canada was no autocephaly at all, since that Church did not have its own hierarchy that would ensure hierarchical succession in it, for which at least four bishops were needed, or at minimum three, because when one dies or departs, the remaining two can, according to Apostolic Canon 1, consecrate a third. As a result of these discussions and convictions, in the above-mentioned inaugural lecture of Archpriest S. V. Savchuk we also read: "It should be noted that the Canadian Church has not once turned to other Orthodox churches for understanding or prayerful union with them. It has not turned not because it may be in principle against such understanding, but simply because it is still only in its stage of formation; therefore it would be premature to establish relations with other churches already now. We must first build ourselves up, we must have

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our full episcopate of three to four bishops"... (Op. cit. P. 15. Emphasis ours). What was done in this "stage of formation" over 32 years to acquire its own episcopate is unknown. In fact, from 1924 to 1947, Archbishop Ioan Theodorovych, who headed a different Church — the American-Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the United States of America — served with ordinations of priests and festive visitations of parishes.

The Sobor of the UGOC in Canada on June 18-21, 1950, having accepted the resignation of Archbishop Mstyslav from the Canadian cathedra, resolved to ask Metropolitan Polikarp in Paris to spiritually care for the UGOC in Canada until the time it elected its own episcopate. Metropolitan Polikarp honored the request, and by letter dated August 23, 1950, submitted for the Consistory's discussion a proposal for the formation in the said Church of its own episcopate of at least three bishops. The Consistory at the session of its plenum on October 24-25, 1950, resolved to ask Metropolitan Polikarp to bless the candidacy of Archbishop Mykhailo (Khoroshy) as ruling bishop of the UGOC in Canada, and Bishop Platon (Artemiuk) as one of the vicar bishops. For the second vicar bishop, it was decided to seek a candidate from among the current clergy of the UGOC in Canada. Metropolitan Polikarp took an entirely positive view of such a plan for regularizing the hierarchical question in the Canadian UGOC.

The designated candidates arrived in Canada, as already mentioned above — Bishop Platon in February 1951 to Toronto, where he stayed with his daughters, Archbishop Mykhailo in May 1951 to Winnipeg. The Consistory convened an Extraordinary Sobor of the UGOC for the election of its own episcopate for August 8-9, 1951, in Winnipeg. But almost on the eve of this Sobor, an event occurred that fundamentally changed the plan outlined by the Consistory for the formation of a hierarchy in the Canadian UGOC. On August 5, 1951, unexpectedly, after a brief illness, Bishop Platon of blessed memory reposed in Toronto; he was buried on August 16 by UAOC hierarchs Mykhailo, Mstyslav, Henadiy, and Volodymyr, who had come to Toronto. In connection with this sad event, the Head and Deputy of the Consistory of the UGOC began negotiations with Metropolitan Ilarion regarding the Consistory's nomination of his candidacy as ruling bishop of the UGOC at the Sobor of that Church on August 8-9, 1951. As rumors circulated even before the sudden illness of Bishop Platon of blessed memory, a campaign for the candidacy of Metropolitan Ilarion as the ruling hierarch of the UGOC in Canada had been underway; it was most often associated with the names of the now deceased — judge Mykhailo Stechyshyn (author of the book "Apostolic Canons," 1963) and Professor Leonid Biletsky, a colleague of Metropolitan Ilarion at Kyiv University. But Metropolitan Ilarion had been in Canada since September 1947, nearly 4 years before the Sobor of August 8-9, 1951, and during this time the leadership of the UGOC, left without a bishop both after the departure of Archbishop Ioan and after the resignation of Metropolitan Mstyslav, did not consider it appropriate to turn to Metropolitan Ilarion with a proposal to be the Consistory's candidate for the cathedra of ruling bishop of the

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UGOC. Obviously, the Consistory of the UGOC had its own views and reasons for this. The main one, as evident from the negotiations, was the negative attitude of Metropolitan Ilarion toward both the UAOC Church of the "formation of 1921," as it was then called, and the UAOC Church of the "formation of 1942," although the origin of the latter was exactly the same, with regard to the succession of episcopal consecrations, as that of Metropolitan Ilarion himself — from the hierarchy of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Poland. Such an attitude was clearly visible in a number of articles in "Slovo Istyny" [Word of Truth], the periodical published by Metropolitan Ilarion in Canada.

The negotiations with Metropolitan Ilarion, in which the designated candidate for ruling bishop, Archbishop Mykhailo, also had to participate, with the involvement of Protopresbyter S. V. Savchuk, Archpriest Ye. Hrytsyna, Archpriest H. Metiuk, and Professor L. Biletsky, ended with Metropolitan Ilarion signing the "Principles for the Accession of His Eminence Metropolitan Ilarion to the Ukrainian Greek-Orthodox Church in Canada."

From the standpoint of the aspiration for unity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the world, the most important among these signed "Principles" was Metropolitan Ilarion's recognition of the canonicity of the hierarchy of the UAOC Church headed by Metropolitan Polikarp, and hence his unconditional consent to create the hierarchy of the UGOC in Canada together with Archbishop Mykhailo, who came from that hierarchy, and with other bishops whom the Sobor of the UGOC might elect, with Metropolitan Ilarion becoming the ruling bishop and Archbishop Mykhailo the deputy of the ruling bishop (point II of the "Principles"), as well as Metropolitan Ilarion's further recognition of the canonicity of all priests of the UGOC in Canada, with whom the Metropolitan enters into prayerful union (point III of the "Principles"). Thus there came a renunciation of what had been written earlier about the UAOC Church (of both "formations") in "Slovo Istyny" and a recognition of the priesthood of the clergy of the UGOC in Canada, whatever their ordaining authority may have been. These obligations, laid out in the "Principles," signed, in addition to Metropolitan Ilarion, also by the Head of the Consistory, Fr. S. V. Savchuk, and his Deputy, Fr. Ye. Hrytsyna, were read before the clergy and Consistory, and then repeated before the members of the Sobor, after which Archbishop Mykhailo submitted his declaration at the Sobor regarding his resignation from his candidacy as ruling bishop of the UGOC in Canada, since, as such a candidate, he had been invited to Canada by the Consistory of the Church. The Extraordinary Sobor of the UGOC then unanimously elected to the cathedra of ruling hierarch Metropolitan Ilarion with the title "Metropolitan of Winnipeg and All Canada," and as Deputy Metropolitan and hierarch of Eastern Canada — Metropolitan Mykhailo. As the third bishop of the UGOC in Canada, the Sobor elected Archpriest Vasyl Kudryk, whose consecration as bishop never

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took place due to Fr. Kudryk's refusal to accept monastic tonsure, without which Metropolitans Ilarion and Mykhailo refused to give him episcopal consecration. Thus in August 1951, the UGOC in Canada established its own hierarchy of, for the time being, two bishops, who could consecrate a third (Apostolic Canon 1).

Eight years later, by resolution of the Extraordinary Sobor of the Church on July 4, 1959, Archimandrite Andrey (Metiuk) was consecrated as Bishop of Edmonton on July 5, 1959, and by resolution of the Extraordinary Sobor in May 1963, Archimandrite Borys (Yakovkevych) was consecrated as Bishop of Saskatoon on May 19, 1963. Thus the UGOC in Canada, like the UOC Church in the USA in 1950, finally received a full hierarchy, necessary for the recognition by the entire Orthodox world of the autocephaly of that Church. The "stage of formation" of the UGOC, which had lasted since 1918, came to an end...

And objective scholarly history of that Church cannot but affirm that in this great achievement of the Canadian UGOC, the decisive role was played by the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from Europe. Who knows whether the UGOC in Canada would not still be in its "stage of formation," without its own episcopate? The Lord was pleased to turn the heavy cross of exile from the Fatherland of Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs and clergy to the benefit of the newly formed Ukrainian Orthodox Churches outside the Fatherland, in Canada and the USA, which were in an organizational stage, and for the help given them to emerge from this stage, they will surely remain forever grateful to Divine Providence. At the same time, this is a great divine beneficence for the entire Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the world, which now has and preserves its Canonical, Grace-bearing, Successive Hierarchy — the Sobor of Ukrainian Orthodox Bishops.

True, at the last 13th Sobor of the UGOC in Canada on May 22-24, 1965, it became apparent that the malady of "episcophobia" in that Church has not become a thing of the past even to this day, as evidenced by such a conciliar resolution: "The Sobor resolves that in view of the conciliar-governed structure of our Church, all deliberations or conferences of Ukrainian (Orthodox?) Churches must include, besides hierarchs, also members of the Consistory, both clergy and laity." ("Visnyk." June 15, 1965. P. 2). If this resolution is understood as a prohibition for bishops, not only of their own Church but also with bishops of other Ukrainian Orthodox Churches, to hold Sobors of Bishops, then such a resolution is grossly anti-canonical; it violates Apostolic Canon 37, Canon 19 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, Canon 8 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, and at the same time contradicts the Statute of the UGOC itself, in various editions of which it was always stated that this Church recognizes the decrees of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. In fact, the above-cited resolution of the 13th Sobor of the UGOC is a recognition of one of the canons of the Kyiv Sobor of 1921, which states: "Sobors of bishops alone, as has been the case until now, do not correspond to the true spirit of the Orthodox Christian faith, do not allow the Church to live in fullness

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, and they should henceforth be replaced by Sobors with representatives from all Orthodox Ukrainian people." (Proceedings of the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Sobor in Kyiv, October 14-30, 1921. Frankfurt am Main. 1946. P. 3).

