Ukrainian clergyman became a bishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
“A historic event took place today,” the Facebook page of the Vienna parish of the UOC (Const. Patriarchate) states.
Bishop Maxim of Arista (Roman Rudko) was born in Lviv on July 25, 1983. He received his secondary school education in his hometown. He is a graduate of the Lviv Theological Seminary and the Faculty of Theology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He completed his master's degree at the same university.
He was ordained as a monk and deacon by Metropolitan Arsenius (Kardamakis) of Austria and Exarch of Hungary in 2018 at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Vienna. In 2023, Bishop Arsenius ordained him to the rank of presbyter, and at the same time, Fr. Maxim was promoted to the rank of archimandrite and the position of protosyncellus of the Metropolitanate of Austria and Hungary.
On August 29, 2024, at a meeting of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, he was nominated for vicar bishop of the Metropolitanate of Austria with the title of Bishop of Aristia.