OCU hierarch unveils monument to self-dedicated Vasyl Lipkovsky

Former bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who joined the OCU in 2018, Oleksandr Drabynko performed religious ceremonies during the unveiling of a monument to the founder of the UAOC, self-proclaimed “metropolitan” Vasyl Lipkovsky. The monument was erected in the Solomyansky district of Kyiv. This is reported on the website of the Pereyaslav Diocese of the OCU.

“The monument was consecrated by Metropolitan Oleksandr of Pereyaslav and Vyshneve in concelebration with Bishop Volodymyr of Fastiv and the Council of Clergy of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. A memorial liturgy was also celebrated for the priest. The opening was attended by his grandson Konstantin, who was baptized by his grandfather,” the statement reads.

It should be noted that Vasyl Lipkovsky is a former priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, who is the formal founder of the so-called Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. In 1921, during the “All-Ukrainian Council of Clergy and Laity,” Lipkovsky was elected metropolitan and head of the UAOC. After that, without being ordained a bishop, Lipkovsky conferred on himself the powers of a bishop, despite the fact that no Orthodox Church in the world recognized the self-consecrated bishop and the UAOC, which he founded, as a Church. In 2018, the UAOC became part of the OCU, which was granted the Tomos of Autocephaly by the Patriarch of Constantinople.