Obviously, the existence of Sobors of Bishops in no way precludes the convening and conducting of mixed Sobors of a Local Church, composed of bishops, clergy, and faithful, since various types of sobors, as to the composition of their participants, existed in our ancient Orthodox Church. (On this subject — I. Wlasowsky. How Sobors Were Conducted in the Ancient Ukrainian Orthodox Church. New York. 1954). To great regret, the hierarchs of that Church who were present at the 13th Sobor of the UGOC did not explain to the members of the Sobor the untruth of that resolution; nor is it evident that they protested against it — a resolution, moreover, entirely unfavorable for the recognition of the Autocephalous UGOC in the Orthodox world.

With the departure to Canada of Archbishop Mykhailo in May 1951, in Europe there remained from the hierarchy of the UAOC Church only Metropolitan Polikarp in France and Archbishop Nikanor in Germany. Archbishop Nikanor, elevated for his great labor for the UAOC to the rank of Metropolitan at the Church Sobor of the UAOC on September 15-16, 1952, at Aulnay-sous-Bois near Paris (the Resurrection Hermitage — residence of Metropolitan Polikarp) — administered all UAOC parishes that still remained in Germany. Metropolitan Polikarp had under his direct spiritual care the church centers of the UAOC Church in France, Belgium, England, Austria, Australia, and other overseas countries. The Church Sobor of the UAOC on September 15-16, 1952, for the great services to the UAOC Church of Metropolitan Polikarp, elevated his title to "His Beatitude, the Most Blessed Metropolitan Polikarp." From France, Metropolitan Polikarp traveled on visitations of UAOC Church parishes in England; the first visitation took place from July 20 to August 20, 1950; the second — from July 15 to August 26, 1952. These archpastoral visitation journeys of Metropolitan Polikarp are described in detail in the above-mentioned "Commemorative Book of the 15th Anniversary of the UAOC Church in Great Britain."

It was to England that Metropolitan Polikarp was to move from France for permanent residence. After great efforts by the General Church Administration of the UAOC in Great Britain, the government's permission for the Metropolitan's move was obtained, and Metropolitan Polikarp was to arrive at the airport in London on October 28, 1953. But the Lord ordained otherwise for him. On Thursday, October 22, 1953, at 12:30 p.m., His Beatitude, the Primate of the UAOC Church abroad, Metropolitan Polikarp, unexpectedly reposed at Aulnay-sous-Bois near Paris, in the 79th year of his laborious life, of which 31 years (from July 27, 1922) were spent in the sacred-monastic state as hieromonk and archimandrite (1922-32) and as Archpastor of the Church of Christ — 21 years. Metropolitan Polikarp was buried by Metropolitan Nikanor, in concelebration with numerous Orthodox clergy, at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris on October 27, 1953.

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Divine Providence called Metropolitan Polikarp to the head of the National Orthodox Church of the Ukrainian people in a difficult era of our people's history. During the years 1941-51, in Ukraine, during the time of the terrible war and during the great exodus of the people to the West and their wandering through German lands — the Ukrainian Orthodox people grew close to their Metropolitan Polikarp. As Head of the UAOC Church, Metropolitan Polikarp stood outside all parties and partisan factions of the Ukrainian emigration, praying at the Lord's Altar for a better fate for the entire Ukrainian people and always in his Archpastoral and Conciliar-Episcopal epistles calling them to unity, harmony, and brotherhood.

Rarely did Metropolitan Polikarp bow under the weight of sorrows or illness; he did not like to complain. Very, very rarely were there moments when he said he would like to rest already, or wrote something like this: "And to pray for Ukraine the old monk hobbled on" (Shevchenko's "The Monk")... "This is all that remains to me." Having collaborated with Metropolitan Polikarp on the church field throughout his entire Archpastoral service since 1932, the author of this work would characterize the bright optimism of Metropolitan Polikarp as the most distinctive trait of his spiritual makeup. The optimism of our Metropolitan was not the result of some volitional impulse of "contra spem spero" [hoping against hope]; no, Metropolitan Polikarp always held a very humble opinion of himself and was far from the great misfortune of Ukrainian reality — the exaggeration of personal ambitions. When signing epistles or session protocols as "the Humble one," Metropolitan Polikarp was not deceiving himself. His optimism was built upon his deep faith in Divine Providence over the world. "Everything goes, everything passes in this world. Only the Lord is Immortal, and His grace toward us truly has no end," the Metropolitan wrote to me at one of the most difficult moments of my life. "All is God's will" — was Metropolitan Polikarp's constant expression. "From the beginning of my ordination to the priesthood (1922), I desired nothing exalted for myself, but it all came to me by itself. Such, evidently, is God's will," the Metropolitan wrote in a letter after the Church Sobor elevated his title to "His Beatitude."

The source of his optimism regarding the fate of the Ukrainian people and its Holy Orthodox Ancestral Church — in the creation of which, as a United Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, he never lost faith to the end — was that same deep faith of the Metropolitan in Justice, in God's Truth in the world. "We believe that a time will come when the godless wave will pass and the godless will vanish from the face of the earth, as wax melts before fire" — this was the constant credo of the aging Metropolitan Polikarp. The Metropolitan lived by this faith, strengthened this faith in the hearts of the faithful abroad, and with this faith departed into eternity, leaving the Ukrainian people as his testament these words from Holy Scripture: "If you will hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, then the Lord your God will have mercy upon you; He will again gather you from among all the peoples among whom the Lord your God has scattered you." (Deuteronomy 30:2-3).

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After the death of Metropolitan Polikarp, the administration of the UAOC Church abroad was assumed, in accordance with section 5 of the Statute of the UAOC Church, by the Deputy Metropolitan, Archbishop Nikanor, Metropolitan of the UAOC in Germany. On October 28, 1953, an Extraordinary Sobor of the UAOC took place in Paris, composed of members of the Synod, the Metropolitan Rada, and representatives of the UAOC in Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, and France. At this Sobor, Metropolitan Nikanor was elected Primate of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church with the title "Metropolitan of the UAOC Church in Emigration." At present (1965), in the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Nikanor are three hierarchs of the UAOC — Archbishop Sylvestr, Bishop Varlaam, and Bishop Donat, all three in Australia; clergy of the UAOC in Australia, England, France, Belgium, Germany (in the latter — 16 priests and 2 deacons).

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AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD

In his last letter to me, dated October 15, 1953, one week before his repose, Metropolitan Polikarp wrote to me: "God grant that you finish your history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and that it be published. So we shall see how the Sobor in America concludes, but the history of the Church must be published. May God help you finish it."

This prayerful wish of the unforgettable Primate of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Polikarp, who in Lutsk in 1942 gave me the idea of writing a "History of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," as I mention at the beginning of Vol. I of this work ("From the Author," p. 5) — was fulfilled in the 12th year after the Metropolitan's repose. In the quoted words of his last letter to me, Metropolitan Polikarp clearly distinguishes two things — one is to write the history of the Church, the other is to print, to publish, the written history. Both were a difficult problem in our situation.

The Lord, in His boundless mercy, having preserved me from sudden death during three months of imprisonment by the German "Gestapo" in the Rivne prison in the summer of 1943, helped accomplish both. Compelled, while serving at St. Andrew's College in Winnipeg, to earn a livelihood for myself and my wife by physical labor, during which it was impossible even to think about working on the history of the Church, I found in this situation the understanding of the leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA. Not only the writing but also the printing of the history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, on the initiative of Archbishop Mstyslav and with the consent of the Metropolitan Rada of the UOC Church in the USA, was placed on a realistic foundation in January 1954. And I cannot now read without emotion the letter with its high estimation of my work on the history of the Native Church from Metropolitan Ioan, dated August 27, 1958, in which the Metropolitan wrote: "In the name of our Church, I have the joy of greeting you on the 75th anniversary of your life and the 50th anniversary of your literary-scholarly work, which in recent years has greatly enriched our Church: your modestly named work, 'Outline History of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,' is a particularly valuable contribution to our knowledge of the paths, dear to us, of our beloved past, along which Divine Providence willed to lead our church-national life to the present day"...

Thus, the knowledge of the paths, dear to us, of our beloved past along which the life of our forebears traveled for centuries in the bosom of the Holy Church of Christ, an account of the profound significance

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that the Holy Orthodox faith, received from the East under the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Volodymyr, had in the great work of developing the spiritual culture of our people, the revelation of the spiritual riches of the Ukrainian nation acquired under the care of the Orthodox Church in preceding centuries — this was the primary task I set for myself in the work on the history of our Church.

This task, so relevant in the sorrowful present era of the world's life, when godless materialism-communism strives to master the world and replace the Christian worldview, particularly by raising entire young generations in anti-Christianity in our forsaken Fatherland-Ukraine — was permeated in my work by a fundamental national-church idea: to demonstrate and affirm the national characteristics in the reception and embodiment in life of Christian principles by our forebears. For them, the Orthodox Church was the center not only of church-religious life but also of national-civic life (Brotherhoods), of national spiritual culture, so that belonging to the Orthodox Church was for our forebears under Polish-Lithuanian rule a mark of their national Ukrainian identity as well; conversion to Catholicism or any other faith was considered a betrayal of one's nationality. This historical fact gives the historian the right to write the history of church life under the title "History of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," and thereby to affirm the existence of a separate national Ukrainian Orthodox Church among other national Orthodox churches, even though the historical name of our Church was the "Kyivan Metropolia."

The Kyivan Metropolia, being in the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch for centuries (988-1686), enjoyed such broad autonomy rights that they brought its canonical position close to the concept of "de facto autocephaly." And in this position, our Church rose to the point where, in the times of the famous Kyivan Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, it gave the entire Orthodox World the "Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East," examined and approved at the Kyivan regional sobor of 1640, then at the great Local Sobor in Iași in 1642, and recognized by all Orthodox Churches as a "symbolic book of the Orthodox Church" to this day.

