Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA

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The Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA is a jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the United States. It consists of three eparchies (dioceses), ruled by three diocesan bishops, including about 105 parishes and missions. Its current primate is His Beatitude, Metropolitan Constantine of Irinoupolis.

History

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, large numbers of Ukrainian Orthodox and Ukrainian Uniate immigrants came to the United States, with many of the latter group converting to Orthodoxy after their immigration. Around 1915, a number of parishes organized themselves into an independent Ukrainian Orthodox jurisdiction in North America, finding guidance in a visiting Antiochian hierarch, Metr. Germanos (Shehadi) of Zahle. Eventually, a petition was sent in 1923 to the newly formed Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), a jurisdiction formed in the aftermath of Ukrainian independence in 1918, but which has never enjoyed canonical recognition in mainstream Orthodoxy. The UAOC sent Metr. John Teodorovich in 1924 to head an American-Canadian diocese, arriving amid questions about the validity of his consecration, given that he had been ordained by UAOC bishops, whose consecrations were unrecognized by the mainstream of the Orthodox Church.

Around the same time formed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America, an organization of former Uniate parishes who had disputed with the Vatican over the issue of parish property ownership and enforced clerical celibacy. On April 9, 1929, a meeting of 15 clergy and 24 laity was held in Allentown, Pennsylvania, at St. Mary's Ukrainian Catholic Church, in which those attending agreed to form a diocese of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians, though unlike those who had affiliated themselves with the UAOC, they wished to be part of a recognized canonical authority. Another meeting took place in New York City two years later, at which Fr. Joseph (Zuk) was nominated to become their bishop. He was ordained in September of 1932 to be the bishop of the new group, becoming an auxiliary of Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh, the primate of the American Orthodox Catholic Church (an early attempt at an autocephalous church in America by the Russian Metropolia). Bishop Joseph died only two years later, however,

Sources and external links