Friends!

Today we remember the sad date - 45 years ago died Ivan Ohienko - Ukrainian church and public figure. He lived a long and difficult 90 years, but through all his life he carried love for his land, the native language of the Orthodox Church.

Ivan Ohienko was born in the town Brusiliv in Zhytomyr region in ordinary peasant family. But he wanted to learn and in 1896 he graduated from elementary school and decided to be a paramedic in Kiev. He worked in hospital and later became a medical student at Kiev University. But he realized that he was not interested in medicine and moved to the History and Philology faculty. When he was young, Ivan Ohienko began to write poetry in Russian. And then under the influence of Ukrainian theater, he reconsidered his attitude to the language and culture, its national consciousness awakened and flourished. Then he began to actively engage in scientific and social work. He wrote articles to different magazines, collaborated with the "Enlightenment", participated in the activities of the Scientific Society of Taras Shevchenko. Two years after graduating in 1911 Ivan Ohienko became a Fellow at the Department of Russian Language and Literature of Kiev University and later became assistant professor there. In 1917, Ivan Ohienko became the first teacher of Kiev University, who started teaching on Ukrainian language and created a new course - "History of the Ukrainian language."

In 1918-1920 Ivan Ohienko at the same time served as rector of the Kamenetz-Podolsk State University and Minister of Education in the government of UNR. He drafted a Ukrainian spelling, worked on implementing the literary language in education, church life, government agencies, trade, medicine and the army. In Kiev, he published the books : "Native language in Ukrainian schools" (1918), "Ukrainian grammar" (1918) and "Ukrainian table clearly spell" (1917).

In 1919, Ivan Ohienko became the minister of religion, translated into Ukrainian theological literature, ordered the transfer of the service of Church in Ukrainian. That's when first formulated future metropolitan foundations Ukrainian autocephalous. On behalf of the Government of the UPR he wrote and substantiated request to the Ecumenical Patriarchate to provide Ukrainian autocephalous church. In 1920 he had to move to western Ukraine, taught Ukrainian language and literature at the teachers' seminary in Lviv. In 1926, James was invited to work in Orthodox Theology Department at Warsaw University. In Warsaw, he did not left his business, developed and popularized Ukrainian culture, was an active opponent of Russification. He founded and edited the magazine "Mother tongue" and "Our culture."

In October 1940 at the Cathedral of Ukrainian Orthodox bishops Ivan Ohienko under the name of Ilarion was ordained Chelm and Podlasie. In just a year, Metropolitan Ilarion turned 62 churches and restored the 117 parishes that in the prewar period was taken into Orthodox and Catholic churches in consecrated. Thanks to his efforts was found Kholmsk miraculous icon of Our Lady. Ivan Ohienko was the one who first made authentic translation of the Scriptures into Ukrainian. Thus, Metropolitan Ilarion gave an opportunity to Ukrainians to seek God on their mother tongue. In addition, this translation was recognized as one of the best in the world.

In the summer of 1944 Ivan Ohienko was forced to emigrate to Slovakia and then to Switzerland in September 1947 - to Canada. Until his death he lived in the Canadian city of Winnipeg, edited the literary and scientific monthly "Word of truth". In Canada, Ivan Ohienko continued the work of his life, did the same thing that he used to do in Ukraine and Poland - built up Ukrainian national culture, launched a large research and publishing activities. Scientific and artistic legacy of John James are almost 2,000 different publications. Among them - "History of Ukrainian Culture", "Ukrainian stylistic vocabulary", "History of Ukrainian publishing" two volumes of "Ukrainian Church" and others.

Ivan Ohienko died on the 29th of March, 1972. He was buried in the cemetery of Glen Eden in Winnipeg.

Friends, I think, an example of the life of the wise man argues that no matter where a person lived, his or hers love of country can be manifested in actions.