Turning the pages back... July 27, 1883 (07/25/99)

Turning the pages back...

July 27, 1883

Metropolitan Nykanor Abramovych was a prominent leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine and western Europe. Born in Mizovo, near Kovel (about 70 miles northwest of Lutsk) in Volhynia, he studied at the Volhynian Theological Seminary, then the Kyiv Theological Academy.

Ordained as a priest in 1910, Abramovych served as a priest in his native region. In 1917-1920, he served as inspector of schools for the Zhytomyr region and Volhynia under the various Ukrainian administrations set up during that period.

In the 1920s and 1930s the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) in Soviet Ukraine was physically liquidated by the Stalinist regime, which had the entire Church hierarchy and most of its clergy shot. In areas that remained under Polish control, such as Volhynia where Abramovych remained, Ukrainian Orthodoxy survived within the Polish-state controlled entity called the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church (PAOC), formed in January 1922.

In 1924, the PAOC was officially granted autocephaly by the Patriarch of Constantinople. From that time it was independent of the Moscow Patriarchate and administered its own internal affairs. However, the Church was by no means a peaceful haven. On one hand, Polish authorities sanctioned a wave of destruction of Ukrainian churches in the Kholm region and supported efforts mounted by the Roman Catholic Church to convert believers from Orthodoxy. On the other, Russophile elements within the PAOC pulled believers in the opposite direction, towards Moscow, and did their best to Russify the predominantly Ukrainian and Belarusian laity.

Running counter to both currents, Abramovych played an active role in the Ukrainization of the Orthodox Church in Volhynia. At this stage, Abramovych served as president of the Brotherhood of the Holy Savior, and was active in the Volodymyr Volynskyi Church administration.

From the summer of 1941, the vacuum caused by the German invasion of Ukraine allowed the Orthodox hierarchy to begin efforts to revive the UAOC. A leader in this movement, Abramovych was consecrated in February 1942 as archbishop of Kyiv and Chyhyryn. He and Ihor Huba, who became bishop of Uman, were the first two hierarchs elevated by Metropolitan Polikarp Sikorsky, the fiercely independent and patriotic Orthodox leader. (Mstyslav Skrypnyk, who was to become patriarch of the UAOC and UOC, was made archbishop in May 1942).

In the face of the Soviet advance in 1944, Abramovych fled westward along with most of the UAOC's hierarchy and clergy, eventually settling in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1946. The following year he was designated Metropolitan Sikorsky's deputy metropolitan and, upon the latter's death in 1953, was elected metropolitan.

Remaining in Europe as most of the UAOC's hierarchy and clergy continued on to North America, Metropolitan Abramovych served as president of the UAOC's Theological Institute from 1948, edited the journal Bohoslovskyi Visnyk, and wrote articles and monographs about the history and traditions of the Ukrainian Orthodox.

Metropolitan Nykanor Abramovych died in Karlsruhe on March 21, 1969.

Sources: "Abramovych, Nykanor," "Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church," "Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vols. 1, 4, 5 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984, 1993).

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