Wasyly

Who was Wasyly?

Metropolitan Wasyly or Basil, OC was the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada from 1985 until his death in 2005.

Metropolitan Wasyly was born Vasyl’ Fedak on November 1, 1909 in Kadubivtsi in Austrian-ruled northern Bukovyna. Together with his parents and five siblings, he immigrated to Canada and settled in Sheho, Saskatchewan. In young adulthood, he became a teacher: a career that lasted 14 years. He then studied at a seminary of the UOCC from 1941 to 1944. He was ordained into the diaconate on September 27, 1944 and shortly thereafter into the priesthood on October 1. As a priest, he served parishes in Manitoba and Ontario. In 1951, he arrived in Hamilton, Ontario to serve the parish of St. Vladimir. He served this parish for 29 years, seeing the parish grow from 47 to 500 families.

His wife, Paraskeviya Tymofij, whom he married in 1932, died in April 1976. Two years later, an Extraordinary Sobor of the UOCC elected him as its candidate for bishop. On July 16, 1978, he was consecrated as the Bishop of Saskatoon at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Winnipeg by Metropolitan Andrew of Winnipeg, Archbishop Borys, and Bishop Mykolai ]of Toronto. Following the death of then Archbishop Mykolai in 1981, Bishop Wasyly became the acting Bishop of the Eastern Eparchy. He was elevated to Archbishop of Toronto in 1983. Then in 1985, the 17th Sobor of the UOCC selected Wasyly to be its Metropolitan and Primate with the honorific "His Beatitude", and he will be the last Hierarch to hold that title in the UOCC, as decided by Patriarch Bartholemew I. As Primate, he was the spiritual leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada and Chancellor of its seminary, St. Andrew's College.