Patriarch Yarema of UAOC Remembered in Lviv
LVIV — The Lviv Archeparchy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox
Church (UAOC) marked on February 27, 2010, the 10th anniversary of the death of Patriarch Dymytrii (Yarema). Archbishop Ihor (Isichenko) came to the memorial events from Kharkiv. They were also attended by the patriarch’s associate, a dissident, Yevhen Sverstiuk. The services in the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul were attended by believers from all the districts of the Lviv region and guests from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv, Kirovohrad, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk.
The events began with a liturgy served by Archbishop Ihor in concelebration with protopriests Valerii Kopiika from Kyiv and Dmytro Lysak from Ternopil in the Lviv Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, where Patriarch Dymytrii was the senior priest for 24 years. Another liturgy on that day was served by Archbishop Makarii (Maletych) of the Lviv Archeparchy of the UAOC. After that, the two hierarchs served a memorial service at the grave of the patriarch.
The memorial events in the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul were attended also by the Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi, who in his address reminded of the importance of the contribution of the patriarch in the preservation and development of the spirituality of the Lviv residents in the times of the atheist totalitarian regime.
The memorial events continued with a memorial event in the Lviv State Palace of Culture of School.
“Today, in Ukraine there is the patriarch, the head, bishops, but there is no successor who could replace that man,” said Archbishop Makarii.
Archbishop Ihor (Isichenko) in his address noted that in the summer of 1993, the UAOC seemed almost completely destroyed, to please the church project of President Leonid Kravchuk. “The Church had no eparchial structure, was depraved of an administrative center, legal rights, and property. The political leaders of the People’s Movement and its affiliated parties were convinced of the productivity of the artificially created UOC-KP [Kyivan Patriarchate] and considered loyalty to the UAOC to be a pathology, supported from the outside, and viewed the UAOC as an anachronism, which is about to cease its existence. In those conditions, to agree to be its head meant to knowingly choose humiliation. And uncompromised conflict with the authorities. As Bishop Volodymyr used to say, ‘To attack the sun with a hoe,’” added the bishop.
