Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada convenes 20th Sobor in Winnipeg (07/30/00)

Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada convenes 20th Sobor in Winnipeg

by Jars Balan

WINNIPEG - Under a banner proclaiming "A Celebration of Life: Jesus Christ: The Same Yesterday, Today and Forever," the clergy and faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada (UOCC) on July 12-16 held their 20th Sobor.

Meeting in the Lombard Hotel in the heart of the provincial capital, Church members and their pastors under the spiritual leadership of Metropolitan Wasyly, patiently worked their way through a demanding four-day program that included educational workshops, administrative reports, speeches and in-depth discussions of a wide variety of topics presented for consideration by delegates from congregations across Canada.

Vespers were held each night at a temporary chapel off the main meeting room, and the Sobor culminated with a hierarchical divine liturgy at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in North End Winnipeg, followed by a youth rally in a park opposite the offices of the UOCC Consistory.

The Sobor was preceded by a two-day conference of the clergy, a day-long meeting of clergy wives, as well as a national conference of the Ukrainian Women's Association of Canada. The latter took advantage of the quinquennial Church assembly to explore the topic of leadership in a more relaxed setting than that customarily afforded by the general conventions of the Ukrainian Self-Reliance League of Canada.

Two artistic presentations were mounted in conjunction with the Sobor. An exhibition of icons, embracing the work of four Ukrainian Canadian iconographers, was displayed at the Ukrainian Women's Association Museum at Holy Trinity Church, having previously been mounted in Toronto and Saskatoon. Similarly, the touring "Flowers of the Bible" show featuring original paintings by Edmonton's Larisa Sembaliuk Cheladyn, was presented at the Assiniboine Park Conservatory, while prints from the series were on view at the Lombard Hotel.

A Millennium Year project of the UOCC, the highly-successful "Flowers of the Bible" exposition is part way through a tour of major Canadian centers that began in Edmonton in October 1999 and will end in Montreal this December. The Assiniboine Park exhibit was seen by more than 6,000 people during the first week of July alone, attracting local residents, tourists and participants attending an international convention of herbalists that was also taking place in Winnipeg.

The Sobor itself enjoyed a record turnout, with a total of 299 lay delegates and 79 priests taking part in the deliberations and the election of a new consistory, which for the next five years will be headed by the Very Rev. William Makarenko, of St. Volodymyr Cathedral in Toronto, who had previously served as the chair of the consistory presidium in 1990-1995. Among the many guests and dignitaries in attendance were Metropolitan Constantine, Archbishop Antony and Archbishop Vsevolod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A.

A major focus of discussion at the Sobor was "Vision 2000: A Blueprint for the Future of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada." The product of a consultative process undertaken in the wake of the 19th Sobor, "Vision 2000" was introduced by sections outlining the vision, mission and guiding principles of the UOCC, followed by a series of "Challenges" organized under three headings: "Spiritual Renewal," "Educational Development" and "Stewardship."

Although long and rather cumbersome in form and content, the document did manage to keep debate tightly focused on a limited number of themes and issues, preventing a repeat of the last Sobor, when the final resolutions session continued into the early hours of the morning.

The business portion of the Sobor concluded with a banquet and concert attended by representatives of several different Churches. Glen Murray, the mayor of Winnipeg, brought greetings from the city and emphasized the importance of faith as he warmly recalled his Ukrainian Orthodox "baba" and his childhood years in Montreal. The concert program featured an impressive array of talent, and included the debut of two works specially written to help celebrate the Millennium - one, a choral composition titled "Our Faith," by Nestor Olynyk of Toronto, and the other, a duet called "Prayer to 'The Canadian Mother of God' Icon." The latter was written by the Rev. Oleksander Harkavyi, who gave a stirring performance of the invocation with his wife, Dobrodijka Olia.

More than two dozen resolutions were passed, including a provision calling for the establishment of a UOCC foundation to help fund Consistory activities; a directive to support unity among Orthodox jurisdictions in Ukraine, with the UOCC taking a more active role in this process; and a statement that affirmed, after much debate, the UOCC's relationship with the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

While not without its tensions and frustrations, the 20th Sobor of the UOCC went off smoothly, providing a rare example of Ukrainian Orthodox unity at a time when sister Churches in Ukraine and the diaspora have been wracked by conflicts and painful divisions.

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