Boretsky, Mykola

Boretsky, Mykola [Борецький, Микола; Borec'kyj], b 19 December 1879 in Sarny, Volhynia, d 1936 (?) in Leningrad. Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church (UAOC). Boretsky graduated from the Kyiv Theological Academy (1901) and was ordained an Orthodox priest in 1904. He held a number of parish and teaching positions before becoming a Russian army chaplain in 1914. In 1917 he became the pastor of the Orthodox cathedral in Haisyn. For celebrating the Liturgy in Ukrainian in 1920 he was banned from performing church services by Bishop Pimen in 1920. Subsequently Boretsky joined the UAOC in 1921 and in 1922 was consecrated bishop of the Haisyn region. In October 1927, the Second All-Ukrainian Orthodox Sobor elected him metropolitan of Ukraine. As primate of the UAOC Boretsky chaired several church conferences and pastoral meetings under adverse political conditions (governmental pressure), co-ordinated the work of 12 Kyiv parishes, and published many articles in the UAOC journal Tserkva i zhyttia. In 1930 he was pressured into signing the decree liquidating the UAOC. Not long thereafter he was arrested and imprisoned in Yaroslavl, where repeated torture took a toll on his mental faculties. He was moved to the Solovets Islands in 1933 and then in 1934 to a psychiatric hospital in Leningrad, where he died.

[This article шас упдатед ін 1996.]