Historical affirmations by facts — and not by conjectures and assumptions, which are often employed among us by laypeople in our church history, who sometimes violate even the fundamental traditions of the UOC Church (in its teaching or structure) — must be the basis for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which currently exists in its three metropolias in Europe, Canada, and the USA in a state of "de facto autocephaly," to seek in the Orthodox World recognition of "de jure autocephaly."

The view that "we need no recognition from anyone" must be considered, in my opinion, not only unwise but simply un-Christian. Reading or hearing it, one is reminded of the words of Holy Scripture: "And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. Oh, that you were either cold or hot! But because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say: I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing — and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked." (Revelation 3:14-17). "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (James 4:6).

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Not pride, not alienation, not isolation, but true spiritual unity — of the whole Church and of all Christendom — in the face of militant atheism's assault on the Lord and His Christ in the world, is the call of our times! For the recognition in the Orthodox world of "de jure" autocephaly, it is absolutely unnecessary for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, with its nearly one-thousand-year existence (in 1988), to first subordinate itself to some other Church or its hierarchy. And those Orthodox hierarchs who would demand such prior subordination would reveal their boundless hypocrisy in the work of God. This recognition has its foundation in the thousand-year history of our Church, in its merits, and in the entirely canonical state of its Hierarchy.

And I would feel great spiritual joy, at the sunset of my life, if my historical work served, through the facts, documents, and analyses presented in it, as an argument of truth for the recognition of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church as a Sister Church within the Ecumenical Orthodox Church.

And to those who gave me the opportunity to accomplish this feat — to compile this "Outline History of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church" — and who published this history in five volumes, one might say, luxuriously — the Hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA, the governing bodies of that Church, the printers in its printing house — successors in sacred cultural work of the ancient copyists of books in our holy monasteries — to the late Professor A. V. Kotovych, who so zealously served me in the writing of the history with both materials and as its proofreader — I express, having finished this long-standing work, once again my deep and heartfelt gratitude.

I also thank the conscientious reviewers of this work, who gave me good advice and added enthusiasm for further deepened work. Naturally, as I have always written, I do not claim completeness or infallibility in the depiction and analysis of the national-church history of the Ukrainian Orthodox people from its baptism in 988 under the Holy Prince Volodymyr the Great. But I believe that my work will be not the last source for future historians of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as Professor Dr. N. Polonska-Vasylenko wrote in her detailed review "An Important Work on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church": "The work of Professor I. Wlasowsky is the first thorough, systematic history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and this alone gives it the right to the attention of researchers of the history of Ukraine and Eastern Europe and lovers of history... This work, in its scope and thoroughness of material development, is undoubtedly of great value, and the future historian of the Church will not be able to do without it." ("Kanadiysky Farmer" [Canadian Farmer]. December 5, 1964. Winnipeg).

"Feci, quod potui, faciant meliora potentes." [I have done what I could; let those who are able do better.]

July 28, 1965. Ivan Wlasowsky.

Glossary of Terms

Abbreviations and Organizations

Abbreviation Full Name Notes
UAOC Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church Ukrainska Avtokefalna Pravoslavna Tserkva. Church established at the Kyiv Sobor of 1921; revived under German occupation in 1942.
UNR Ukrainian National Republic Ukrainska Narodna Respublika. Ukrainian state proclaimed in 1917; its government issued the Law on Autocephaly (January 1, 1919).
UOC Ukrainian Orthodox Church General designation for the Orthodox Church of the Ukrainian people.
RNO Russian National Union Russkoe Narodnoe Ob'edinenie. Russian political organization in Poland; successor to the pre-revolutionary "Union of the Russian People." Opposed Ukrainization of the Church.
OUN Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Orhanizatsiia Ukrainskykh Natsionalistiv. Ukrainian nationalist political organization active in interwar Poland and during WWII.
VPCR All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Rada Vseukrainska Pravoslavna Tserkovna Rada (Всеукраїнська Православна Церковна Рада). Supreme lay-clerical governing body of the UAOC in Kyiv.
UNDO Ukrainian National-Democratic Union Ukrainske Natsionalno-Demokratychne Ob'iednannia. Ukrainian political party based primarily in Galicia.
Selsoiuz Peasant Union Selianskyi Soiuz. Ukrainian political grouping in interwar Poland combining SR, Peasant League, and Trudovik programs.
Selrob Peasant-Worker Seliansko-Robitnychyi. Left-leaning Ukrainian political party in interwar Poland.
ORENB Eastern Mission organ Publication of the Jesuit Fathers' Eastern Mission in Poland.

Ukrainian and Church Slavonic Terms

Term English Notes
rozmoskovlennia de-Russification Lit. "de-Muscovitization." The removal of Russian/Muscovite cultural, linguistic, and administrative influence from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Central concept in Ch2.
sobornist / sobornopravnist conciliarity The principle that the Church should be governed through sobors (sobory) of bishops, clergy, and laity, not by hierarchical authority alone. A hallmark of the ancient Ukrainian Orthodox tradition.
sobor Sobor (assembly/synod); cathedral A formal church council or assembly (Pomisny Sobor = Local Sobor). Also refers to a cathedral church. In this translation, Sobor is left untranslated when referring to church assemblies, to distinguish from Rada.
rada Rada (governing council/board) A standing governing body, executive council, committee, or board. Єпархіяльна Рада = Diocesan Rada; Митрополича Рада = Metropolitan Rada; Парафіяльна Рада = Parish Rada. Distinguished from Sobor (a formal church assembly).
Tomos decree/edict A formal patriarchal document. In Ch2, refers primarily to the Tomos of Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory VII (November 13, 1924) recognizing the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland.
khirotoniia ordination (of bishops) Sacramental laying on of hands for episcopal consecration. Distinguished from khirotesiia (minor orders).
blahochynnyi dean Head of a deanery district (blahochynnia); the administrative clergyman overseeing a group of parishes.
blahochynnia deanery Administrative district grouping several Orthodox parishes under a dean.
eparhiia (eparchy) diocese The territorial jurisdiction of a ruling bishop in the Orthodox Church.
Lavra senior monastery A major monastery of the highest rank. In Ch2: the Pochayiv Holy Dormition Lavra in Volyn.
archimandrite senior monastic rank The highest rank for a monastic priest below bishop; often an abbot of a major monastery.
hegumen abbot The head of an Orthodox monastery; rank below archimandrite.
hieromonk monk-priest A monk who has been ordained to the priesthood.
hierodeacon monk-deacon A monk who has been ordained to the diaconate.
Plashchanytsia Epitaphios / Shroud The liturgical cloth depicting the burial of Christ, carried in procession on Great Friday.
Mnoholitstvia / Mnohaia Lita Many Years Liturgical acclamation of well-wishing, sung to honor a bishop or dignitary.
Vichnaia Pamiat Eternal Memory Liturgical acclamation sung in memory of the departed.
Prosvita Enlightenment Ukrainian cultural-educational society; chapters existed throughout Volyn and other Ukrainian lands.
muzhi doviria trusted men Lay contact persons designated in villages to maintain communication with Ukrainian Church Committee district representatives.
matura graduation certificate The secondary school matriculation examination and diploma, modeled on the Austro-Polish system.
Ukrainoznavstvo Ukrainian Studies Academic and extracurricular study of Ukrainian language, literature, history, and culture.
perelyot (pl. perelyoty) defector Lit. "one who flies over." Pejorative term for Orthodox priests who converted to the Union of the Eastern Rite.
istinno-russkiy truly Russian Self-designation of Russian nationalists in Poland; used ironically by Wlasowsky. Cf. chernosotentsy.
chernosotentsy Black Hundreds Members of the "Union of the Russian People," an extreme Russian monarchist-nationalist faction.
zhivotserkovtsy Renovationists "Living Church" movement; pro-Bolshevik schismatic movement in the Russian Orthodox Church (1920s).

Polish Political and Administrative Terms

Term English Notes
Rzeczpospolita Polish Commonwealth/Republic The restored Polish state after WWI (1918-1939); echo of the historical Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Sejm Parliament (lower house) The lower chamber of the Polish legislature.
Senat Senate (upper house) The upper chamber of the Polish legislature.
voivode provincial governor Head of a voivodeship (province), the highest administrative unit in interwar Poland.
voivodeship province Major administrative division of interwar Poland (e.g., Volyn voivodeship, Polissia voivodeship).
starosta district head Head of a starostvo (district office); a county-level administrative official.
starostvo district office The administrative office of a starosta; county-level government.
sejmik (pl. sejmiky) local assembly/diet Regional legislative assemblies of the gentry in the old Polish Commonwealth.
Endek / Endecja National Democrat Member of or relating to the Polish National-Democratic Party (Narodowa Demokracja), led by Roman Dmowski. Confessionally Catholic, hostile to Ukrainian national aspirations.
sanacja (sanation) moral renewal camp The political camp of Marshal Pilsudski after the May 1926 coup, advocating state consolidation.
Ozonists OZN members Members of the Oboz Zjednoczenia Narodowego (Camp of National Unity), formed after Pilsudski's death. Pursued "Polish Orthodoxy" and Polonization policies.
kresy borderlands Polish term for the eastern territories (Volyn, Polissia, etc.) with predominantly Ukrainian and Belarusian populations.
Neo-Union / Eastern Rite Neo-Uniate movement Rome's initiative (distinct from the old Galician Greek Catholic Union) to convert Orthodox Christians in Poland through a Union that preserved the Eastern liturgical rite.
revindication reclaiming of churches Legal proceedings by the Polish Catholic episcopate to reclaim church buildings formerly held by Uniates, transferred to the Orthodox under Russian rule. 724 lawsuits filed in 1929.

