Yuriy Yuriyovych Yurchyk
Yuriy Yurchyovych Yurchyk (born in 1970 in Kamianets-Podilskyi) was a bishop (since 1999) and archbishop (since 2005) of the UOC-KP of Donetsk and Mariupol. On November 24, 2008, he was banned from the clergy and excluded from the jurisdiction of the Kyiv Patriarchate after a conflict with Patriarch Filaret (Denysenko). He later joined the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church together with the community of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Donetsk and five other priests and three parishes of the Donetsk Eparchy of the UOC-KP. Biography. Early years. Yurchyk was born on January 19, 1970, in the  city of Kamianets-Podilskyi, Khmelnytsky region. He received his secondary education in Donetsk. As Orthodox priest and bishop. From 1988 to 1990 he was a palamar and subdeacon in St. Nicholas Cathedral in Donetsk. Since 1990 Yurchyk has been a psalmist of the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the town of Hirnyk, Donetsk Region. On January 26, 1991, he was ordained a deacon by Bishop Ioannikiy (Kobzev) of Donetsk and Luhansk in St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Luhansk, and on January 27 of the same year Yurchyk was ordained a priest. From 1991 to 1993  he served as a pastoral minister in the parishes of the Donetsk diocese. In 1992 Yurchyk left the Rússian Orthodox Church and in 1993 graduated from the Kyiv Theological Seminary. In September 1993 he was appointed rector of the Savior-Transfiguration Parish of Donetsk and charitable of the first Donetsk district. From 1994 to 1996 he was secretary of the Donetsk-Luhansk diocesan administration. In September 1996 he was ordained a monk named Yuri in honor of the holy great martyr Yuri the Victorious. On December 4, 1996, Yurchyk was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite. On May 14, 1999 , Yurchyk was ordained bishop of Donetsk and Luhansk by the Divine Liturgy in the Volodymyr Cathedral of Kyiv and appointed head of the Donetsk-Luhansk diocese. On December 20, 1999, he was appointed bishop of Donetsk and Mariupol, head of the Donetsk diocese and temporarily appointed head of the Luhansk diocese. On October 24, 2002, Yurchyk joined a marginal association of traditional Catholic Catholics. He was received by the Sedevacant traditionalist bishop Mark Pivarunas, who said that this was preceded by an 8-month "careful study, Bishop Yurchik professed the Catholic faith, especially in matters rejected by the Orthodox Church , namely: the Papacy, the supremacy of the Roman Pontifical infallibility, "Filioque" (the descent of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son), the transformation of bread and wine in the Holy Mass into the Body and Blood of Christ (not Epiclesis – the calling of the Holy Spirit); also the doctrine of purgatory and the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. The next day, October 25, Yurchyk celebrated his first Mass as a Catholic bishop of the Ukrainian Rite. At a public reception on October 26, Bishop Pivarunas explained why he decided to accept the Orthodox Bishop Yurchyk into the  Catholic Church, and Bishop Yurchyk, speaking through an interpreter, "expressed his gratitude for being accepted into the true Church of Christ." At the same time, as reported from the United States, Yuriy Yurchyk asked for 40,000 US dollars for his church. At the Synod of the UOC-KP held on November 19 of the same year, Yuriy Yurchyk stated that the announcement of his renunciation of the Orthodox faith and conversion to Catholicism was a "slander and provocation" of the Moscow Patriarchate. Donbass under my (i.e. Yurchik's) leadership ". Furthermore, Yurchyk's revelation is an attempt to "distract believers from  the growing crisis in the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate". He was awarded the Order of the Holy Apostolic Prince Vladimir the Great III degree (January 23, 2004). On October 22, 2005, Yurchyk was elevated to the rank of archbishop. After the conflict with Patriarch Filaret (Denisenko), on November 24, 2008, at a meeting of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, Archbishop Yuriy (Yurchyk) of Donetsk and Mariupol was banned from the clergy and removed from the jurisdiction of the 4th Patriarch of Kyiv. Conversion to Eastern Catholicism. In 2009 Yuriy Yurchyk transferred to  the UGCC, where he was accepted as a simple priest of the Ukrainian Catholic Archiepiscopal Exarchate of Donetsk. in the Donetsk parish of the Transfiguration. Since then, he has not served as bishop. In addition to serving as a parish priest in the Transfiguration parish, he was also the superior general of the diocesan Priestly Fraternity of St. Clement of Rome in Donetsk. In 2014, he left Donetsk engulfed in fighting and moved to Zaporizhia, From 2014 to 2017 he was on the Greek Catholic mission in the United Arab Emirates, when he founded a Greek Catholic parish in Dubai , Yemen and Oman. He resided in Dubai, where as a biritualist priest he was in charge of the Ukrainian diaspora, as well as the Polish and Slovak diaspora. After returning to Ukraine, he became the administrator of the Greek Catholic parish and the director of Caritas in Siewierodonetsk.