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 Civil registry, registration of the birth ...

Ivan Ivanovych Ohienko; ; 2 January (14 January), 1882 in Brusyliv, Kyiv Governorate – 29 March 1972 in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

Manitoba Manitoba is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population ...

, Canada) was a Ukrainian Orthodox

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 language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, church historian, and historian of Ukrainian culture. In 1940 he was

Archimandrite The title archimandrite (; ), used in Eastern Christianity, originally referred to a superior abbot ('' hegumenos'', , present participle of the verb meaning "to lead") whom a bishop appointed to supervise several "ordinary" abbots and monaste ...

of the St. Onuphrius Monastery in Jableczna; in 1940 he became Bishop of

Chełm Chełm (; ; ) is a city in eastern Poland in the Lublin Voivodeship 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 from the border with Ukraine. The ...

; in 1944 he became the Metropolitan of Chełm and

Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...

( Lubelskie), and in 1951

Primate Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...

of the

Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada (UOCC; ; ; ) is an Eastern Orthodox church in Canada, primarily consisting of Orthodox Ukrainian Canadians. Its former name (before 1990) was the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church of Canada (UGOCC). The C ...

. He was also active in Ukrainian politics, both during the

revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

and later in emigration.

Early life

Ivan Ohienko was born in central Ukraine ( Kyiv Gubernia). In 1900 he graduated from the Kyiv military field physician school where he studied along with Russian poet Demyan Bedny. Later Ohienko had been educated at

Kyiv University The Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (; also known as Kyiv University, Shevchenko University, or KNU) is a public university in Kyiv, Ukraine. The university is the third-oldest university in Ukraine after the University of Lviv and ...

where he studied Slavic philology (see

Slavistics Slavic (American English) or Slavonic (British English) studies, also known as Slavistics, is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic peoples, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or Slavicist was ...

) under Vladimir Peretts. By 1915, he was teaching at this same university, and during the revolution became active in the Ukrainianization of higher education. In 1919, he was Minister of Education in the

Ukrainian People's Republic The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) was a short-lived state in Eastern Europe. Prior to its proclamation, the Central Council of Ukraine was elected in March 1917 Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, as a result of the February Revolution, ...

(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 13–14 November 1918 during a session of the Ukrainian National Union in rebellion against th ...

. After the military defeat of Petliura's forces, together with Petliura he went into exile in

Tarnów Tarnów () is a city in southeastern Poland with 105,922 inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of 269,000 inhabitants. The city is situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship. It is a major rail junction, located on the strategic east– ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. He remained in Poland between the wars and remained active in the UPR government in

exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

. Until 1932, he taught in the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at

Warsaw University The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well as 100 specializat ...

, but was dismissed under political pressure from Polish nationalist elements.

Bishop

In 1937 Ohienko became a widower after a death of his wife Dominika. On 9 October 1940 Ohienko accepted a tonsure of monk in

Jabłeczna Jabłeczna is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Sławatycze, within Biała Podlaska County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland, close to the border with Belarus. It lies approximately north-east of Sławatycze, south-east of ...

Orthodox monastery by Metropolitan Dionysius (Waledyński), taking the name Ilarion. On 20 October 1940 at the Chelm assembly of Ukrainian Orthodox Bishops on Daniel Hill Ilarion (Ohienko) was ordained as Bishop of Chelm and Podlasie. His cheirotonia was carried by Metropolitan Dionysius (Waledyński), Archbishop of Prague Savvatij (Vrabec) and Bishop of Lublin Timothy (Szretter). In face of the advance of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

, 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 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 side of t ...

, 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 Cyril (; born Constantine, 826–869) and Methodius (; born Michael, 815–885) were brothers, Byzantine Christian theologians and missionaries. For their work evangelizing the Slavs, they are known as the "Apostles to the Slavs". They are ...

(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 The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, 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 Populism is a contested concept used to refer to a variety of political stances that emphasize the idea of the " common people" and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite. It is frequently associated with anti-establis ...

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, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

, some of his works betray a polemical anti-

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

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 (; ) 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 Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches. The status has been compared with t ...

and Ukrainian political independence.

Ohienko Bible

Between 1917 and 1940, he completed a translation of the Bible into the Ukrainian language, finally published in 1958. His translation of the

Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...

became available in 1937, and the rest of the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

and the

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of B ...

in 1939. His Ukrainian translation is the one most widely used nowadays, with Ukrainian Bible Society starting to publish mass editions in 1995. Before that, his translation was mainly being published in the US, Canada, and Western Europe.

References

*
Огієнко Іван Іванович
in 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 Ukrainian historians of religion Ukrainian emigrants to Canada Primates of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada Bishops of the Polish Orthodox Church 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 Ukrainian translators 20th-century Ukrainian linguists Linguists of Ukrainian