KYIV CITY COUNCIL NAMES MYTROPOLYT VASYL LYPKIVSKY STREET

     On April 26, 2007, the Kyiv City Council voted to rename Urycky Street in the center of Kyiv, Mytropolyt Vasyl Lypkivsky Street. The Ukrainian World Congress was most instrumental in this effort with direct communications and personal meetings at Kyiv’s City Hall. The matter was initiated by the Ukrainian Orthodox Brotherhood from Northport, Florida in January 2003 but received a negative response from Deputy Mayor M. Poshyvanov. In April 2004 the Brotherhood repeated its request in a letter to Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko and again in August 2005. In February 2006, a member of the Kyiv Commission on street naming and site designation, Serhij Bilokin informed the Brotherhood that the Commission had decided unanimously on January 25, 2006 to recommend the renaming. Unfortunately, recommendations by city commissions are non-binding on the Kyiv City Administration or the Kyiv City Council. No further action was taken until the Brotherhood asked the UWC to take on this project and the UWC sent its first letter in December 2006 to current Mayor of Kyiv Leonid Chernovecky. The letter was followed up with personal communications and meetings in Kyiv with various deputy mayors, committee chairs and fraction leaders. Finally all the fractions in the Kyiv City Council in whole or part except the Socialists agreed to support the proposal and it was placed on the Kyiv City Council agenda for April 26, 2007. Mytropolyt Vasyl Lypkivskyj, one of the founders and the Primate of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church lived on the subject street in Kyiv and served as pastor of the Solomenska parish nearby beginning in 1905. On May 9, 1919 he celebrated the first Ukrainian-language Divine Liturgy in the Mykhaylivsky Sobor in Kyiv for which he was defrocked by the Russian Church.  In 1921 he was elected Mytropolyt of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Persecuted by the Soviets, he was arrested in 1938 and executed. Moisei Urycky was a Ukrainian born  secret police activist in Petrograd during the revolution. In the course of proceedings involving renaming, UWC President Askold S. Lozynskyj met with among others, Deputy Mayor Wolodymyr Holovach who proposed that the UWC compile a list of streets in Kyiv for renaming in future Kyiv City Council action. The UWC intends to pursue this proposal.

Ukrainian World Congress

Toronto – New York                                                                                                                            May 2, 2007