Teodorovych, Ioan

Teodorovych, Ioan [Теодорович, Йоан; Teodorovyč, Joan], b 6 October 1887 in Krupets, Dubno county, Volhynia gubernia, d 3 May 1971 in Philadelphia. Orthodox metropolitan. He was ordained in 1915, during the First World War, and worked for the Red Cross on the southwestern front. In 1918 he served as divisional chaplain for the Graycoats and other units of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic in the Kholm region, Kyiv region, and Podilia. In 1920 he joined the newly formed Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church (UAOC), and in 1921 was consecrated bishop of Podilia and metropolitan by Vasyl Lypkivsky. At the request of Orthodox Ukrainians in North America and at the behest of the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council, he was sent in 1924 to the United States. In June 1924 he was elected bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA (UOC-USA), and in July 1924 he was elected bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada (UOCC; most of that church's affairs were administered by its consistory, because Teodorovych had settled in Philadelphia). In the 1930s and 1940s Teodorovych worked to unite the two major Ukrainian Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States, the UOC-USA and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America (UOCA). He faced opposition from leaders of the UOCA, who questioned the canonicity of his episcopal consecration in the UAOC. In 1949 he was reconsecrated by the exarch of the patriarch of Alexandria in the United States, and the next year most parishes of the UOCA accepted his leadership. In 1950 he assumed the post of metropolitan. His negotiations with the UOCA jurisdictions were opposed by the leadership of the UOCC, however, and in 1947 he was forced to resign as bishop of that church. U velyke nevidome (Into the Great Unknown, 3 vols), a collection of Teodorovych's sermons, popular theological works, meditations, and fiction, was published in 1968–70.

Arkadii Zhukovsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]