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8/06/99

Metropolitan Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA
Meets in Annual Session
Capital fund-drive for new museum and famine memorial approved.

The Ukrainian Cultural Center in the Metropolia Center of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA, South Bound Brook/Somerset, NJ was the site of the annual meeting of the Metropolitan Council of the Church on 15-17 July 1999. The Metropolitan Council is the Board of Trustees of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA and the annual meeting is conducted for budget approval and program planning for the succeeding fiscal year and an examination of the state of church life and current programs.

The annual meeting was opened by the Prime Hierarch of the Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Constantine, who offered the membership his view of church life, outlining the accomplishments of the Council of Bishops, the Consistory, Church organizations and institutions and setting the tone for the Council’s obligation to plan for the coming year.

The New Museum and Permanent Memorial for the Genocidal Famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine was an extremely important project discussed by the Council. Final approval was given for the inauguration of a major capital fund raising program to ensure the construction of this complex as an annex to the current administration building in the South Bound Brook/Somerset, NJ headquarter complex of the UOC. Requests will be issued to all survivors of the famine from the Ukrainian community throughout the world to make audio and video recordings of their memories of the famine and to contribute physical evidence such as photographs or documents to the museum for possible inclusion and permanent display as part of the memorial.

In conjunction with the construction of a new museum, the current space occupied by the Church’s museum beneath St. Andrew Memorial Church will be converted into a mausoleum surrounding the crypt of His All Holiness Patriarch Mstyslav. The portion of space immediately encompassing the Patriarch’s crypt will become a permanent museum devoted to the lives of all the hierarchs who have served the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA including the Patriarch, His Beatitude Metropolitan John (Theodorovich), Metropolitan Andrew (Kuschak), Archbishop Bohdan (Spilka), Archbishop Volodymyr (Maletz), Archbishop Mark (Hundiak), Bishop Joseph (Zuk), Bishop Alexander (Novitskyj) and Bishop Paisiy (Iwaschuk). Funds netted from the sale of spaces in the mausoleum will be dedicated to the new museum and memorial construction and then maintenance programs.

Also of great significance is the Metropolitan Council action giving its complete support to the executive branch of church administration, the Consistory, in its efforts to restore discipline and order in church life and to eradicate the concept of congregationalism, which is foreign to Ukrainian Orthodox ecclesiastical structure. The principle that the Church is One – the Body of Christ – and although Sobornopravna or Sobor governed, it remains a hierarchal church according to the Holy Canons of Orthodoxy as clearly delineated in the UOC Constitution.

The Metropolitan Council devoted significant time to the question of Church unity in Ukraine and the desired and needed actions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Such positive actions are essential to the resolution of many outstanding issues in the process of unification and recognition by world Orthodoxy of a truly autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church for Ukraine free of any influence or control by the church of Moscow. The last two Sobors of the UOC overwhelmingly renewed and then reaffirmed the ancient and profound relationship between the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which began prior to 988 when St. Volodymyr the Great, Equal to the Apostles, baptized the Ukrainian Nation in to Holy Orthodoxy.

This unique relationship, which all 20th century Patriarchs of Constantinople have reaffirmed, and its further development will be the primary topic of discussion when a delegation from the Metropolitan Council, headed by His Beatitude Metropolitan Constantine, meets with His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew in early fall of this year.

The Council expressed its joy at the coming commemoration in Ukraine and throughout the Diaspora of the tenth anniversary of the rebirth of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The initial action in this rebirth was the proclamation of Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in Lviv under the spiritual leadership of then Fr. Volodymyr Yarema (now Patriarch Dmitrij) of its return to Ukrainian Orthodoxy – the Mother Church under the omophorion of Metropolitan Mstyslav of the UOC of USA and Diaspora, who was later elected their first Patriarch.

In the balance of its work during the annual session the Council approved the budget of the Consistory for the current fiscal year and the reports of all Church departments, organizations and institutions, as well as plans for programs and events scheduled throughout the year.

 

 


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