ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS AND SECULAR HISTORY
Posting 1: Ukrainian Autocephalist Bishops of the 1940s Were Not Self-Consecrated
by Thomas S. Deretich
20240401
The movement for Ukrainian church autocephaly in the 1920s resorted to uncanonical “self-consecration,” as well as to radical “renovationism” that was similar to the Living Church movement in Russia. The movement for Ukrainian church autocephaly in the 1990s until today has shown unmistakable Sergianist, ecumenist, and modernist characteristics. The movement for Ukrainian church autocephaly in the 1940s was different: bishops supporting Ukrainian church autocephaly in the 1940s had succession in their hierarchical consecrations from bishops in Poland who had been recognized as autonomous by Saint Tikhon in 1921 and as autocephalous by Constantinople in 1924. Most of these bishops strongly supported Ukrainian national and church independence from both Russia and Poland. Many supported use of the modern Ukrainian language (in place of Church Slavonic in Liturgy and Russian in administration) as well as lay participation in councils, which the Russian church also supported in 1917–1918. Some of these bishops may have exercised oikonomia improperly in the manner that they received a small number of priests who had been uncanonically ordained by self-consecrated bishops of the 1920s. Some of the American converts ordained as bishops and priests by some of these Ukrainian hierarchs turned out to be modernists and later became episcopi vagantes and unserious about maintaining traditional Orthodoxy. Despite all this, the Ukrainian autocephalist bishops consecrated in the 1940s were nothing remotely close to “self-consecrators”—and many seem to have worked diligently to maintain Orthodox piety among their Ukrainian flocks in their homeland and later in the diaspora, among Ukrainians and others. For example, Bishop Hryhorii (Ohiichuk) of Zhytomyr, who later was a bishop in Chicago, told followers that Saint Philaret of New York was a truly Orthodox primate, whereas virtually all other American hierarchs (the SCOBA hierarchs) were not truly Orthodox, but modernist. Even SCOBA recognized the Ukrainian autocephalist ordinations of the 1940s as having apostolic succession and at least one autocephalist bishop was a full participant in SCOBA. Bishop Hryhorii (Ohiichuk) of Zhytomyr and Bishop Hennadii (Shyprykevich) of Dnipropetrovsk consecrated Free Serbian Bishop Irinej (Milan Kovačević) in 1963. This consecration was later recognized by Patriarch Nicholas VI (Varelopoulos) of Alexandria and his synod, by Archbishop Auxentius (Pastras) of the True Orthodox Christians of Athens and all Greece and his synod, and much later by Serbian Patriarch Pavle (Stojčević) and his synod. So, both True Orthodox Christians and ecumenistic “World Orthodoxy” have recognized the Ukrainian autocephalist consecrations of the 1940s as valid. The myth that these bishops were self-consecrators has unfortunately influenced some individuals in ROCOR and in other churches. In the case of ROCOR, this misperception of the 1940s Ukrainian consecrations has been influenced in part by anti-Ukrainian-independentist convictions among many Russians. Ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians have often looked at these consecrations very differently. However, it is beyond doubt that these consecrations were not “self-consecrations” in any way, but were conducted by the primate and synod of bishops of the Polish Orthodox Church (a church consisting of ethnic Poles, ethnic Ukrainians, ethnic Carpatho-Rusyns, ethnic Russians, and others), a church that was recognized as canonical and autonomous by Saint Tikhon and ROCOR, and later recognized as fully autocephalous by others.
