Moscow, March 22, 2017
Photo: http://uoj.org.ua
On March 22, at 4 AM, sixty-eight-year-old Metropolitan Nifont (Solodukha) of Lutsk Volyn reposed in the Lord, reports the press service of the Volyn Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
His Eminence Met. Nifont (in the world Vasily Andreevich Solodukha) was born into a peasant family on October 5, 1948 in the village of Galina Volya in the Volyn region. In two years he was left an orphan.
In 1963 he graduated from his local school.
From 1963 to 1967 he worked on a farm.
From 1967 to 1969 he served in the Soviet army.
From 1969 to 1970 he worked in the railway depot of Brest.
In 1970 he entered the Moscow Seminary.
From 1971 to 1974 he was a subdeacon for His Holiness Patriarch Pimen (Izvekova, + 1990).
In 1974 he graduated from the Moscow Seminary. He entered the Moscow Spiritual Academy in the same year, from which he graduated in 1979.
On March 20, 1974 he received the monastic tonsure in the Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra. On April 15 he was ordained as a hierodeacon.
On February 26, 1977 he was ordained as a hieromonk and sent to serve in the Volyn Diocese.
On March 18, 1977 he was appointed as the rector of Holy Trinity Church in the village of Rudka-Kozinskaya in the Volyn region.
In 1985 he was elevated to the rank of igumen.
In 1988 he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite. In 1989 he became the dean of the Rozhischensk deanery of the Volyn-Rivne Diocese.
On March 20, 1990 he was appointed as bishop of Khmelnitsky and Kamanets-Podolsk.
On March 31, 1990 he was consecrated as a bishop.
On July 28, 1993 he was elevated to the rank of archbishop.
On April 11, 2001 he was elevated to the rank of metropolitan.
He also served as rector of Volyn Seminary, and was granted an honor doctorate of Divinity on February 20, 2008 for his significant contribution to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the development of theological education.
On October 18, 2016 he was dismissed from the Volyn Diocese for health reasons.
On March 22, 2017 he departed to the Lord.
Over the course of his life he was awarded a number of medals and awards for his selfless work.
May his memory be eternal!
