The 1942 Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
No longer tied to the Moscow Patriarchate, Orthodox church leaders of what is today north-western Ukraine and western Belarus could now exercise local jurisdictional control. The Volyn' and Polissia regions soon became a hotbed of Ukrainianization, including the introduction of vernacular Ukrainian as a liturgical language.
With the outbreak of yet another war, the hierarchs took advantage of the grudging toleration of the occupying Nazi forces to make a second attempt at Ukrainian autocephaly. Two new Ukrainian bishops — Nikanor (Abramovych) and Ihor (Huba) — were ordained in Pinsk in February 1942, and this time there was absolutely no question about the validity of their ordinations. The subsequent Council of Bishops then decided to send Archbishop Polikarp (Sikorsky) to be an autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Metropolitan of Kyiv and to assign the other bishops to Ukrainian eparchies.
Once in Ukraine, the new hierarchs wasted no time in ordaining additional bishops, including Mstyslav (Skrypnyk), and additional priests to assign to parishes.
Knowing that their lives would be in peril if they fell into Soviet hands, nearly the entire church hierarchy along with many priests fled west ahead of the advancing Red Army. Amazingly, they were able to bring with them all of the necessary vestments, vessels, and other ritual objects, including antimensia, needed to minister to the thousands of Ukrainians also fleeing the atrocities of the Stalin regime.
Many of the priests and bishops would end up in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and as far away as Australia. They would maintain the dream of an independent Orthodox jurisdiction in Ukraine, and Metropolitan Mstyslav would go on to have a major role in the rebirth that would come decades later.