CHICAGO -- Funeral services for the archbishop and primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Church in the United States were held Saturday at St. Pokrova Ukrainian Cathedral.
Prelate Hryhorij Osijchuk, who was the founder of St. Pokrova in Chicago, died in his home Wednesday.
He was 87. Osijchuk was born in Vollina, Kiev, Ukraine, Jan. 7, 1898.
From 1940 to 1950 he worked in displaced person camps in Hanover, Regensburg, Augsburg, Mochen and Ulm, Germany, helping Ukrainian refugees and administering parishes for them.
As metropolitan and primate, he was spiritual leader for 150,000 Ukrainians with parishes in the United States, England and Australia.
In the 1920s, he was active in the anti-sectarian movement and in the Ukrainianization of parishes. His purpose was to help the Ukrainian church maintain its self-identity separate from the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches.
He was also responsible for translating all the church's liturgical books to Ukrainian from the church Slavonic used by the Russian church.
On May 17, 1942, he was consecrated bishop of Zitomir and was elected archbishop on Oct. 16, 1947 and elevated to the rank of metropolitan on Dec. 25, 1971.
He is survived by a son, Ivan, two grandchildren and a sister, Lydia Schultz.
