The APC, or the Association of Orthodox Communities of the Apostolic Tradition, was a centralized structure with its own Synod and primate. Its Ukrainian part lived by its own logic: in October 2013, a council in Kyiv elected Bishop Oleh (Vedmedenko) as Metropolitan of Kyiv, replacing Viktor Veryaskin, and a council that same year canonized Pavel Adelgeim. The primate of the entire church remained Metropolitan Vitaly (Kuzhevatov), Metropolitan of Moscow.
The extract from the Synod's protocol is dated 29 November 2015, and that same evening it was published in a post on the Synod's LiveJournal blog. The Synod granted Metropolitan Oleh's request to relinquish his powers as head of the Ukrainian Metropolis, relieved him of all administrative posts, and expressed gratitude for his service. Requests to transfer to autocephalous service were submitted by both Oleh and Bishop Volodymyr (Mocharnyk), who served as bishop in Transcarpathia and Montenegro and later became a co-founder of the UNAPC.
The Synod recognized the new church as a sister church while preserving eucharistic communion. The question of its status was referred to the Local Council of the APC for approval. For a joint council of the APC and UNAPC, a permanent commission was created under the co-chairmanship of Metropolitans Vitaly and Oleh—that is, the leading figures of the old order and the new association.
Decision on the Ukrainian Metropolis
The main decision concerned those communities that remained in the APC. The Synod formulated it directly:
to transfer the Ukrainian Metropolis of the APC to fully autocephalous self-governance
Synod of the APC, 29.11.2015
The text of the decision cites the “military-political situation” as the reason. Self-governance was introduced until the normalization of Russian-Ukrainian relations, and the directive of Patriarch Tikhon No. 362 was to be followed. The phrase “emergence of a separate Ukrainian jurisdiction,” which appeared in discussions, requires clarification. According to the text of the extract, there are two separate processes here. The first concerns Vedmedenko's UNAPC, which the Synod recognized as a sister. The second concerns the self-governance of the remaining Ukrainian Metropolis, which was to be reassembled.
The Synod entrusted the council of the Ukrainian Metropolis and the election of a new Metropolitan of All Ukraine to Archbishop Stefan (Negrebetsky) of Kyiv and Bohuslav. Born in 1942, he participated in the Spiritual Council of the Maidan. In December 2013 on the Maidan, he restrained the crowd at the Kyiv City Council building, and in April 2015 the Synod of the Kyiv Metropolis of the APC received him in his existing rank and appointed him Archbishop of Kyiv and Bohuslav. He became the Synod's responsible representative in organizing the council precisely because his authority in Kyiv was recognized both within the church and beyond it.
The document was signed by Metropolitan Vitaly as primate, Metropolitan Jairo, who oversaw Central and South America, Bishops Grigory of Varangia and the Baltic, Mikhail of Hesse and Bihar, and also the Synod Secretary Bishop Simeon of Krutitsy and Kolomna. The announcement by Oleh and Volodymyr was published on the APC website in Ukraine on 1 December—that is, after the Synod's decision—and this is clearly visible in the sequence of events: first the withdrawal and the creation of the UNAPC, then Moscow's response.
Oleh Vedmedenko remains in the history of the Ukrainian apostolic community as the first primate of the UNAPC. In November 2021 he passed away; the APC in Ukraine reported his death that same month. At the time of his withdrawal from the APC, he was Bishop of Volyn and Galicia, and he began his service in Lutsk.
The practical consequences of the decision manifested the following month. On 23 December 2015, a unification council was held in Kyiv, at which the parishes remaining in the Ukrainian Metropolis gathered under a single leadership, and Stefan became Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine of the APC in Ukraine.
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