Bishop Mstyslav at the consecration of the UVAN building in the United States. January 28, 1962. UVAN Archives
Bishop Mstyslav at the UVAN in the United States. New York, 1959. UVAN Archives
Not so often in Ukrainian history has there been a figure who served his people with the weapon of a soldier, the dignity of a politician, and the word of a priest.
Serhiy Hrabovsky, publicist
Mstyslav (Stepan Skrypnyk) was the first Patriarch of Kyiv and All Ukraine, a Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, the United States, Western Europe, South America, Australia, and New Zealand.
He was born on April 10, 1898, in Poltava in an intelligent family with Cossack roots, which fostered Ukrainian patriotic sentiments. Like his uncle, Symon Petliura, he was stigmatized and tabooed in the USSR. However, now that the name and activities of Patriarch Mstyslav have become known, he is deservedly called one of the nation’s spiritual leaders, a man of unwavering faith.
Stepan Skrypnyk graduated from a gymnasium in Poltava, where he joined a secret circle of patriotic Ukrainian youth; and an officer’s school in Orenburg. In March 1918, he volunteered to join the Kost Hordienko Regiment of the Separate Zaporizhzhia Division of the UPR Army, where he participated in battles with the Bolsheviks and was promoted to the rank of khorunzhy (standard-bearer). He was a personal aide to Symon Petliura (1920-1921).
After the defeat of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, he lived in exile in Warsaw. He graduated from the Higher School of Political Science there. In 1930-1939, he was an ambassador to the Polish Sejm from the Ukrainians of Volyn, vigorously defending their interests. He also published the newspaper “Volyn” in Rivne. During this period, he also became closer to the church: he took a course in theology at the University of Warsaw. He worked together with the bishops and clergy of the UAOC (Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church).
A turning point in Stepan Skrypnyk’s life was the tragic murder of his wife in 1940 and his brothers and mother by the Soviet authorities. He devoted himself to serving the Ukrainian people and fighting for a national autocephalous church. In 1942, he took vows as a monk and became the bishop of the Pereyaslav UAOC. The Gestapo soon imprisoned him. Thanks to the efforts of the UAOC bishops, he was released but banned from officiating.
From 1944, he lived in Germany and France, developing the Ukrainian church as the bishop of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Paris. He helped to evacuate Ukrainian clergy and their families to Western Europe. In 1947, as an archbishop, he was sent to Canada, where he was elected the first hierarch of the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church with the title of Bishop of Winnipeg and All Canada. In 1950, he moved to the United States, where in 1971, he was elected Metropolitan of the UOC in the United States, Western Europe, South America, Australia, and New Zealand.
One of the most significant achievements of Metropolitan Mstyslav in the United States was the construction of the “Ukrainian Jerusalem ” in America, the spiritual center of the Orthodox Ukrainian diaspora in South Bound Brook, New Jersey. This center consisted of the Church of St. Andrew, where he was later buried in a crypt; the St. Sophia Seminary, a library, a museum, a consistory, a retirement home; monuments to Metropolitan Vasyl (Lypkivsky) and Grand Princess Olga, and a cemetery — a pantheon of prominent Ukrainians.
At the end of his life, fate prepared for him another great mission: to contribute to forming the Ukrainian church in independent Ukraine. On October 30, 1989, he was proclaimed patriarch of the UAOC in Ukraine and abroad. On June 6, 1990, at the local All-Ukrainian Orthodox Council in Kyiv, he was named patriarch of the UAOC of Kyiv and All Ukraine. After the proclamation of the UOC-KP (Kyiv Patriarchate) in 1992, he became its primate with the title of patriarch. In this way, he realized the primary imperative of his service to Ukraine — to combine spiritual revival with national revival.
Patriarch Mstyslav died at 96 on June 11, 1993, in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada.
Memorial plaques and streets named after him can be found in several cities, including Kyiv, Poltava, and Kamianets-Podilskyi. A memorial museum was opened in his birthplace, Poltava, in 1995.
