Nazarko, Irynei

Nazarko, Irynei [Назарко, Іриней], b 7 July 1905 in Tovstoluh, Ternopil county, Galicia, d 20 April 1976 in Ottawa, Canada. Basilian priest, church activist, and scholar; full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society from 1956. He entered the Krekhiv Monastery in 1922 and was ordained in 1930 after completing his education in Basilian schools. In 1932–44 he headed the Marian societies movement in Galicia and helped edit several of its publications. He was hegumen of Saint Onuphrius's Monastery in Lviv (1941–4) until he emigrated, first to Germany and then to Canada. There he edited the journal Svitlo (1946–8), obtained a doctoral degree in philosophy from Ottawa University (1951), and was a visiting professor at universities in Ottawa and Montreal (1949–53). He moved to Rome and in 1955 became general counselor for the Basilian monastic order and rector of Saint Josaphat's Ukrainian Pontifical College. He returned to Canada in the late 1960s and became a spiritual adviser to Basilian students at the University of Ottawa. Nazarko was a prolific writer; his publications include Sviatyi Volodymyr Velykyi... (Saint Volodymyr the Great, 1954) and Kyïvs'ki i halyts’ki mytropolyty (Kyivan and Halych Metropolitans, 1962).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]