German Occupation Terms (WWII)

Term English Notes
Reichskommissariat Ukraine Reich Commissariat of Ukraine German civil administration of occupied Ukrainian territories, headed by Erich Koch from Rivne.
Generalkommissar General Commissar Head of a General Commissariat, the major administrative division within the Reichskommissariat.
Gebietskommissar District Commissar German administrative head of a district (Gebiet) within occupied Ukraine.
Generalgouvernement General Government German-administered territory of occupied Poland; Eastern Galicia was attached to it.
Gestapo Secret State Police Geheime Staatspolizei. German secret police; interfered in church affairs under occupation.
Sonderführer Special Leader German military or administrative specialist assigned to oversee Ukrainian institutions.

Geographic and Regional Terms

Term English Notes
Sokalshchyna Sokal border region The area around the town of Sokal on the Volyn-Galicia border; the "religious Sokal border" (Sokalskyi kordon) marked the confessional divide between Orthodox Volyn and Greek Catholic Galicia.
Kholmshchyna Kholm region Ukrainian-populated territory around Kholm (Chelm), historically Orthodox, under interwar Poland.
Pidliashshia Podlasie / Pidliashshia Region south of Polissia, adjoining the Kholm region, with a historically Orthodox Ukrainian population.
Moskovshchyna Muscovy Pejorative/historical term for Russia proper, emphasizing its non-Ukrainian character. Wlasowsky uses it to denote the ethnic Russian homeland.
p. 377

INDEX OF HISTORICAL PERSONS

INDEX OF HISTORICAL PERSONS mentioned in this book.

Abramovych Nikanor (see Nikanor), priest, later Metropolitan of the UAOC. Abramovych P., Archpriest 9 Averkiy Kedrov, Bishop 13 Autocephalous Orthodox Church 221 Autonomous Orthodox Church 221, 223 Aleksiy Simansky, Archbishop 196 Aleksiy, Hegumen 19 Aleksiy, Bishop 30 Aleksandr, Bishop 24 Anastasiy, Bishop, later Metropolitan of the Russian Church Abroad 92, 327 Andrey Metiuk, Bishop of the UGOC in Canada 372 Andrey Sheptytsky, Metropolitan of the Greek-Catholic Church 6, 52, 68, 69, 73, 134, 152, 153, 199, 200 Antonovych Petro, Archpriest 9 Antoniy Martsenko, Bishop 100, 196, 198, 105, 235, 245, 257, 261 Antoniy Khrapovytsky, Archbishop, later Kyivan Metropolitan 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 79 Antokhiy M., Archpriest 309, 333 Antokhiv Hryhoriy, Priest 315 Artemiuk Pavlo, Priest (see Platon, Bishop of the UAOC abroad) 47, 53, 56, 58, 59, 60, 63 Arseniev N., Professor 32, 37 Ariychuk Borys, Priest, Protopresbyter 352, 362, 363 Artsemovych, Inspector of the School Curatoria in Volhynia 102, 103 Arkhipenko Yevhen, Minister of the UNR 214 "Aschaffenburg Schism" (Congress) 291, 303

Bahrynivsky M., Attorney 190 Bakalo Ivan, Professor 309, 315 Baran Stepan, Deputy to the Sejm 6, 68, 141, 150, 158, 180, 210, 284 Bartko Ya., Choir Director 119 Barshchevsky Ye., Priest 120, 187, 188, 190 Bachynsky L., Deputy 58 Bachynsky Ivan, Protopresbyter 356, 357 Beck, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland 158 Bendasiuk 61 Bidnov V. O., Professor 17, 18, 28, 79, 108, 115, 116, 127, 128 Biletsky Fedir, Priest 275 Biletsky Leonid, Professor 316, 370, 371 Biletsky B. M., Professor 116 Bilon Petro, Priest 17, 18 Bilousenko O. (Professor Lototsky) 134 Binevsky, Archpriest of the Autonomous Church 234 Blokhin Yu., Docent 343 Bohatsky Vasyl, Teacher 103 Bohdan Shpylka, Bishop 332, 324, 359, 365, 366, 367 Bohdanovsky S. I. 119 Bohdanovych, Senator 80 Bohoslovsky Visnyk [Theological Herald], Journal 317, 327, 331 Theological-Scholarly Institute 328, 329 Theological-Pedagogical Academy of the UAOC 328, 330, 336, 340, 342, 343 Bohuslavsky Ye., Deputy 58, 77, 116, 131 Bondar T., Engineer 293 Bondarenko M., Judge 82, 83 Bondaruk I. 53 Boretsky Mykola, Bishop 234 Borys Yakovkevych, Priest, later Bishop of the UGOC in Canada 372 Bordiuhovskiy A., Archpriest 19 Boryshkevych Heorhiy, Priest 102, 119 Bormohovskiy Arseniy, Archpriest 1

Botsian Yosyp, Greek-Catholic Bishop 52, 69 Brotherhood of the Holy Protection in Argentina 362 Brotherhood of the Holy Savior in Zhytomyr 7, 9 Brynykh A., Priest 140 Bulba Polikarp 363 Bura M. I., Deputy 90, 137, 146, 157, 357 Burko-Koretsky Demyd 232, 294, 307, 309, 315 Burchak-Abramovych M., Archpriest 9, 18, 21 Butkov O., Priest 362 Bukhovych M., Archpriest 10, 55 Bushma, Priest 55

Varvariv V., Archpriest 316, 317 Varlaam, Bishop of the UAOC in Emigration (see Soloviy V.) Warsaw Church Council 181 Vasyl Lypkivsky, Metropolitan 39, 216, 217, 219, 234, 255, 319 Vasyl III, Patriarch of Constantinople 29, 30, 37, 38 Vasyl Vasylovych, Grand Prince of Moscow 33 Vasylchuk Pavlo, Deputy 27, 58 Vasylchuk Antin, Deputy 43 Vaskevych V., Priest 119 Vaskivsky M., Archpriest 229 Vatican Ukrainian Emigration Committee 354 Vashchenko H., Professor 330, 339, 343, 344, 346, 348, 349 Veniyamyn Novytsky (Belarusian), Bishop 194, 198, 203, 212, 221, 223, 234, 243 Vetukhiv Mykhailo, Professor 301, 316 Vyzhva Ilarion, Choir Director 119 Vyshnevsky V., Archpriest 9, 287 Viktorovsky Afanasiy, Archpriest 9 Winter E. 52 Vilianovsky, Professor 32 Vikentiy, Archbishop of the Russian Church 233 Vitaliy, Archimandrite 16 Wlasowsky Ivan, Professor, Deputy (author of this work) 47, 50, 51, 53, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 64, 79, 94, 96, 116, 129, 130, 135, 143, 146, 213, 214, 221, 241, 265, 279, 283, 316, 317, 327, 329, 330, 346, 347, 353, 369 Volhynian Eparchy 8 Volhynian Eparchial Congress 8, 14 Volhynian Eparchial Assembly 94, 95, 96, 97 Volkov O., Archpriest, Deputy 137, 151, 164 Volodymyr Spiritual Administration [OCR unclear in original] (Володимирське Духовне Правління) 7, 10, 11, 12 Volodymyr Malets, Bishop 229, 230, 235, 273, 276, 280, 283, 316, 327, 329, 337, 341, 346, 348, 360, 364, 370 Volodymyr, Bishop of Hrodna 20, 24 Volynsky Yanush, Dr. 166 Volosevych M. 190 Voskivsky N., Apostolic Visitator 354 Vrublevsky V. 190 Viacheslav Lysytsky, Bishop 229, 230, 241, 273, 276, 278, 280, 281, 316, 349, 353, 360, 364, 365, 367

Havke-Novak A., Volhynian Voivode 144, 153, 154 Havryliuk I. 47 Haidenko Fedir, Priest 261 Harasymiuk, Professor 190 Harashchenko Ivan 292, 295, 299, 300, 301, 303, 304, 307, 309, 319 Heyer Fr. 11, 13, 174, 185, 234, 239 Henadiy Shyprykevych, Bishop 229, 230, 232-235, 241, 273, 276, 281, 283, 287, 315, 327, 330, 351, 352, 358, 360, 364, 366, 368, 370 General Government 178 Herman, Metropolitan of Sardis 31 Hermogen, Archdeacon 156 Hershtansky D., Archpriest (Senator) 12, 19, 27, 45 Hitler Adolf, Fuehrer of Germany 176, 177, 194, 199, 201 Hlovatsky, Senator 90 Hlovatsky, Priest 268 Hlushchuk Andriy, Delegate to the Pochaiv Congress 15 Hodlevsky, Roman Catholic Bishop 70 Holosiuk A., Engineer 119 Horlenko M. 363 Hofman Ya., Deputy 142, 151 Charter of the President of Poland of May 30, 1930, regarding the Church Sobor 80, 81 Hryhoriy Ohiichuk, Bishop 222, 230, 252, 273, 276, 281, 283, 287, 291, 293,

294, 302, 307-310, 314, 353, 357 Hryhoriy IV, Patriarch of Antioch 13 Hryhoriy VII, Patriarch of Constantinople 29, 30, 32, 33, 37, 39 Hryhorovych Yu., Priest 143 Hrynky, Village 139, 140, 141, 142, 148 Hrytsyna Ye., Archpriest 371 Hryshko V., Professor 316, 330 Hromadsky O., Archpriest (see Archbishop Oleksiy) 16 Hrushko St., Archpriest 61, 82, 135, 144, 156, 157 Huba Ivan, Priest (later Archbishop Ihor) 116, 119, 216 Hubarzhevsky I., Archpriest 329, 357, 358 Gvintovt-Dzevyaltovsky, Vice-Voivode of Volhynia 53

