The remains of OUN founder Yevhen Konovalets will be transported to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Cathedral in Kyiv for reburial

The remains of Yevhen Konovalets, founder of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), will be brought to Kyiv for a farewell ceremony. The event will take place at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. This was reported by the Office of the President of Ukraine.

The exhumation of the remains, which had previously been interred at the Crossways Cemetery in Rotterdam, was organized at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Representatives of the Office of the President, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and experts from the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance participated in the project.

Yevhen Konovalets, born in 1891, was a prominent figure in the Ukrainian nationalist movement. At one time, he commanded a corps of Sich Riflemen and held the rank of colonel in the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR). In 1929, he became one of the founders of the OUN and led the organization. His life was tragically cut short in 1938 as a result of a terrorist attack in Rotterdam, after which leadership of the movement passed to Andriy Melnyk.

Following the conclusion of the farewell ceremony at the UGCC cathedral in Kyiv, Yevhen Konovalets’ remains are scheduled to be reburied at the National Military Memorial Cemetery.

As a reminder, earlier, the head of the OCU, Epiphanius Dumenko, approved an initiative to establish a National Pantheon of Heroes in Ukraine on the grounds of the Holy Dormition Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. In his view, such a step is necessary “to restore historical memory and properly immortalize the names of outstanding statesmen and military figures.”