Khoroshy, Mykhail

Khoroshy, Mykhail [Хороший, Михаїл; Xorošyj, Myxajil], b 10 July 1885 in Fedorivka, Kherson gubernia, d 18 May 1977 in Toronto. Orthodox metropolitan. Following studies at the Kyiv Theological Academy and Kyiv University, Khoroshy was ordained in the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church (UAOC) in 1920. From 1920 to 1929 he was a pastor in Ternivka and Cherkasy and from 1923 head of the Cherkasy okruha church council. Arrested in 1929, he spent eight years in the GULAG concentration camps. In May 1942 he was consecrated bishop of the Yelysavethrad eparchy of the UAOC, and in November 1942 he became archbishop with duties in Mykolaiv (until 1944). As archbishop of the UAOC in Bavaria after the Second World War, he helped establish the Theological Academy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Munich and served as its first administrative curator (1946–8). From 1946 to 1951 he was vice-metropolitan and vice-chairman of the Holy Synod of the UAOC. He moved to Belgium in 1948. In 1951 he became archbishop of the Eastern eparchy and vice-metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada, and he was acting primate of the church from 1967 to 1975. He was elevated to metropolitan in 1975. Khoroshy is the author of religious texts and studies, poetry, and numerous musical compositions; he also completed one of the first translations of the Psalter into Ukrainian (1919).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]