Damaskyn (Maliuta), Archimandrite 15, 16, 197, 198, 205, 212, 213, 264 Danylevych L. K. 116 Danylenko-Danylevsky Kostiantyn, Priest 307, 309, 315 Decree of the President of Poland on the Relationship of the State to the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church 167 Derzhavin V., Professor 343 Dionisiy Valedinsky, Metropolitan 7, 11-20, 22-25, 27-30, 35-38, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 50, 51, 56-59, 61, 62, 64, 71, 74, 76, 79, 80, 82-84, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 96, 98, 100, 102, 106, 107, 114, 115, 116, 125, 129, 146, 148, 151, 157, 161, 164-167, 178, 179, 182, 183, 190, 195, 199, 205, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212-217, 223, 224, 226, 227, 243, 247, 252, 271, 272, 274, 327 Dmytriy Mahan, Bishop of the Autonomous Church 234 Dobrutsky, Minister of Religious Education in Poland 59, 65 Dovhal O., Priest 357 Dolud, Colonel 362 Domanytsky V., Professor 316 Donat, Bishop in Australia 375 Doroshenko D. I., Professor 158, 329, 346 Doroshenko N. 158 Dosifey (Ivanchenko), Archimandrite, later Bishop of the Moscow Patriarchate 273 Dubytsky P., Archpriest 340, 343 Dubliansky A., Archpriest 217, 228, 229, 231, 249 Dubovsky, Roman Catholic Bishop 70 Dubrovsky Vasyl 309 Dunin-Borkovsky, Minister of Religious Affairs 131 "Dukhovna Besida" [Spiritual Conversation], Church Journal 128 "Dukhovny Siyach" [Spiritual Sower], Church Journal 129 "Elpis," Theological Journal 132

Evlohiy Heoriyevsky, Metropolitan 6, 11, 12, 13, 16, 26, 91, 92, 125 Elevferiy, Archbishop 20, 24, 25 Yendzheyevych, Minister of Religious Education 91, 137 Eparchial Rada in Kremenets 14 Eparchial Congress in Pochaiv 15, 39 Eparchial Kholm-Pidliashshia Sobor 191 "Episcopate of the Holy UAOC Church, in Exile" 367

Zheleznyakovych V., Priest 80 Zhykharevych, Translator 265 Zhuk S., Deputy 58 Zhukovsky S. T., Archpriest 121

Zavitnievych V., Professor 316 Zaitsev P. I., Professor 28, 108, 116 Zalusky Ivan, Deacon 16 "Za Sobornist" [For Conciliarity], Organ of the Petro Mohyla Society 129, 130 Zdekhovsky, Rector of the University of Vienna 175 Assembly of Eparchial Representatives in Warsaw, 1927 36, 37 Zyzykyn M., Professor 82 Znosko K., Archpriest 121 Ivan Wlasowsky, Professor, Deputy (author of this work) 47, 50, 51, 53, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 64, 79, 94, 96, 116, 129, 130, 135, 143, 146, 213, 214, 221, 241, 265, 279, 283, 316, 317, 327, 329, 330, 346, 347, 353, 369 Ivan, Hieromonk (Platon Chyrva) 248

Ivanytsky B., Professor 316 Ivchenko Liudmyla, Writer 316 Ieremiya, Patriarch of Constantinople 38 Ihor, Archbishop (see Fr. Huba I.) 119, 124, 216, 217, 219, 222, 223, 224, 228, 230, 231, 233, 241, 271, 273, 274, 276, 281, 283, 287, 315, 326, 327, 330, 353, 358, 360-363, 365, 367, 368, 369 Ilchuk V., Archpriest 358 Ilarion, Metropolitan (see Ohiienko I.) 89, 184-187, 189-193, 199, 210, 211, 212, 213, 215, 270, 271, 327, 328, 359, 364-366, 371, 372 Inozemtsev N., Bishop 20 Ioan Theodorovych, Metropolitan of the UOC Church in the USA 10, 158, 279, 291, 302, 303, 304, 309, 319, 321, 322, 324, 362, 364, 365, 366, 371 Ioan Lavrynenko, Bishop 210, 212, 246, 264 Ioasaf (Leliukhin), Metropolitan of Moscow 271 Iov (Kresovych), Bishop of the Autonomous Church 264 Iona, Metropolitan of Moscow 32

Kazanos K., Protosynkellos 366 Kaznovetsky S., Priest 143 Kalynovych A., Priest 174 Kalynovych Pavel, Protopresbyter 316, 329, 330, 340, 343, 344 Kalmutsky, Choir Director 120 Kaspersky L., Priest 174 Kasianchuk P., Archpriest 216 Karachkivsky M., Priest 330, 333 Kvasnytsky Feodosiy 10 Kvasnytsky M., Priest 15 Kvasnytsky Vsevolod, Member of the Consistory 187 Kvashenko, Teacher 102, 103 Kvartyruk Leontiy, Cantor 124 Kvitko N., Engineer 190 Kekalo Mykyta 292 Kybaliuk M., Teacher 15 Kybaliuk Neofit 300, 329 Kyrylo Lukaris, Patriarch of Constantinople 86 Kovaliv Pant., Professor 316, 317, 329, 330, 334, 337, 339, 340-344, 348, 349 Koval F., Member of the Ukrainian Church Rada 215 Kovshun M. 309 Kobryn M., Professor 82, 83, 104, 116, 177 Kovalenko Yuriy, Director of the Metropolitan Chancellery 361 Kovpanenko D. 47 Kozlovsky, Prime Minister of Poland 142 Kozubsky B., Deputy 45, 47, 213, 214 Kolesnychenko Oleksandr, Choir Director 87 Komarevych Yevhen, Church Activist 60 Commission for the Translation of Holy Scripture 28 Konoplanko Ye., Priest 143, 157 Konstantyn VI, Patriarch of Constantinople 30 Konstantyniv Yu., Engineer 119 KOP — Border Protection Corps in Poland 138, 139, 142, 145 Korenastov Yu., Archimandrite (Bishop) 216, 218 Korytovsky, General 166 Korovytsky Ivan, Professor 108, 316 Korol 61 Korobchuk Havryil, Priest 185 Kornoukhiv I. F., Attorney 210, 214 Kosonotsky V. 53 Kostek-Bernatsky Ya., Polesian Voivode 123, 124, 137, 161, 176 Kostialkovsky M., Minister of Internal Affairs of Poland 136, 137 Kotovych Anatoliy V., Professor 116, 129, 287, 316, 318 Koch Erich, Reichskommissar of Ukraine 201, 214, 240, 248, 252, 272 Krauze, German Head of Political Department in Rivne 265, 266, 267 Kremenets Theological Seminary 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105 Kryvomaz Oleksandr, Protopresbyter 229, 241 Kryzhanivsky M. K. 54 Krzhyshtalsky F., Professor 106 Kubiyovych V., Professor 181, 183 Kudryk Vasyl, Archpriest 371, 372 Kuzmynsky Oleksandr, Colonel 316 Kulchynsky Filimon, Protopresbyter 104, 116, 300, 316, 317, 329, 330, 333, 341, 346, 363 Kurinny P., Professor 343 Kurylenko Petro, Choir Director 87

Lavrynenko Ivan (see Ioan) 210

Landrat, German Deputy General Commissar in Lutsk 252, 265 Lapinsky O., Master of Theology 108, 116 Lebedev Ye., Professor 343 Levytsky K., Archpriest 6 Levytsky Modest, Writer 28, 329 Levchuk Ivan, Priest 180, 183, 187 Leliavsky 61, 82 Leontiy, Bishop 212, 246 Lysiansky B. 316 Lypkivsky Vasyl, Metropolitan (see Vasyl L.) 39, 234 Lyshchynsky-Troierukov, Prince 82 Lopukhovych V., Priest 10, 112 Lototsky O., Professor 19, 28, 79, 82, 83, 84, 108, 116, 118, 158 Lutsky Ostap, Senator 151 Lutsk Church Congress of 1927 39, 48, 50, 76 Liubarsky S., Deputy 44, 45, 59, 187, 190 Liutiy Ivan 190 Liashchuk M., Archpriest 333

Mainke, German Religious Affairs Referee 221 Makarenko Andriy 309 Makukh I., Senator 58 Maliuzhynskyi M., Priest 145, 183, 187, 190, 213, 221, 241, 252, 259, 265, 267, 269 Manuil Tarnavsky, Bishop 222, 230, 264 Maria, Abbess of the Zymne Monastery 156 Markevych M., Professor 330, 343 Markovsky Evlohiy, Bishop of the Russian Church Abroad 327 Markovsky Yevseviy, Priest 129 Marmadzhi, Papal Nuncio 73 Marchenko V., Member of the Ukrainian Church Rada 215 Maslov M., Senator 137, 146, 151 Matviy Semashko, Bishop 122, 165, 166, 174, 175 Matskevych St., Polish Editor 176 Matsiuk, Professor 190 Meletiy IV (Metaxos), Patriarch of Constantinople 29, 30 Melnychenko R., Member of the Ukrainian Church Rada 215 Melnychuk V., Priest 352 "Memorandum" to the Patriarch of Constantinople 29, 38, 39 "Meta" [The Goal], Greek-Catholic Periodical 148 Metiuk Hr., Priest (later Bishop Andrey of the UGOC in Canada) 187, 188, 371 Mekh, Volhynian Voivode 52, 53, 57 Miller, Gebitskommissar 228 Milkiv Orest, Priest 121 Miliashkevych S. Yu., Director of Gymnasium 103 Mykolay Soloviy, Archbishop of the Russian Church in Uruguay 363, 364 Mykulovych Ye., Engineer 337 Myliashkevych Ye., Priest 119 Mynakov N., Church Warden 146, 157 Myroshnychenko A., Priest 357 Mysechko Volodymyr, Priest 269 Mykhailo, Archbishop, Exarch of Constantinople 367 Mykhailo Yermakov, Metropolitan of Moscow 217 Mykhailo Khoroshy, Bishop of the UAOC 222, 230, 235, 241, 249, 250, 267, 273, 276, 278, 279, 280, 281, 283, 286, 299, 300, 315, 327, 329, 333, 336, 337, 342, 349, 364, 368, 370, 371, 372 Mohylnytsky M. (M. Mukha), Dr. 352 Moller H. 82 Molchanivsky Serhiy, Mitred Archpriest 358 Mostsitsky Ihnatiy, President of Poland 137, 149 Moralevych Ya., Professor 334 Moroz Mykhailo, Head of the VPCR 299 Morkotun Prokop 362 Moshchenko K. K., Director of the Museum 232 Mstyslav, Archbishop of the UOC Church in the USA (see Skrypnyk S.) 90, 118, 141, 143-146, 151, 163, 190, 222, 229, 230, 233, 234, 237, 239, 240, 241, 242, 245, 247, 273, 276, 277-281, 283, 284, 286, 309, 323, 352, 353, 355, 357, 364-366, 368-371

