Yaroshevsky, Yurii

Yaroshevsky, Yurii [Ярошевський, Юрій; Jaroševs'kyj, Jurij; secular name: Hryhorii], b 18 November 1872 in Ternivka, Podilia gubernia, d 8 February 1923 in Warsaw. Orthodox hierarch and pedagogue. A graduate of the Kyiv Theological Academy (1896), he contributed to Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka in Lviv. He was tonsured in 1898 and became rector of the Tula Theological Seminary. After being consecrated as a bishop in 1906, he served as vicar of Tula eparchy and Poltava eparchy, rector of the Saint Petersburg Theological Seminary (1910), bishop of Kaluga and then Minsk (1913), and archbishop of Kharkiv (1919; see Kharkiv eparchy). He emigrated to Italy by way of Serbia in 1920, and moved to Poland in 1921 to administer a portion of Minsk eparchy that had come under Polish control. He was elevated to the office of metropolitan of Warsaw (see Polish Autocephalous Orthodox church) by Patriarch Tikhon in 1922. As metropolitan he sanctioned the publication of Pravoslavna Volyn’ as a Ukrainian-language church organ, allowed the introduction of the vernacular Ukrainian language into liturgies, and initiated translations into Ukrainian of church texts. He also supported the granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox church in Ukraine, although he questioned the canonicity of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church. He was murdered at his residence in Warsaw by the fanatic Russian monk Smaragd, a former rector of the Kholm Theological Seminary who opposed Yaroshevsky’s efforts to break ties with the Moscow patriarchate.

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