Over 30 Bishops of OCU mark 30th anniversary of renewal of Ukrainian Church autocephaly
The Episcopal Liturgy, dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the third revival of the UAOC, was held in the Church of Sts Volodymyr and Olga of the OCU in Lviv and Vynnyky today, on August 18.
The service became the central and final part of the celebration of this event.
The Primate of the OCU, Metroipolitan Epifaniy led the festive Liturgy in the concelebration of hierarchs (32 bishops) and priests (more than 250). The service was accompanied by the chant of three church choirs, which for 30 years actively participated in the development of the Orthodox Church. The solemn Liturgy in the Church of Sts Volodymyr and Olga lasted for three hours.
Thousands of believers from all over Lviv and Western regions came to the worship service to Vynnyky. The Church of Sts Volodymyr and Olga could not contain such that many people within its walls, so the vast majority of believers prayed in the street.
Before the Communion, Metropolitan Andrii (Abramchuk) of Ivano-Frankivsk and Halych – one of the first bishops ordained in the UAOC reached out to the faithful. Bishop Andriy remembered how and in what difficult conditions the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church was born. Many then doubted the success of its revival.
"Who could have said last year that a little time would pass and we would all be together. Who would say that 30 years ago the transformation of our Church from a small, well-known to all Sts Peter and Paul Church, when the rector Archpriest Volodymyr Yarema together with Fr Ivan Pashula proclaimed their leaving the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate and the rebirth of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Yes, it was unheard of for those who persecuted our national Church for centuries... But it was the grace of God that the transformation began with this small temple," he said.
The Metropolitan remembered Patriarchs Mstyslav and Dymytri wiuth warm words. He also greetedd all those present on the feast of the UAOC revival and the coming feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
The initiative of the solemn celebration of the 30th anniversary of the third revival of the UAOC at the Church level, as is known, belongs to the ex-Primate of the UAOC Metropolitan Makariy (Maletich).
At the end of the twentieth century, while being a priest, he was one of the first to join the revived UAOC. Bishop Makariy proposed to hold celebrations in Lviv at the last Holy Synod. It was at that Synod that hierarchy of the OCU decided to found the order on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the revival of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.
It should be noted that 30 years ago the community of the Church of Sts Peter and Paul started a movement for the independence of the Ukrainian Church from Moscow. The process began on 19 August 1989 with the speech of two priests of this Church Fr Volodymyr Yarema (later Patriarch Dymytry), and of Ivan Pashulya, who declared about the secession of the parish from the Russian Church and joining the UAOC in the Diaspora, headed by Metropolitan Mstyslav Skrypnyk.
The clergy sent a letter of intent to withdraw from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to Metropolitans in the United States and Canada and the Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios, whose name they started to remember at worship.
On August 19, the feast of the
