In the capital of Ukraine, at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a funeral service was held for the remains of the prominent figure of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Andriy Melnyk and his wife Sofia Fedak-Melnyk.
This is reported by Finway
Return of the remains to Ukraine and farewell ceremony
The remains of Andriy Melnyk, who led the OUN from 1938 to 1964, and his wife were delivered to Kyiv on May 22. Prior to this, on May 19, they were exhumed in Luxembourg. An official reburial ceremony is scheduled for May 24 at the National Military Memorial Cemetery.
During the memorial service, the auxiliary bishop of the Kyiv Archdiocese, Bishop Yosyp Milyan, noted Melnyk’s important role in the formation of the Ukrainian national movement and emphasized his deep spiritual connection to the UGCC.
“Andriy Melnyk was a warrior, a colonel in the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, a comrade of Yevhen Konovalets, and a leader of the Ukrainian national movement during one of the most difficult periods of our history. But it is very important to say something else today. Andriy Melnyk was a person deeply rooted in the spiritual world of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. He was a Greek Catholic not only by origin but from the environment that shaped his moral backbone, his understanding of service, discipline, and responsibility.”
Commemoration and historical legacy of Andriy Melnyk
At the ceremony, Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, spoke. She emphasized that the faith of Andriy Melnyk and his generation of fighters for independence became the foundation of modern Ukrainian statehood. Vereshchuk highlighted that Melnyk was not only a diplomat and a far-sighted statesman but also a person who deeply believed in the future of an independent Ukraine and the formation of its own nation and army.
Andriy Melnyk was a colonel in the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and after the death of Yevhen Konovalets in 1938, he led the OUN. He had to endure Polish prisons as well as a German concentration camp. Since 1945, Melnyk had been in exile.
In 1957, Melnyk initiated the creation of a global association of Ukrainians, which later became the basis for the formation of the World Congress of Free Ukrainians in 1967.
Melnyk died in 1964 in Cologne, Germany, and was buried in Luxembourg, where he spent the last 18 years of his life. According to archives, news of his death in the Soviet Union became known through a report from Radio Liberty.
On May 19, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that decisions were being prepared regarding the reburial of Colonel Yevhen Konovalets and other prominent historical figures.