Epiphanius of Kyiv
First primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Elected at the council held in Kyiv on 15 December 2018, he received the tomos of autocephaly from the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on 6 January 2019.
Serhii Petrovych Dumenko was born on 3 February 1979 in the village of Volkove in the Odesa region of Ukraine (Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Biography of Metropolitan Epiphanius). He took monastic vows with the name Epiphanius in 2007 and was ordained a bishop in 2009 in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, by its patriarch Filaret (Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Biography of Metropolitan Epiphanius).
On 15 December 2018 the council held in Kyiv elected him, then metropolitan of Pereyaslav and Bila Tserkva, primate of the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine (Ecumenical Patriarchate, Communiqué of 15 December 2018). The tomos of 6 January 2019 gives the primate the title Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine and names Epiphanius as the one to whom it was handed (Tomos of Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine (2019) paragraphs 2 and 8); see Constantinople Grants Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The Serbian bishops’ communiqué of May 2019, which does not recognise the new church, refers to him only by his secular surname (Serbian Orthodox Church, Communiqué of the Assembly of Bishops (May 2019) paragraph on Ukraine).
In the timeline
- 6 January 2019, firm dateConstantinople Grants Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine
The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew hands Metropolitan Epiphanius a tomos declaring the Orthodox Church in Ukraine autocephalous. The Moscow Patriarchate, which counts Ukraine as its own canonical territory, has already broken communion with Constantinople over the decision.