Harvest of Despair

METROPOLITAN MSTYSLAV

b. 10 April 1898, Poltava, d. 11 June 1993, Grimsby, Ontario, Canada.

Born Stepan Skrypnyk, Metropolitan Mstyslav was a nephew of Symon Petliura. He served with the Ukrainian National Republic Army, and after WWI lived in Galicia and Volyn. In 1930-39 he served in the Polish Sejm, where he worked to protect the rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He organized assistance for the victims of the Famine in the Ukrainian SSR, but the Soviet authorities blocked his efforts.

Mstyslav was made bishop of Pereyaslav in 1942, and faced persecution by the Gestapo. In 1944 he fled to Germany. After WWII he emigrated to Canada and from 1947-49 was acting bishop of the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church of Canada. In 1950 he became head of the consistory and deputy metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA. In 1969 he became metropolitan of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Western Europe, and in 1971 –  metropolitan of the church in the United States. In  1990, with the reinstatement of the UAOC in Ukraine, Skrypnyk was installed as its patriarch.