In memory of the executed Ukrainian Council
Soon we shall celebrate the 85 th anniversary of the All-Ukrainian Church Council (Sobor) in Kyiv, which restored the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for a short period of time. The church lost its autocephaly in 1696 as a result of an illegal agreement between Moscow and Constantinople. Moscow bought the Ukrainian Church from Patriarch Dionisius of Constantinople for “30 pieces of silver.” Centuries later, in 1921, the Ukrainian Council declared the restoration of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Clergyman Vasyl Lypkivsky, the greatest champion of Ukrainian autocephaly was elected metropolitan of the revived church.
Vasyl Lypkivsky (1864-1937) was born into the family of a village priest in Halychyna. He graduated from the Kyiv Mohyla Academy with the degree of Candidate of Theology. He was ordained in 1892, and in 1903 became the head of the Kyiv Church Teachers’ School. After losing this position “for being a Ukrainophile”, he was appointed vicar of a church in the Solomyanka district of Kyiv. Rev. Vasyl began his religious and political activities in 1905, which led to his being placed under “constant surveillance.” In 1917 he was caught up in the events connected with the question of autocephaly for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
In May 1919, under Soviet rule, Rev. Vasyl was the first cleric in Ukraine to conduct the Holy Liturgy in Ukrainian. He also took an active part in restoring the Ukrainian Church and was defrocked as a result. Soon he headed the work to organize the All-Ukrainian Church Sobor, despite the fact that all the Ukrainian bishops who were appointed by Moscow condemned the very idea of that conclave. But as Lypkivsky wrote later, “The Ukrainian Church Council decided not to consider the Russian bishops our archpastors and to ignore the prohibitions they had imposed.”
Practically all of Ukraine took part in laying the groundwork for the Sobor. Local councils held meetings, delegates were elected, and the agenda of the upcoming council was discussed. Despite the year of hunger and unsafe railroads, more than 400 delegates came to Kyiv from all over Ukraine. They were chiefly peasants and teachers. There were 60 priests and some outstanding Ukrainian personalities, such as Mykola Levytsky, Academician Ahatanhel Krymsky, Professor Vasyl Danylevych, and others. There was not a single bishop present!
The most important and difficult problem facing the Sobor, held in St. Sophia’s Cathedral, was the lack of Ukrainian bishops. The legitimacy and canonical nature of the Sobor had to be clarified: was Christ present? Had the Holy Spirit spoken at the Sobor? All the decisions and acts were supposed to be binding for the entire Ukrainian church.
The opening speech at the Sobor was delivered by Archpriest Vasyl Lypkivsky. The theses put forward in his speech were: “1. All the faithful who have come to this Sobor are not private individuals but elected representatives of their church communities. They speak for their communities; that is why the voice of the whole Ukrainian Church will be heard at the Sobor; 2. All the members of the Sobor have assembled to solve the problems of Christ’s Church, so Christ is at this Sobor; 3. All the members of the Sobor are inspired by the belief that the Holy Spirit guides the Church of Ukraine, and they are gathered here by the grace of the Holy Spirit; 4. All the above makes the Sobor completely canonical; 5. The bishops of Moscow have not come to the Sobor because they do not consider themselves members of our Church or its chosen ones. Nothing drives the Holy Spirit’s grace away more effectively than arrogance, pride, and dominance over one’s brothers.” After discussing the theses carefully, the Sobor recognized the assembly as the canonical and legitimate voice of the whole Ukrainian Church.
The most complicated task of the Sobor was, of course, creating a body of Ukrainian bishops. On the basis of historical evidence, the Sobor declared that in the times of the Apostles there was no ordination of bishops. For example, Apostle Paul was consecrated by the prophets, who were not bishops, and Apostle Paul was ordained by “priests laying hands upon him,” because the grace of the Holy Spirit does not generally belong to bishops but to the Church as a whole, i.e., the community of the faithful. That is why the Church of Ukraine has the right to put hands upon the chosen one and deliver the grace of the Holy Spirit upon him the same way as it was done in the times of the Apostles.
With all the priests laying their hands upon Vasyl Lypkivsky, the All-Ukrainian Sobor ordained its first metropolitan bishop and elected him the head of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC). Thus, the Sobor established the Ukrainian church hierarchy and adopted the main principles of church life: autocephaly, separation from the state, its integrity, and the use of Ukrainian in church services.
News of the Sobor echoed throughout Ukraine, especially among Kyiv intellectuals. There was great excitement in rural areas, and many groups of pilgrims left for Kyiv to hear Ukrainian-language church services, to see the new “people’s own” hierarchy, to feel “the new grace.” Two months after the Sobor more than 200 priests and an equal number of deacons had been ordained.
In October 1927, under the threat of arrest and exile, the participants of the Second All-Ukrainian Sobor reelected Lypkivsky the leader of the Church. Three years later, on orders of the GPU (State Political Directorate, the secret police), a Liquidation Sobor was held, during which the Church was forced to approve the following resolution: “Autocephaly has become the symbol of national-political Petliurite independence.” Arrests and shooting began. As Archbishop Mstyslav Skrypnyk stated in 1965, 30 bishops, 3,000 priests, and hundreds of thousands of faithful were killed.
In the last years of his life Metropolitan Lypkivsky remained under constant surveillance by the organs of repression, and was arrested and jailed several times. In October 1937 he was rearrested and sentenced to be shot summarily by a “troika” (tribunal) of the Kyiv Directorate of the NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs). His burial place is unknown. In 1997 the UAOC Sobor, presided over by Patriarch Dymitriy Yarema, canonized Vasyl Lypkivsky together with other church martyrs of the 1920s.
In the last years of his life Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky wrote: “The GPU has made the best of our Church redundant and watches over their tombs well. But we believe they will resurrect, and no guard will prevent this. But when? For the Lord, 1,000 years is but one day, and one day is like 1,000 years...”
