Skyba I. Metropolitan Polikarp Sikorskyi’s church-related and social activities in the context of Ukrainization of the Orthodox Church (1920th - 1945)

The paper is concerned with a comprehensive study of Petro Sikorskyi (Metropolitan Polikarp’s) church-related, social, spiritual and educational activities in the context of the movement for the Ukrainization of the Orthodox Church during the 1920s - 1945. The study analyzes the philosophical, spiritual and national-cultural formation of P. Sikorsky in his childhood and adolescent years while working in the Kyiv church administrative bodies and the structures of the government of the UPR alike. Characteristics are given to his participation in the national church movement in Volyn in the 1920s, as well as his contribution to the Ukrainianization of the Orthodox Church during the 1930s on the post of a vicar bishop. In particular, the significance is noted of his work on Ukrainian translations of a significant array of theological, liturgical and catechetical literature, the result of which is one of the Nation’s legacies. Bishop Polikarp’s opinions about the institutional and transformational processes experienced by the Orthodoxy of the Western Ukrainian region during 1939-1941 is defined, in particular, his attitude to changing a jurisdictional status - submission to the Moscow Patriarchate, his ecclesial activity during the Second World War aimed to preserve Ukrainian Orthodoxy, the institutionalisation of the UAOC as of 1942 and the consolidation of the episcopate under the circumstances of forced emigration and attempts to acquire complete autocephaly. Keywords: Metropolitan Polikarp, Orthodox Church, Ukrainian Orthodoxy, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Ukrainization of Orthodoxy, Second Polish Republic, institutionalisation, autocephaly.