The meeting was chaired by Metropolitan Oleg (Vedmedenko) of Kyiv and All Ukraine. Also participating in the Synod were Bishop Volodymyr (Mocharnyk) of Chornohora and Zakarpattia, Archbishop Gerontiy (Khovansky) of Sumy and Vinnytsia, Bishop Ihor (Goretsky) of Ivano-Frankivsk and Kolomyia, and Bishop Sergiy (Babarevych) of Donetsk and Kharkiv. The secretary of the assembly was Hierodeacon Maksym Molnar. The minutes were published on the website of the APC in Ukraine, and the consequences of the decision date from that day.
The Synod granted the petition of Archbishop Stefan (Negrebetsky) and received him into the metropolis in his existing rank. At the request of the Kyiv Epiphany of the Lord community, he was placed on the Kyiv See with the title of Archbishop of Kyiv and Bohuslav. The decision was adopted by five votes, with no objections. The start of his service in the new place was set as the day of publication of the minutes.
What was decided and what was not
The minutes describe the reception into the metropolis and appointment to one see. There is no leadership of the entire church in them. Such a wording in materials about the meeting was sometimes used more broadly, as if it concerned a new stage in the governance of the APC, but the text of the minutes does not say this. Stefan headed the Kyiv See, and this status became the basis for his future appointments, but he became head of the church later.
The minutes also do not name Stefan's previous church circle. The petition for reception in his existing rank means that his sacred rank was recognized without a second ordination, and this was an important condition for the rapid inclusion of the hierarch in the structures of the metropolis. There are no details in the publication about how the transition took place.
Maidan and the community
Stefan was born in 1942 and by the time of his appointment to the Kyiv See was one of the most prominent hierarchs of the APC associated with the events of the winter of 2013–2014. On 1 December 2013 he stopped the crowd at the Kyiv City Council building, and later joined the Spiritual Council of the Maidan. The Synod minutes themselves do not mention the Maidan; this is the biography of the archbishop, not the subject of the decision.
The Kyiv community, whose petition became the basis for the appointment, was connected with the same Maidan. Its rector, Archpriest Sergiy Vutyanov, an icon painter and author of the icon of Priest Pavel Adelgeim, brought the icons of the Kyiv community to the square on 5 January 2014. On 19 February 2014 the tent-church burned down, but the icons were saved. For the community, which during the difficult months maintained its own church on the Maidan, the appearance of a hierarch with a clear Kyiv title became recognition of its role.
The Synod granted the petition of Archbishop Stefan (Negrebetsky) and received him into the metropolis in his existing rank.
Six months before unification
The Kyiv Metropolis of the APC, in which Stefan received a see, was itself a recent formation. On 18 October 2013, the APC council in Kyiv introduced the election of the primate for four years, canonized Pavel Adelgeim, and elected Oleg (Vedmedenko) as Metropolitan of Kyiv instead of Viktor Veryaskin. The church, however, remained closely tied to Moscow, where its primate, Metropolitan Vitaliy (Kuzhevatov), was located.
Six months after the Synod meeting, internal tensions in the APC came to the surface. On 22 November 2015, Oleg (Vedmedenko) and Volodymyr (Mocharnyk) announced the creation of the Ukrainian Independent Autocephalous Orthodox Church. On 29 November, the APC Synod in Moscow released both hierarchs, recognized the new structure as a sister church, transferred the Ukrainian Metropolis to autocephalous self-governance, and instructed Archbishop Stefan to convene a council. Thus the Kyiv See, which he received in April, found itself at the center of the restructuring of the entire Ukrainian part of the church.
On 23 December 2015, a unification council was held in Kyiv. At it, the Ukrainian part of the APC received the name APC in Ukraine, Stefan was elected metropolitan, and Archpriest Gleb Yakunin, secretary of the Synod, was glorified. The decision adopted in April in his existing rank turned in December into Stefan's first metropolitan service on Ukrainian soil.
1
