Somerset Ukrainian Center

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA had its beginning in 1915 when several already existing parishes and clergy of other Orthodox and Catholic dioceses decided that the Ukrainian population of the USA had reached the level that this distinctive ethnic identity should have its own jurisdiction. There were many spiritual and political concerns, which inspired this decision and it was immediately successful in terms of the number of parishes and faithful who joined the movement.

The group sought and received spiritual protection under the omophorion of Bishop Germanos of the Syrian Orthodox Church in the USA. Bishop Germanos provided the necessary guidance for the fledgling jurisdiction until a petition was sent to the newly independent Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which had formed in October 1921 under the leadership of Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivskyj following the first declaration of Ukrainian Independence in 1918. The response was the assignment of then Archbishop John (Theodorovich) to care for the spiritual needs of the Ukrainian Orthodox faithful of the United States of America. 

Archbishop John arrived in the United States in 1924 and immediately called for a Sobor, which would formalize the establishment of the Archdiocese as the American-Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA. Bishop Germanos officially relinquished his authority over the Church to Archbishop John. Following the Sobor, under the guidance of Archbishop John, the life of the American-Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA truly began to blossom.

The Archbishop remained in contact with the Church in Ukraine, but, by 1927 it was clear that the Communist regime would not stop its persecution of this Church, having by that year arrested all its Hierarchs and most of its clergy and destroyed most of the Church properties. By 1937 all the Bishops had been executed and there were no signs of the Church’s life existent. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church had no opportunity to plead its case for canonical recognition to world Orthodoxy. Almost from the moment the 1921 Sobor concluded, the struggle for continued existence was doomed. Archbishop John rejected the claim of the Moscow Patriarchate jurisdiction, which replaced the Autocephalous Church in Ukraine and cut all ties to Ukraine.