Vissarion Stretovych

Metropolitan Vissarion (secular name Vasyl Oleksandrovych Stretovych) was a Ukrainian Orthodox hierarch who led the Eparchy of Ovruch and Korosten of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for more than three decades. He died on 18 September 2026 in Ovruch after a prolonged illness, aged 72. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church announced his repose the same day, and Orthodox news outlets across Europe carried the news within hours.

He was born on 4 December 1953 in the village of Polyana in the Korosten district of Zhytomyr region, on the feast of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple. Almost his entire public life would remain tied to Polissya. In the late Soviet period, when atheist pressure was still strong, he entered the Moscow Theological Seminary and went on to graduate from the Moscow Theological Academy in 1983. On 1 April 1983 he was tonsured a monk at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, taking the name Vissarion in honour of Saint Bessarion the Great of Egypt. He was ordained hierodeacon on 21 September 1983 and hieromonk on 25 September the same year.

From 1983 to 1986 he served at the Transfiguration Cathedral in Zhytomyr. He later served in Bilokorovychi and, from 1987, at St Basil's Cathedral in Ovruch, where he also worked as district dean. Elevated to hegumen in 1990 and to archimandrite in August 1992, he was elected Bishop of Korosten, vicar of the Zhytomyr eparchy, by the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on 29 July 1992. His episcopal consecration followed on 24 August 1992. When an independent Ovruch eparchy was established on 22 June 1993, he became its first ruling bishop with the title of Ovruch and Korosten, a see he held until his death.

During his long tenure in Polissya the church reported that three monasteries were opened, hundreds of parishes were organised, and many churches were consecrated. He was raised to archbishop on 23 November 2000 and to metropolitan in 2010, and he temporarily administered the Zhytomyr eparchy from February to June 2011. Civil authorities also awarded him Ukraine's Order For Merit, third class. In later years he faced a high-profile criminal case begun by Ukraine's security services over alleged inflammatory publications. The UOC said the accusations were never proven in court and that, even while bedridden in his final months, prosecutors still pressed for his personal appearance. He received Holy Communion shortly before he died, the church said, after taking leave of those closest to him.

Funeral rites were held in Ovruch, and he was buried in Meleny in Zhytomyr region. For clergy and faithful of the Ovruch eparchy he remains the archpastor who shaped their diocese through the difficult post-Soviet decades and into wartime Ukraine.