---THE UAOC SOBOR HELD IN PINSK 1942---
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the subsequent capture of Ukraine by German forces in August, a new military government known as the Reichskommissariat Ukraine was established by the German Wehrmacht. Local Ukrainian governments would be set up under figures like Petro Dyachenko and Stepan Bandera, and the policy of persecution against the Orthodox Church the Soviets established would be abolished.
As a result of these new religious freedoms caused by the war, Metropolitan Dionysy (Valedinsky) of Warsaw – first hierarch of the Polish Orthodox Church who had long held sympathies for the Ukrainian Church – petitioned the German government to release a prohibition on Archbishop Polikarp (Sikorsky) from serving in the Ukrainian lands.
Shortly after Vladyka Dionysy's petition, the Reichskommissariat allowed Vladyka Polikarp to assume the position of “Temporary Administrator of the Ukiranian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the Liberated Lands of Ukraine” and gave him a permit to serve in the Ukraine in December 1941. Metropolitan Dionysy wished to join the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, mostly due to the Polish Orthodox Church refusing to abandon the New Calendar that they were forced to use by the previous Polish state.
Due to war time restrictions, Metropolitan Dionysy was not given permission to travel to Ukraine or to ordain any new Bishops for Poland. Abp. Polikarp re-established contact with the rest of the Sobor of the UAOC, and with the permission of the German government to organize a Sobor meeting; Pinsk was chosen as the meeting place for the Bishops since it held the cathedral of the Poleise diocese administered by Archbishop Oleksandr (Inozemtsev).
The Sobor meeting took place between the 7th and 10th of February 1942. After the Divine Liturgy was held in Pinsk, the first session of the Sobor began; Abp. Polikarp and Abp. Oleksandr read the agenda and Abp. Oleksandr was elected as the chairman of the meeting. The ecclesiatical territory of the UAOC was defined and the question of whether or not they could restore communion with the Polish Orthodox Church was discussed.
Due to Metropolitan Dionysy not arriving, the question of the Polish Orthodox Church was not resolved at this Sobor. On the first day it was decided to elevate Archimandrite Yuri (Korenistov) as the Vicar Bishop of Brest, Archimandrite Nikanor (Abramovych) as the Bishop of Chyhyryn and Archimandrite Igor (Guba) as the Bishop of Uman. The latter two Bishops were to be placed as temporary Vicars.
The next day on February 8th Yuri (Korenistov) was consecrated to Episcopacy and enthroned. On February 9th Nikanor (Abramovych) was consecrated and enthroned and on February 10th Igor (Guba) was consecrated and enthroned. At the meeting of Bishops on February 10th a resolution was adopted that laypeople of the Lypkivskites could be received into the Church via Confession only if they had been given baptism by priests who were ordained prior to Lypkivsky's schism.
All the Sermons, Confessions and Acts of the Council were read and recorded in Polish, Ukrainian and Russian. Several Church Canon Law experts were present at the Sobor, including Ivan Feodorvych Vlasovsky (who previously had been involved in relief efforts for victims of the Holodomor). The German government confirmed the decisions of the Pinsk Sobor and allowed the newly-consecrated Bishops to serve only a few days after the Sobor had concluded.
Vladyka Nikanor and Vladyka Igor temporarily served in Kyiv and Byla Tserkva respectively for a little over a month until they were both elevated to ruling Bishops in their dioceses. From the report of Metropolitan Dionysy, Ivan Vlasovsky and later by the ROCOR Metropolitan Serafim (Lyade) of Berlin, the Pinsk Sobor was done completely within the bounds of the Canons of the Holy Orthodox Church and marked the first Bishops consecrated on Ukrainian soil since the time of the Revolution.
Sadly after the war, Yuri Korenistov would join the Moscow Patriachate, as did Dionysy (Valedinsky). Vladyka Oleksandr, Vladyka Polikarp, Vladyka Igor and Vladyka Nikanor – along with many of the other Bishops they consecrated during the war – would flee Ukraine and re-establish the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in West Germany as a Church in exile.
Attached is a photo of the Pinsk Sobor taken on February 10th 1942. Top row left to right: Archbishop Oleksandr, Archbishop Polikarp and Bishop (later Abp.) Nikanor.
Bottom row left to right: Vicar Bishop Yuri and Bishop (later Abp) Igor
The portrait in the background is of Metropolitan Dionysy of Warsaw.