Metropolitan Ilarion (
secular name
A legal name is the name that identifies a person for legal, administrative and other official purposes. A person's legal birth name generally is the name of the person that was given for the purpose of registration of the birth and which then ap ...
Ivan Ivanovitch Ohienko; uk, Іван Іванович Огієнко; 2 January (14 January), 1882 in
Brusilov,
Kiev Governorate
Kiev Governorate, r=Kievskaya guberniya; uk, Київська губернія, Kyivska huberniia (, ) was an administrative division of the Russian Empire from 1796 to 1919 and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1919 to 1925. It wa ...
– 29 March 1972 in
Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada) was a
Ukrainian Orthodox
The history of Christianity in Ukraine dates back to the earliest centuries of the history of Christianity, to the Apostolic Age, with mission trips along the Black Sea and a legend of Saint Andrew even ascending the hills of Kyiv. The first Ch ...
cleric
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
,
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingui ...
, church historian, and historian of Ukrainian culture. In 1940 he was
Archimandrite
The title archimandrite ( gr, ἀρχιμανδρίτης, archimandritēs), used in Eastern Christianity, originally referred to a superior abbot (''hegumenos'', gr, ἡγούμενος, present participle of the verb meaning "to lead") who ...
of the St. Onuphrius Monastery in
Jableczna; in 1940 he became Bishop of
Chełm
Chełm (; uk, Холм, Kholm; german: Cholm; yi, כעלם, Khelm) is a city in southeastern Poland with 60,231 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is located to the south-east of Lublin, north of Zamość and south of Biała Podlaska, some ...
; in 1944 he became the
Metropolitan
Metropolitan may refer to:
* Metropolitan area, a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories
* Metropolitan borough, a form of local government district in England
* Metropolitan county, a typ ...
of Chełm and
Lublin
Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of ...
(
Podlaskie
Podlaskie Voivodeship or Podlasie Province ( pl, Województwo podlaskie, ) is a voivodeship (province) in northeastern Poland. The name of the province and its territory correspond to the historic region of Podlachia. The capital and largest ci ...
), and in 1951
Primate of the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada). He was also active in Ukrainian politics, both during the
revolution and later in emigration.
Early life
Ivan Ohienko was born in central Ukraine (
Kiev Gubernia) and educated at
Kiev University where he studied Slavic philology (see
Slavistics) under V. Peretts. By 1915, he was teaching at this same university, and during the revolution became active in the
Ukrainianization
Ukrainization (also spelled Ukrainisation), sometimes referred to as Ukrainianization (or Ukrainianisation) is a policy or practice of increasing the usage and facilitating the development of the Ukrainian language and promoting other elements of ...
of higher education. In 1919, he was Minister of Education in the
Ukrainian People's Republic
The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR), or Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), was a country in Eastern Europe that existed between 1917 and 1920. It was declared following the February Revolution in Russia by the First Universal. In March 19 ...
(UPR) which was at that time headed by the
Directorate of Ukraine
The Directorate, or Directory () was a provisional collegiate revolutionary state committee of the Ukrainian People's Republic, initially formed on November 13–14, 1918 during a session of the Ukrainian National Union in rebellion against S ...
. After the military defeat of Petliura's forces, together with Petliura he went into exile in
Tarnów,
Poland. He remained in Poland between the wars and remained active in the UPR government in
exile. Until 1932, he taught in the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at
Warsaw University, but was dismissed under political pressure from Polish nationalist elements.
Bishop
In 1940, he became Bishop of Chełm in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
-occupied Poland.
In face of the advance of the
Red Army, he fled west and in 1947 settled in Winnipeg in Western Canada where shortly afterward he became Metropolitan bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada. Throughout his long career, in addition to church work, Ohienko contributed to scholarship and other areas of Ukrainian culture.
Scholarly work
As a scholar, Ohienko made contributions to Ukrainian linguistics,
church history
__NOTOC__
Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception.
Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual ...
