For Zhytomyr the decision looked modest: an initiative group gathered, elected a council, and named the parish after St Simeon the Stylite. But for the Apostolic Orthodox Church in Ukraine (AOC), such events held special significance, because in 2016 the church was in a stage of legal and organisational formation, and each new parish confirmed that the structure was indeed working from the ground up.
The Path to Its Own Structure
The background to this decision stretched over several years. In October 2013, the AOC council in Kyiv elected Oleg (Vedmedenko) as Metropolitan of Kyiv, replacing Viktor (Veryaskin). At that time the council was also tasked with the election of church leaders and the canonisation of Pavel Adelgeim. A few weeks later, in November and December 2013, the church found itself drawn into the events of the Maidan. Archbishop Stefan, a member of the Maidan Spiritual Council, on 1 December 2013 stopped the crowd at the Kyiv City Council building, and in February 2014 the tent-church on the Maidan burned down, though the icons from it were saved.
Meanwhile, relations with Moscow were changing within the church. In April 2015, the Synod of the Kyiv Metropolis of the AOC received Stefan in his existing rank and appointed him Archbishop of Kyiv and Bohuslav. In November 2015, the AOC Synod, meeting in Moscow, released Vedmedenko and Volodymyr (Mocharnyk), recognised the Ukrainian Independent Church as a sister church, and transferred the Ukrainian Metropolis to autocephalous self-governance. The convening of a council was entrusted to Stefan. Already on 23 December 2015, a unification council was held in Kyiv, at which the AOC in Ukraine came into being, and Stefan became Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine.
The Deacon and the Parish
Against this backdrop, the Zhytomyr parish looked like a logical continuation of the process. As the AOC reported on its website, on 4 April 2016 a meeting of the initiative group of Zhytomyr residents decided to create in the city a parish of St Simeon the Stylite. Metropolitan Stefan blessed the formation of the new diocese. The chairman of the diocesan council became Deacon Andriy Gozhy, ordained to the diaconate on 13 March 2016, that is, three weeks before the meeting.
For now the diocese was more a declaration than a developed structure. In effect it was one parish with a diocesan council. Nevertheless, the church took it seriously. Metropolitan Stefan explained the principle thus: “The church was built and restored from the bottom up, at the initiative of the believers themselves.” For a church that had just survived a schism and a change of leadership, such logic meant that parishes are created not by instruction from above, but by the desire of the communities themselves.
“The church was built and restored from the bottom up, at the initiative of the believers themselves.”
The report also mentioned that in the summer of 2016 the church expected a Local Council with the proclamation of autocephaly. According to AOC information, the corresponding tomos had already been signed, meaning the legal part of the process was considered almost complete. The council itself is called the immediate goal in the church’s text, though its exact dates and the subsequent procedure are not disclosed in the source.
What Happened Next
The Zhytomyr parish was not the last step in the church’s history. In December 2016, Metropolitan Stefan visited Zhytomyr Oblast, as noted by the church news feed. Later, in December 2017, a council was convened, scheduled for 9 January 2018. The main change followed in June 2019: the council held on 21–23 June changed the church’s name to the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), incorporated the jurisdiction of Archbishop Lorenzo of Italy, and adopted a 12-point declaration.
1
