Oleksandr Drabynko

Metropolitan bishop (1949)

His Eminence Oleksandr
Metropolitan of Pereyaslav-Vyshneve
Metropolitan Oleksandr Drabynko
Church	Orthodox Church of Ukraine
See	Kyiv
Elected	4 March 2019
Predecessor	See created
Previous posts	Bishop (later Archbishop and Metropolitan) of Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi and Vyshneve (UOC-MP) (2007-2018)
Orders
Ordination	28 July 2006 by Volodymyr (Sabodan)
Consecration	14 December 2007 by Volodymyr (Sabodan)
Personal details
Born	Oleksandr Mykolayovych Drabynko (1977年03月18日) March 18, 1977 (age 49) Korets, Rivne Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Denomination	Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Alma mater	Kyiv Theological Academy (2002)

Metropolitan Oleksandr (Ukrainian: Митрополит Олександр, secular name Oleksandr Mykolayovych Drabynko, Ukrainian: Олександр Миколайович Драбинко; born 18 March 1977) is a metropolitan bishop of Pereyaslav and Vyshneve of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. His full title is His Eminence Oleksandr, Metropolitan of Pereyeslav-Vyshneve. For a long time Oleksandr Drabynko was a personal secretary of Volodymyr Sabodan.^[1] According to Metropolitan Jonathan Yeletskykh, "being the personal secretary of His Beatitude Volodymyr, he practically ruled the entire UOC and even shaped the course of the UOC. And especially in the last three years of the life of the seriously ill Primate of the UOC".^[2]

Biography

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He was born on 18 March 1977 in Korets, Rivne Oblast, into a family of government officials.^[1]

He graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary and later the Kyiv Theological Academy in 2002, becoming a candidate of theology for his dissertation "Eastern Orthodoxy in post-totalitarian Ukraine (milestones of history)" (see "Works section").

In 2003–2005, Drabynko was a coauthor and anchorman of the television program "Pravoslavnyi Mir" (Russian: «Православний Міръ», the Orthodox World), which was produced by the Main Editorial Office of information programs of the UOC-(MP).

At his ordination as bishop of Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi and Vyshneve (vicarate of the Diocese of Kyiv), which was led by the primate of the UOC-(MP), Volodymyr (Sabodan), 45 bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church participated.

On 15 December 2018, he joined the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine at the Unification council in Kiev. He was one of only two UOC-MP bishops who joined the OCU (the other was Metropolitan Symeon (Shotatsky)).