Remembering our Archpastor, Archbishop Vsevolod

We commend to your prayers the servant of God His Eminence Archbishop Vsevolod of Scopelos of blessed memory!

His Eminence, Archbishop Vsevolod, fell asleep in the Lord after a lengthy illness on, 16 December, 2007.

Archbishop Vsevolod was born Vsevolod Kolomijcew-Majdanski, son of the late Rt. Rev. Protopresbyter Vasilij in Kalisz, Poland, on December 10, 1927. He received his theological education at Warsaw Theological Seminary and the Dillingen Theological University in Dillingen, Germany.

After earning a bachelor of arts in philosophy from Sydney University in Sydney, Australia, in 1956, he attended Melbourne University in Victoria , Australia . In 1964 he obtained a master's degree in social work from Yeshiva University in New York. Archbishop Vsevolod was fluent in several languages.

In addition to other professional positions, he has served as principal associate in medicine on the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, an affiliate of Yeshiva University in New York . His Consecration to the Episcopacy caused him to leave that position in order to devote more effort to his work for the Church.

He received monastic tonsure and was ordained to the priesthood by the late Metropolitan Andrei in 1985. Following the death of Metropolitan Andrei, Archimandrite Vsevolod was consecrated by Archbishop Iakovos to the episcopacy on September 27, 1987 with the blessing of Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I of Constantinople of blessed memory.

From 1987 to 1996 Archbishop Vsevolod was the First Hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America and Canada.

In 1996 Archbishop Vsevolod was instrumental in establishing Canonical unification of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America and Canada and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA.

On March 2, 1997 Archbishop Vsevolod, was enthroned as ruling hierarch of the Western Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. at the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Volodymyr in Chicago.

Archbishop Vsevolod has been very active as a representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch in the ongoing dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church and has participated in numerous ecumenical conferences. He is well-published regarding Church unity. Archbishop Vsevolod was also chosen to represent the Ecumenical Patriarch at the Jerusalem Conference of Science and Religion and at the Milan Conference on Religion. He is a member of the Standing Council of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the Americas and of the Orthodox-Catholic Bishops Dialogue.

May his memory be eternal!