Extraordinary Sobor of the UAOC in Paris, 1953 375 Nahirniak Ts., Archpriest 333 Naumov P., Archpriest 121 "Nasha Besida" [Our Conversation], Biweekly Journal 128 Nektariy, Archimandrite 198 Nenadkevych Yevhen, Professor 9

Nestler, German Head of Political Department 221 Nikanor Abramovych, Metropolitan of the UAOC Church in Emigration 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 16, 19, 116, 124, 209, 215-219, 222-224, 228-233, 235-237, 241, 242, 245, 271, 273, 274, 276, 281, 286, 315-317, 321, 324, 326, 327, 329, 330, 349, 353, 358, 360, 368, 373 Nikon, Bishop 11 Nikolaev K. 90, 137, 164, 363 Nikolay Yarushevych, Archbishop 193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 204, 256, 257 Nikodim, Bishop of the Autonomous Church 264 Nychka Yustyn, Peasant 145 Novytsky Oleksandr, Priest 300, 356 "Nova Zoria" [New Star], Greek-Catholic Periodical 148

"Regional Sobor of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine" 203, 211 Ohiienko I., Professor (later Ilarion, Metropolitan of the UGOC in Canada) 28, 53, 82, 88, 90, 108, 114, 115, 181, 183, 184 Ovcharenko M., Archpriest 329, 356 Ohloblyn O., Professor 343 "Circular Informational Epistle" 325 Oleksandr Inozemtsev, Archbishop 22, 28, 54, 82, 83, 121-124, 166, 194, 196, 198, 207, 208, 216, 217, 222, 223, 224, 226, 230, 241, 242, 258, 271, 316, 321, 326, 327 Oleksiy (Oleksandr Hromadsky), Archbishop 10, 13, 14, 15, 22, 23, 27, 28, 31, 36, 57, 58-62, 71, 76, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 88, 90-94, 96, 100, 103, 105, 116, 117, 119, 121, 124, 127, 130, 135, 140, 142-146, 154-157, 165, 166, 174, 194, 196-199, 203-207, 209-216, 218, 221-224, 228, 240, 241-243, 246, 247, 250-253, 257, 259, 263, 264 Oleksiuk Tymish, Dr. 126, 190, 210 Olianchyn D., Dr. 330 Opoka L., Priest 357 Orest, Bishop of the Carpatho-Russian Church 359, 365 Ostrovsky V., Editor 41, 42, 128, 129, 190 Ostrozky K. K., Prince 7, 42

Pavensky V. 54 Pavelko D., Archpriest 127 Pavliuk A., Notary 190 Palladiy Vydybida-Rudenko, Archimandrite (later Archbishop) 183, 184, 185, 215, 243, 271, 316, 327, 328, 364, 365, 368 Pankratiy Hladkov, Archimandrite 198 Panteleimon (Rozhnovsky), Bishop 20, 23, 233 Panteleimon (Rudyk), Hieromonk (later Bishop) 61, 193, 197, 198, 203, 210-213, 215, 216, 219, 243, 245, 246, 327 Panchuk Bohdan, Centurion 357 Parish Rada in the Mannheim Camp 293 Patsorkovsky Yu., Minister of Internal Affairs 137 Pashchevsky Pavlo, Protopresbyter 36, 47, 61, 82, 83, 86, 116, 119, 135, 143, 144, 184, 194, 243 Pevny K., Archpriest 229 Pevny Petro, Deputy 77, 136 Pekarsky Fedir, Former Director of the Ukrainian Rivne Gymnasium 190 Peleshchuk Yuriy, Archpriest 217, 287, 316, 317 Pervencev V., Attorney 146 Perkhorovych F., Priest 10 First Sobor of Bishops in Warsaw 20 Petro Mohyla, Metropolitan 79, 80 Petropavlovsky L., Archpriest 199 Petriv V., Professor 316, 330, 340, 343 "South American Consistory of the UAOC Church" 363 Pidhirsky Samiilo, Attorney, Deputy 9, 10 Pilsudsky J., Marshal of Poland 36, 52, 71, 78, 105, 134, 135, 146, 153 Pylypenko O., Archimandrite 362, 363, 364 Pyrohiv M., Dr., Deputy 82, 119, 301 Pokrovsky V., Priest 93, 94, 129 Platon (see Artemiuk P.), Bishop 229, 230, 241, 259, 260, 262, 265, 267, 273, 274, 276, 278-281, 283, 287, 294, 315, 317, 324, 334, 337, 342, 346, 349, 352, 353, 355, 360, 364, 368, 370 Plevako Petro 287

Polikarp (Sikorsky), Archimandrite, Bishop (later Metropolitan of the UAOC in Emigration) 36, 76, 77, 83-85, 87, 90, 91, 93, 94, 116-118, 120, 121, 124, 135, 155-157, 177, 184, 194, 196-201, 203, 205-207, 209, 211, 213, 214, 216-224, 226-230, 233, 237, 239-243, 246, 247, 250, 251, 254-259, 261-263, 265, 267, 271-273, 276, 278-283, 287, 292, 302-304, 307, 309, 319, 321, 323, 324, 326, 332, 336, 349, 357, 358, 360, 361, 363, 369, 371, 373, 374, 375 Polesian Eparchial Congress in Pinsk, 1928 121 "Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church" 168 Polish Orthodox Church 159 Ponikovsky Ant., Minister of Religious Education 20, 129 Popov Oleksandr, Priest 292, 300, 307, 309, 314, 329 Decrees on the Use of the Native Language of Peoples in the Church 27 Postolian Vasyl, Hieromonk 362 Potiyenko Vasyl, Head of the VPCR 229, 241, 275 Pototsky F., Director of the Department of Religious Affairs 78, 82, 131 Potulnytsky Oleksiy, Archpriest 229, 230, 232, 233, 241 Pochaiv Congress (see Eparchial) 15, 17 "Pravoslavna Volyn" [Orthodox Volhynia], Eparchial Journal 22, 128 Orthodox Church Council 14, 15 Prystupa Khoma, Deputy 44 Ranevsky, Historian 31, 32, 39, 40, 52 Ratay M., Minister of Religious Education 23 Rafalsky Fedor, Bishop of the Russian Church Abroad 327 Rydz-Smigly, Marshal 105, 137, 151 Richynsky Vasyl, Priest 45 Richynsky Arsen, Dr., Church Activist 45, 46, 47, 53, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 63-67, 74, 76, 77, 102, 133 Rybachuk M., Colonel 316 Rykhlytsky St., Protopresbyter 363 Rosenberg, German Minister 248 Rozhin I., Professor 316 Rohalsky N., Archpriest 80, 102, 120 Romanovsky V., Priest 174 Romanenko A., Engineer 190 Rochniak A., Judge 47, 53, 59 Rudenko P., Head of the Ukrainian Church Rada 215, 216 Sava Sovetov, Archimandrite (later Bishop) 83, 84, 112, 165-167, 174, 216 Savatiy, Archbishop of Prague 271 Savchuk S. V., Priest of the UGOC in Canada 345, 347, 368, 369, 371 Sahaidakivsky Ananiya, Archpriest 86, 127, 329, 352 Sahaidakivsky V., Priest 352 Sahaiko, Dr. 190 Sadovsky M., General 301, 316 Saikovych D., Archpriest 120 Sakovych Ye. Yu., Candidate of Theology 42, 128 Salsky, General 158 Sapega, Roman Catholic Bishop 138 Sarancha Mykola, Archpriest 217 Svientoslavsky, Minister of Religious Education 143, 144 Svitalsky, Minister of Religious Education 65 Svitich Aleksandr, Master of Theology 18, 19, 23-26, 31-33, 37, 40, 50, 76, 80, 84, 88, 89, 90, 101, 111, 113, 166, 174, 178, 182, 195 Sviatohirsky Danylo 296, 298, 299 Sacred Synod of the UAOC Church 286 Seheida V., Deputy 58, 77 Selepyna Artemiy, Priest 265, 300, 316, 317, 330 All-Kholm Peasant Congress 189 Semashko Konstantyn, Archpriest (later Bishop Matviy) 112, 165, 166, 174, 175 Senkevych Myron, Priest 187 Serafym Liade, Archbishop of Berlin 178, 183, 274, 276 Servetnyk L., Deputy 58 Serhiy (Storohorodsky), Metropolitan of Moscow 195, 197, 204, 206, 249, 254, 256-258 Serhiy (Voskresenskiy), Archbishop 193, 195, 196 Serhiy (Okhotenko), Bishop 273, 276, 281, 352, 359, 360

