His Eminence Metropolitan Ilarion, Archbishop of Winnipeg and the Central Eparchy, Metropolitan of Canada

His Eminence Metropolitan Ilarion, Archbishop of Winnipeg and the Central Eparchy, Metropolitan of Canada (in the world Roman Rudnyk) was born February 14, 1972, in L’viv, Ukraine. There he received his primary and secondary school. After taking his entrance exams, he was admitted to the Second year at the Ecclesiastical Seminary of Kyiv from which he graduated in 1992.

Upon the recommendation of Archbishop Vsevolod of Skopelos and with the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I, he was sent to Thessaloniki, Greece to further his education. He graduated from the Theological Faculty of the Aristotle University in 1997.

On December 5, 1997 he was tonsured a monk, taking the name of ‘Ilarion‘. His Eminence Metropolitan Panteleimon of Tyroloe and Serention (Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Vlatadon in Thessaloniki) ordained Bishop Ilarion to the diaconate on December 21, 1997 and to the priesthood in 2000.

He continued his theological studies in Canon Law and completed his Masters Degree in Canon Law, successfully defending his paper on the ‘Canonical relations between the Metropolis of Kyiv and the Ecumenical Patriarchate until 1240‘.

In 2001 he attended English language lessons at the University of Illinois in Chicago. In October of 2002 he was assigned to serve the newly created parish of Saint Panteleimon in Porto, Portugal.

On March 21, 2004 he was elevated to the rank of ‘Archimandrite of the Ecumenical Patriarchate‘. On January 11, 2005, His All-Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate elected him assistant bishop to His Eminence Metropolitan Epiphanios of Spain and Portugal. His title was ‘Bishop of Telmissos‘. His Episcopal ordination took place in Constantinople at the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George, on Saturday 29th January 2005.

On August 20-24, 2008 at the  Extra Ordinary Sobor of the UOCC held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, he was chosen for the position of Bishop of Edmonton and the Western Eparchy. On October 21, 2008, His All-Holiness Bartholomew and the Holy Synod ratified the Sobor’s decision and elected him as Eparchial Bishop of Edmonton and the Western Eparchy. Bishop Ilarion was enthroned on Sunday October 26, 2008 at The Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral Of St. John in Edmonton, Alberta.

His Eminence Ilarion, formerly Bishop of Edmonton and the Western Eparchy of the UOCC, was enthroned as Archbishop of Winnipeg and the Central Eparchy, Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada – the tenth chief archpastor of the Canadian Ukrainian Orthodox flock, seventh primate of the Church since her formation into a metropolia in 1951, and fourth since the reception of the UOCC into the Mother Church of Constantinople in 1990. The enthronement marks the final act in a process that began with His Eminence’s first-instance election at the Church’s XXIV Sobor (in June 2022) as one of three candidates for the Office of Metropolitan of the UOCC, and subsequent final-instance election in July by the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Metropolitan Ilarion’s Name Day is October 21.

Contact:

11404 112 Avenue, Edmonton, AB T5G 0H6
Tel: (780) 455-1938
Email:  rudnyk1@telus.net