, and the history of Ukrainian culture. He published books on the history of Ukrainian linguistics (1907), the history of Ukrainian printing (1925), the pre-Christian beliefs of the Ukrainian people (1965), the history of the Ukrainian literary language (1950), and published several studies in Ukrainian church history of the Cossack era. He also published a general history of the Ukrainian Church (1942), a two volume work on
Saints Cyril and Methodius (1927–28), edited several semi-scholarly journals, and compiled a multi-volume etymological-semantic dictionary of the Ukrainian language which was only published after his death. Most of the works first published in Poland were reprinted in Winnipeg during the
Cold War, and then, again, in Ukraine after the re-establishment of independence in 1991.
The Divine Liturgy of our Holy Father John Chrysostom, in the Ukrainian language — Part I, Text: Proskomidia, Divine Liturgy, Prayers following Holy Communion. (L'viv, 1922)
The Divine Liturgy of our Holy Father John Chrysostom, in the Ukrainian language — Part II, Explanation of the Text, Translation Methodology of Divine service books into Ukrainian, Explanatory notes on the translation of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Alphabetical list of corresponding Church Slavonic words, List of publications of the Non-profit Publishing House Ukrainian Autocephalous Church under the direction of Prof. Ivan Ohienko. (L'viv, 1922)
Holy Vespers. (L'viv, 1922)
Compline and Midnight Service. (L'viv, 1922)
Holy Matins Service. (L'viv, 1922)
Little Vespers, Holy All-night Vigil, Saturday Midnight Service, Sunday Midnight Service. (L'viv, 1922)
First Hour, Third Hour, Sixth Hour, Ninth Hour. (L'viv, 1922)
Great Compline. (L'viv, 1922)
Daily Dismissals, Dismissals at Feasts of the Lord, Troparia and Kondakia at Feasts throughout the year, Festal Prokeimena at Orthros Services. (L'viv, 1922)
Matins Gospels. (L'viv, 1922)
Prayer of Thanksgiving of St. Ambrose, Bishop of Mediolanum, Nationalisation of theological texts, Afterword, Table of Contents, Errata. (L'viv, 1922)
Byzantium and Ukraine (1954)
Political activities
A political moderate, during the revolution, Ohienko was a member of the Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Federalists. He was a
populist committed to bringing the church closer to the common people, spreading the achievements of scholarship among wider circles of the public, and narrowing the gap between the literary language and the vernacular. Always firmly committed to
Eastern Orthodoxy
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical" ...
, some of his works betray a polemical anti-
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
tone, but he never acceded to the ecclesiastical or political claims of Moscow (see
Moscow Patriarchy) and to his death in 1972 remained a strong supporter of Ukrainian church
autocephaly
Autocephaly (; from el, αὐτοκεφαλία, meaning "property of being self-headed") is the status of a hierarchical Christian church whose head bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop. The term is primarily used in Eastern Ort ...
and Ukrainian political independence.
Ohienko Bible
Between 1917 and 1940, he also realized a translation of the Bible into the Ukrainian language, finally published in 1958. His translation of the
Gospels became available in 1937, and the rest of the
New Testament and the
Psalms in 1939. His Ukrainian translation is the one most widely used nowadays, with
Ukrainian Bible Society Ukrainian Bible Society ( uk, Українське Біблійне Товариство), is a religious non-profit organization, established by representatives of different Christian denominations in Ukraine, who recognize the Bible as the Word ...
starting to publish mass editions in 1995. Before that, his translation was mainly being published in the USA, Canada, and Western Europe.
References
*
Огієнко Іван Івановичin the ''Hand-book on the History of Ukraine''
at the Encyclopedia of Ukraine
External links
Ohienko Bible online
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ohienko, Ilarion
1882 births
1972 deaths
People from Zhytomyr Oblast
People from Radomyslsky Uyezd
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv alumni
Kiev Military Medical School alumni
Linguists from Ukraine
Ukrainian historians of religion
Ukrainian emigrants to Canada
Primates of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada
Translators of the Bible into Ukrainian
Ukrainianists
Education ministers of Ukraine
Ukrainian Democratic Party (1904) politicians
20th-century Ukrainian politicians
20th-century Ukrainian historians
20th-century translators
20th-century linguists