Serebrianikov N. S. 15, 20, 60, 61 Sikorsky P., Archimandrite (see Polikarp) Sidletsky D., Archpriest 362 Sydorchuk, Hierodeacon 118 Syhizmunt III, King of Poland 86 Sylvestr Haievsky, Bishop 222, 229, 230, 234, 241, 273, 276, 281, 283, 293, 294, 309, 316, 329, 334, 353, 358, 359, 363, 375 Symon, Bishop 84, 93, 94, 100, 102, 103, 196, 197, 203, 213, 216, 242, 243, 245, 257 Skakalsky Iov, Hieromonk 357 Skrypnyk S., Deputy (later Mstyslav, Archbishop of the UOC in the USA) 90, 118, 141, 143-146, 151, 163, 190, 222, 229, 230, 233, 234, 237, 239, 240, 241, 242, 245, 247, 273, 276-281, 283, 284, 286, 309, 323, 352, 353, 355, 357, 364, 365, 366, 368, 369, 370, 371 Skrypnyk Ivan, Father of Archbishop 275 Sobors of Bishops of the UAOC Church 286 Skrypa I., Deputy 44 Skrzhynsky M., Prime Minister 98, 101, 106 Slavoy-Skladkovsky, Prime Minister 138, 142, 145, 151 Slavek Valeriy, Prime Minister 136, 137, 176 Slozka Yevheniy, Priest 70, 71 Smarahd (Liatoshenko), Archimandrite 18, 23, 24, 25, 26 Smereka S., Priest 188, 190 Smuk, Dr., Representative of UDKA [?] (УДКА — Українська Допомогова Комісія Апостольська?) 355 Sozontiv, Engineer 356, 361 Soloviy V., Judge (later Bishop Varlaam) 47, 53, 54, 58, 59, 60, 121, 122, 184, 187, 190, 210, 301, 316, 359, 375 Sochynsky V. A., Publisher of Ukrainian Gospels 115, 116, 118 Sokha-Paprotsky F. 166 Stakhovsky L., Physician 364 Stelmakh Petro, Priest 307, 309, 315 Stetsko Yaroslav 200 Stefanitsky, Head of Security of the Volhynian Voivodeship 154 Stefiuk P., Priest 352 Stechyshyn Mykh., Judge 370 Strukov M., Inspector of the Kremenets Theological Seminary 99, 103

Suchek-Sukhetsky H. 78, 82 Tabynsky P., Rector of the Kremenets Theological Seminary 15, 28, 31, 36, 45, 97, 102, 103, 115, 133, 363 Tiho Zynaida, Sister of Archbishop Mstyslav 275 [?] (Тиський — unclear OCR), Priest 356 [?] (Тинський М. — unclear OCR), Priest 47, 87, 90, 116 Teodorovych Ioan (see Ioan) Teodorovych Terentiy, Protopresbyter 37, 80, 146 Teodorovych A., Archpriest 300, 358 Tymofiy Shreter, Bishop 112, 178, 182 Tymoshenko S. P., Senator 79, 119, 137, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 163, 184, 263 Tymoshchuk Pylyp, Priest (Bishop) 222, 230, 249, 250, 251 "Provisional Rules on the Relationship of the Government of the Polish Commonwealth to the Orthodox Church in Poland" 20, 21, 22, 80 Tyravsky Yevhen, Attorney 301, 315, 317 Tyravsky M. P. 116 Tykhon, Patriarch of Moscow 19, 23, 29 Tyshetska 47 Tkachuk Arkadiy 333 "Society of Orthodox Poles" 164 Petro Mohyla Society 76, 79, 131 Tomashchyk Vasyl, Hieromonk, Belarusian Bishop 360 "Tomos" of Patriarch Gregory VII of Constantinople 29, 30, 31, 33, 207 Tkhorzhevsky Viroslav, Priest 10, 124, 125 Turkevych Venedykt, Archpriest 17, 102 Turchyk V., Engineer 293

Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of 1922 43 Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volhynia, 1930 77, 105 Ukrainian and Carpatho-Russian Metropolia of All South and North America 365 Ukrainian Church Committee 50

Ukrainian Pochaiv Manifestation of 1933 88 Ukrainian Church Rada in Kyiv 214, 215, 216 Urban Yan, Jesuit, Editor of the Periodical "Oriens" 153, 162, 171, 175

Faddey, Bishop 11, 12, 13 Fedoronko, Priest 112, 166, 174 Fedorenko V. K. 116, 119 Feodor (Rafalsky), Bishop of the Autonomous Church 264 Feodosiy, Archbishop of Vienna 28, 31 Feofil Buldovsky, Metropolitan 84, 216, 225, 229, 230, 233, 234, 239, 241 Filosofov D., Editor 80 Firevych, School Curator 106, 135-137 Von Wedelstedt, Landshauptmann 214 Fotiyev, Historian 31 Fotinsky Orest, Archpriest 9 Fotiy (see Tymoshchuk P.), Bishop 222, 230, 249, 251 Fotiy D., Priest 352

Khanenko M., Head of the Petro Mohyla Society 143, 151 Kholm Church Rada 180 Kholm-Pidliashshia Sobor (see Eparchial) Chrysostomos, Metropolitan, Exarch of the Alexandrian Patriarch 365 Khrutsky S., Deputy 44, 46, 51, 53, 58, 59, 60, 66, 82, 97

"Tserkva i Narid" [Church and Nation], Journal of the Volhynian Theological Seminary 130 Church Rada in Kholm 180, 181 Tserner, Lublin German Governor 193 Church Congress in Regensburg 315

Charnetsky M., Greek-Catholic Bishop 72 Chervynsky S., Minister of Religious Education 80 Cherkavsky M. K., Senator 10, 28, 45, 46, 53, 58, 59, 60, 66 Chyhyrynsky Ye. N. 231, 232 Chyzhiv Ye., Priest 356 Chyrko M. H., Engineer 119 Chubatiy M., Professor 259 Chumak Ivan, Priest 307, 309, 315 Chuchman Maksym, Deputy 58

Shaparov Tykhon, Hieromonk 16 Sharaivsky Nestor, Bishop 319 Shene, German General Commissar 262 Sherotsky M., Priest 119 Shymanovych I., Professor 6 "Shliakh" [The Path], Religious-Civic Periodical 131 Shpachenko Fedot, Archpriest 217 Shreter Heorhiy, Archpriest (later Bishop Tymofiy) 112, 165, 166, 167, 174, 175 Shumakov Symon, Priest 362 Shumovsky Yu., Priest 120

Yuzevsky H., Volhynian Voivode 76, 78, 82, 83, 87, 119, 123, 124, 134, 135, 136, 144, 145 Yuriy, Bishop 271 Yuriy Yaroshevsky, Metropolitan of Warsaw 18, 19, 20-27, 29, 35, 93, 106, 224, 263 Yurkevych F., Priest 221, 265 Yurchenko Oleksandr 316

Yavdas-Yatsun M., Priest 293, 294, 307, 309, 315 Yasinsky Ye., Head of the Rada of the Lutsk Exaltation of the Cross Brotherhood 60, 66, 86 Yakym, Metropolitan of Chalcedon 31 Yakovkevych Borys, Priest (later Bishop Borys in Canada) 119, 275, 287, 315, 330 Yakovkevych Tyt, Protopresbyter 264 Yakubovsky V. V. 116 Yanevych Mykh., Professor 9 Yarosevych Adolf, Roman Catholic Priest 139 Yaroslavsky I., Archpriest 361, 362 Yaroshevsky Ant., Priest 19 Yaremenko Arkadiy 292, 309 Yatsevych Pavlo 309 Yashchenko P. 363

p. 386

BIBLIOGRAPHIC INDEX

BIBLIOGRAPHIC INDEX for Part 2 of Vol. IV of the "Outline History of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church."

For Section III. "The Ukrainian National-Church Movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland, 1921-1939 (Before the Second World War)."

Bishop Aleksiy. On the History of the Orthodox Church in Poland during the Ten-Year Tenure at Its Head of His Beatitude Metropolitan Dionisiy (1923-1933). Warsaw. 1937. — The Visit of His Beatitude Metropolitan Dionisiy to the Holy Autocephalous Orthodox Churches of the East. Warsaw. 1928. — Uninvited Well-Wishers, or Around the Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland. Warsaw. 1931. The First Assembly of Representatives of the Clergy and Laity of the Holy Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Poland, January 10-12, 1927, in Warsaw. Warsaw. 1927. Friedrich Heyer. Die Orthodoxe Kirche in der Ukraine von 1917 bis 1945. Cologne. 1953. A. Svitich. The Orthodox Church in Poland and Its Autocephaly. Buenos Aires. 1959. Stepan Baran. Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. Munich. 1947. Eduard Winter. Byzantium and Rome in the Struggle for Ukraine (955-1939). Prague. 1944. K. N. Nikolaev. The Eastern Rite. Paris. 1950. Metropolitan Evlohiy. The Path of My Life. Paris. 1947. Bishop Nikon. Biography of His Beatitude Antoniy, Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia. Vol. II. New York. 1957. Professor I. Shymanovych. Western Ukraine: Territory and Population. A Statistical Study. Lviv. 1926. O. Lototsky. Pages of the Past. Vols. I-II. Warsaw. 1931. Janusz Wolinski. Polska i Kosciol Prawoslawny. Lviv. 1936. Chronicle of Volhynia. Winnipeg. No. 4. 1958. Orthodox Church Bulletin. Warsaw. 1925. Marchak. From the Martyrdom of the Kholm Region in Bilohray. Winnipeg. 1957. Orthodox Calendar for 1923, Published by the Warsaw Metropolia. Orthodox Church-National Calendar for 1925. Warsaw. Synodal Press. Ukrainian Orthodox Calendar for 1938. Published by the Volhynian Eparchial Missionary Committee. Kremenets. Ioan, Archbishop. A String of Reminiscences. Ukrainian Orthodox Calendar for 1951. New York. N. Burchak. The Beginnings of Ukrainian Church Revival in Volhynia. "Ridna Tserkva," October-December 1950. Open Letter of Deputy Ivan Wlasowsky to Metropolitan of Warsaw and Volhynia Dionisiy. (Periodical "Dilo," May 22, 1929).

