Number DOI: http://doi.org/10.33209/2519-4348-2707-9627-2024-12-161

VB. – № 12, 2024. – P. 188-215

Summary

An important event on the path to the formation of the modern Ukrainian Church was the proclamation of Autocephaly in 1989 by First Hierarch Ioan (Bodnarchuk). The Ukrainian people and their Church took three decades to recognize this Autocephaly in world Orthodoxy. The result of this historical path was the receipt of the Tomos on Autocephaly for the Ukrainian Local Church from the Ecumenical Patriarch on January 6, 2019, which summed up the thousand-year path of Ukrainian Orthodoxy to independence. In November 2024, it will be 30 years since the tragic death in a car accident of Metropolitan Ioan (Bodnarchuk), the head of the Lutsk-Volyn Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, Archpastor, who initiated the Third Revival of the National Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The article highlights the main life milestones of Bishop Ioan: his origin, his persecution and exile, his acquisition of spiritual education, examines the period of his priestly ministry in the Ternopil and Lviv regions, in particular in Truskavets, shows his devoted service and advocacy of the interests of the Orthodox Church, and mentions his episcopal ministry in the Zhytomyr region. Much attention is paid to the period of the early 1990s, when Bishop Ioan led the national-church movement to restore the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church: the formation of its own hierarchy, the preparation and holding of the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Local Council on June 5-6, 1990, at which, for the first time in the history of Ukraine, its own Patriarch was elected. Considerable attention is paid in the study to his archpastoral service in the Lutsk-Volyn eparchy, since at that time there was a strong inter-confessional confrontation in Volyn, and the trial around the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Lutsk was ongoing. This article, based on mainly preserved diocesan sources, the personal file of the pastor, as well as periodicals of that time, provides information about the figure of the Orthodox hierarch Metropolitan Ioan (Bodnarchuk), who worked hard for Ukraine and became the founder of its Church.

Key words: Metropolitan Ioan (Bodnarchuk), UAOC, UOC-KP, Volyn Eparchy, priest, parish.

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