Patriarchate of Constantinople ordains new bishop of Ukrainian origin

On November 10, 2024, a cleric of the Patriarchate of Constantinople was ordained as a bishop in Vienna. Archimandrite Maksym Rudko, a native of Ukraine, became the new Bishop of Aristia, Vicar of the Austrian Metropolis of the Constantinople Patriarchate. This was reported on the Facebook page of the Vienna parish of the UOC of the Constantinople Patriarchate.

Bishop Maxim (in the world Roman Rudko) of Aristia was born in Lviv on July 25, 1983. He is a graduate of the Lviv Theological Seminary of the OCU and the Faculty of Theology of Aristotle University in Salonnyky. He completed his master’s degree at the same university.

Rudko took monasticism and diaconal ordination under the tutelage of Metropolitan Arseny (Kardamakis) of Austria and Exarch of Hungary in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Vienna in 2018. In 2023, Metropolitan Arseny ordained him to the rank of presbyter, and at the same time Fr. Maxim received the rank of archimandrite and the position of protosyncellus of the Metropolis of Austria, Hungarian Exarchate.

On August 29, 2024, at a meeting of the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, he was nominated as a vicar bishop of the Metropolis of Austria with the title of Bishop of Aristeas.

As reported earlier, the Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which took place from October 22 to 24, 2024, did not adopt any resolutions on the Ukrainian church issue due to the lack of positive dynamics in this matter. The meeting heard a report by members of the Phanar delegation who visited Ukraine in August, in which the main conclusion was the unwillingness of the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the head of the OCU to make mutual concessions to start a dialogue.