Open Letter to Metropolitan Dionisiy from Members of the Metropolitan Rada M. Cherkavsky, I. Wlasowsky, V. Soloviy, and S. Khrutsky. ("Dilo," July 17, 1929). Tymish Olesiuk. As Under Diocletian. 1960. Bound Brook. "Za Sobornist" [For Conciliarity]. Non-periodical Organ of the Petro Mohyla Society. Lutsk. 1932-1935.

Periodical Publications:

Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, November 19, 1938. (Decree of the President of the Republic of Poland of November 18, 1938, on the Relationship of the State to the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church). Dziennik Ustaw RP, December 30, 1938. ("Internal Statute of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church"). Letters to the author of the work with reminiscences about events from the period of the Ukrainian national-church movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland, specifically from: Metropolitan Nikanor, Bishop Varlaam (Soloviy), Protopresbyter Professor of the Kremenets Theological Seminary F. Kulchynsky, Mitred Archpriest A. Selepyna, Protopresbyter A. Sahaidakivsky, Fr. L. Kvartyruk, Professor A. Kotovych, Master of Theology S. Veremchuk.

For Section IV. The UOC Church on Ukrainian Lands during the Second World War.

Senex (Ivan Wlasowsky). The Ukrainian Orthodox Church during the Second World War, 1939-1945. Munich. N.d. 1946. (Mimeographed edition). In the preface to this work, the author wrote: "What the Ukrainian Orthodox Church experienced in Western Ukraine under Soviet rule (1939-41) and throughout all of Ukraine under the German Hitlerite rule (1941-43) is presented in this work. The sources for it were archival documents of the UAOC Church Administration, Archpastoral epistles, correspondence of Archpastors and church leaders, the Ukrainian press of those times, notes and oral reminiscences of participants and eyewitnesses of the Ukrainian church life of that period." Archpriest A. Dubliansky. The Thorny Path: The Life of Metropolitan Nikanor Abramovych. London. 1962. Jubilee Book in Honor of Metropolitan Ilarion. 1958. Winnipeg. A. Svitich. The Orthodox Church in Poland and Its Autocephaly. Buenos Aires. 1959. Kholm Orthodox-National Calendar for 1944. "In Defense of Truth." Manuscript of the Fellowship of Ukrainian Theologians in Kholm. 1941. "Church News." Warsaw. March 1943. Fr. Heyer. Die Orthodoxe Kirche in der Ukraine von 1917 bis 1945. Cologne. 1953. "Tserkva i Narid" [Church and Nation]. April-May. 1949. "The Russian Orthodox Church and the Great Patriotic War." Collection of Church Documents. Moscow. 1943. Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies, NTSh. Fascicle 8. Roman Smal-Stotsky. "On the Matter of the Blessed Memory of Metropolitan Polikarp." Article from the periodical "Svoboda," February 10, 11, and 12, 1955. (Against the untruth admitted by Professor M. Chubatiy in an article on the history of the UOC Church in Fascicle 8 of the Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies, NTSh). Chronicle of Volhynia, No. 2, 1955; No. 3, 1956. Winnipeg. I. Wlasowsky. "Ten Years Ago." Ukrainian Orthodox Calendar for 1953. Published by the UOC Church in the USA. Letters-reminiscences to the author of the work: from Metropolitan Nikanor, July 23-25 and August 6, 1956; Bishop Varlaam, 1960; Archbishop Mykhailo, May 26, 1964; Archbishop Henadiy, May 27, 1964; Protopresbyter O. Potulnytsky, May 28, 1964; Archpriest L. Dolynsky.

For Section V. The UAOC Church in Emigration in Western Europe.

Archive of the Sacred Synod of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Emigration. By letter of August 21, 1951, Metropolitan Polikarp gave the author the commission: "I commission you, as the former Director of the Chancellery of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC, to review and compile a register of the files of the archive of the Sacred Synod, which was transported to Canada by the Secretary of the Sacred Synod, Bishop Platon, and remained there after the repose of the late Bishop Platon." In accordance with this commission from the Primate of the UAOC Church in Emigration, the author reviewed, organized, and compiled a Register of the files of the Archive of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC, reporting to Metropolitan Polikarp on November 27, 1952. The files of the Archive were divided into 6 sections: I. Protocols of sessions of conciliar institutions of the UAOC Church with attachments to protocols. II. Correspondence of the Secretary of the Sacred Synod, Bishop Platon, and the Synod Chancellery with the Head of the Synod, Metropolitan Polikarp, and other hierarchs of the UAOC Church. III. Relations of the episcopate and institutions of the UAOC Church with representatives of other Churches. IV. Church-disciplinary and judicial cases. V. Spiritual education. VI. Church-administrative affairs from the period of the UAOC Church's life under German occupation and in emigration. In total, the Archive contains 37 files and 5,869 numbered pages. This Archive of the Sacred Synod of the UAOC Church in Emigration was the primary source for writing Section V of Vol. IV of the "Outline History of the UOC Church." But, as Metropolitan Polikarp wrote to the author, "part of the Synodal Archive is still in England" (letter of October 29, 1952). Regarding its preservation, the author, upon completing his work, was to transfer it to the Archive-Library of the UOC Church in the USA (letter from Metropolitan Polikarp of February 27, 1953).

Ukrainian Orthodox Church Calendars for 1947-50, Published by the Sacred Synod of the UAOC Church in Emigration. Bulletin of the Theological-Pedagogical Academy, Nos. 1-6. Munich. 1946-49. Bohoslovsky Visnyk [Theological Herald]. Organ of the UAOC Church in Emigration, Nos. 1 and 2. 1948. Bohoslov [Theologian]. Organ of the Ukrainian Student Society of the Theological Academy of the UAOC. Credo. Problems of Church-Religious Consciousness in the UAOC in Emigration. Library "Na Chuzhyni." 1947. On the Path to a United UAOC Abroad. Sydney-Melbourne. 1957. Archpriest S. V. Savchuk. Fundamental Principles of the Ukrainian Greek-Orthodox Church in Canada. Winnipeg. 1960. Commemorative Book of the Fifteenth Anniversary of the UAOC in Great Britain. London. 1962. Commemorative Book of the UAOC in Brazil. Curitiba. 1959.

Periodical organs of church administrations in Bavaria: "Tserkva i Zhyttia" [Church and Life], "Tserkovsky Visnyk" [Church Herald]. Church periodicals: Ridna Tserkva (UAOC abroad, from 1952), Tserkva i Narid (1949-1951), Vidomosti of the General Administration of the UAOC for Great Britain (from 1950), Nash Holos [Our Voice] (UAOC in Australia), Dzvin [The Bell] (Argentina), Ukrainska Pravoslavna Nyva [Ukrainian Orthodox Field] (Brazil), Ukrainsky Pravoslavny Visnyk [Ukrainian Orthodox Herald], Ukrainske Pravoslavne Slovo [Ukrainian Orthodox Word] (UOC in USA), Visnyk [Herald] (UGOC in Canada), Slovo Istyny [Word of Truth], Ukrainsky Visnyk [Ukrainian Herald] (Organ of Eparchial Administration of UOC in America), Holos Tserkvy [Voice of the Church] (UAOC in Exile), and others. Ukrainian periodicals from the camp life period: Nashe Zhyttia [Our Life], Nedilia [Sunday], Ukrainski Visti [Ukrainian News], Yednist [Unity], Chas [Time]. Senex (Ivan Wlasowsky). The Ukrainian Orthodox Church during the Second World War.

p. 390

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Note: Page numbers refer to the original Ukrainian edition (New York/Bound Brook, 1966).

SECTION III. The Ukrainian National-Ecclesiastical Movement in the Orthodox Church in Poland in 1921–1939

  1. The Ukrainian lands with an Orthodox Ukrainian population under restored Poland ... 3
  2. The first manifestations of Ukrainian national-ecclesiastical consciousness ... 8
  3. The Brotherhood of the Holy Savior ... 14
  4. Metropolitan Yuriy ... 22
  5. The murder of Metropolitan Yuriy ... 28
  6. The autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland ... 34
  7. The national-ecclesiastical struggle in the Church in Poland after autocephaly ... 63
  8. The revindication of churches ... 105
  9. Church canonical matters ... 115
  10. The Church and the Ukrainian press ... 130
  11. The Pochayiv Lavra ... 135
  12. The Church-political situation after the death of J. Piłsudski ... 142
  13. The fate of Orthodoxy in the Kholm region and Pidliashshia ... 157
  14. The end of the Orthodox Church in interwar Poland ... 169

CHAPTER IV. The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church from the Beginning of the Second World War to 1945

  1. Western Volyn under Soviet occupation ... 183
  2. The beginning of the German-Soviet war and the revival of church life ... 192
  3. The UAOC under German occupation ... 203
  4. The Autonomous Orthodox Church in Ukraine ... 214
  5. The Act of Unification ... 240
  6. German interference in church governance ... 249
  7. The destruction of the UAOC in occupied Ukraine ... 262
  8. The further church struggle ... 276

SECTION V. The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church Abroad (in Emigration)

  1. Organization of the UAOC Church in emigration ... 287
  2. The Aschaffenburg Schism ... 306

[Trans. note: Subsection 3 does not appear in the original.]

  1. Unification of Ukrainian Orthodox churches abroad ... 317
  2. The Theological-Pedagogical Academy ... 332
  3. The resettlement and UAOC centers in various countries ... 344
  4. The UAOC in the Americas, Australia, and the Author's Afterword ... 360

Index of Historical Persons ... 377 Bibliographic Index ... 386 Table of Contents ... 390

p. 397

[End of Volume IV, Part 2]