UOC marks 55th anniversary of Metropolitan Onuphry’s monastic tonsure

Metropolitan Onuphry. Photo: Facebook

March 18, 2026, marks 55 years since His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and All Ukraine, Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, entered the monastic life, the UOC Information and Education Department reports.

On this day in 1971, the future hierarch – then a young novice of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius named Orest Berezovsky – renounced the world and received the angelic habit with the name Onuphry, in honor of St. Onuphrius the Great.

The tonsure was performed by the lavra’s dean, Archimandrite Barnabas (Kedrov), who later became Metropolitan of Cheboksary. The decision to admit the future primate into the monastic brotherhood was made with the blessing of Metropolitan Pimen, then Patriarchal Locum Tenens, and Archimandrite Augustin (Sudoplatov), abbot of the monastery.

Metropolitan Onuphry’s monastic path included major obediences at the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, where he served as dean, and later at the Pochaev Lavra, whose abbot he became in 1988. In 1990, he was elected Bishop of Chernivtsi and Bukovyna. In 1992, he showed particular firmness in the faith when he spoke out decisively against the uncanonical actions of then-Metropolitan Filaret Denysenko, who later entered schism. On August 13, 2014, the Council of Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church elected him as its Primate.

Metropolitan Onuphry himself has repeatedly stressed that regardless of rank or circumstance, he sees himself first and foremost as a humble monk. He continues to set an example of prayerful labor for the faithful and, even in these difficult times, regularly performs tonsures for new monastics of the Kyiv Caves Lavra, strengthening the Church’s spiritual foundation.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that His Beatitude tonsured four new monks of the Kyiv Caves Lavra.

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