Colonel Andriy Melnyk and His Wife Repatriated from Luxembourg to Ukraine
On May 19, the remains of Colonel Andriy Melnyk, head of the OUN leadership, and his wife, Sofia Fedak-Melnyk, were exhumed in Luxembourg and returned to Ukraine. The memorial service was led by Bishop Ihor Rantsya of the Eparchy of St. Volodymyr the Great in Paris and concelebrated by Fr. Taras Bordyuk, administrator and priest of the Ukrainian parish in Luxembourg, together with representatives of the local Ukrainian community.
The news was reported by the press service of the Paris Eparchy of St. Volodymyr the Great.
Among those attending the exhumation ceremony were Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine; Yaroslav Melnyk, Ambassador of Ukraine to Belgium and Luxembourg; Claude Radoux, member of the Luxembourg City Council and Honorary Consul of Ukraine; Oleksandr Alferov, Head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance; Bohdan Chervak, Head of the OUN; representatives of Plast Belgium; members of Ukrainian public organizations in Luxembourg; and representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora.
In his address, Bishop Rantsya emphasized that the central theme of the event was “memory.”
“In a theological sense, God’s remembrance of the human soul signifies eternal existence and eternal life. God Himself does not require our memory in order to exist, as He is self-sufficient. However, in the human dimension, everything works in the opposite way. If we are to endure as a people, a state, and a nation, and preserve our identity, we must restore, refine, and deepen our historical memory. Otherwise, we risk fading into oblivion,” the bishop said.
The remains of Andriy Melnyk and Sofia Fedak-Melnyk have already arrived in Ukraine. Memorial services will be held on May 22–23 at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Kyiv. The formal reburial ceremony will take place on May 24 at the National Military Memorial Cemetery in Kyiv.
On May 19, during remarks related to the reburial of Colonel Andriy Melnyk and his wife Sofia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced plans to repatriate and rebury Colonel Yevhen Konovalets, a colonel in the Army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and former head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.
“Our Ukrainian heroes from different eras — those who defended the idea of independence and fought for our state — are buried across Europe, America, and other countries. We are bringing them home. We have both the opportunity and the moral obligation to rebury them here in Ukraine, in their homeland. This process has now begun with Colonel Andriy Melnyk and his wife Sofia, iconic Ukrainians of the twentieth century who are deeply respected. Decisions are also being prepared regarding Colonel Yevhen Konovalets and other prominent historical figures. The Ukrainian people deserve a strong historical memory, and we are strengthening that true memory,” the President stated.
Andriy Melnyk was a Ukrainian military and political leader, one of Yevhen Konovalets’ closest associates, a co-founder of the Sich Riflemen unit in Kyiv, and one of the founders of the Ukrainian Military Organization. During World War II, he directed OUN activities in Ukrainian territories from Germany and was later imprisoned by the Nazis in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Sofia Fedak-Melnyk married Andriy Melnyk in 1929 after his release from Polish captivity.
After the war, Andriy Melnyk settled in Luxembourg, where he worked to unite Ukrainian émigré forces. In 1957, he proposed a creation of the World Congress of Ukrainians, which was established after his death. Andriy Melnyk died on November 1, 1964, in Cologne.
The UGCC Department for Information
