Father Valerii Syrotyuk (born 6 December 1968 in the village of Kuty, Kosiv district, Ivano-Frankivsk region) is a priest (metropolitan presbyter), poet, composer, screenwriter, and cultural activist.
He began his studies in 1976 at the Kuty secondary school and simultaneously at the Kuty and Vyzhnytsia music schools.
After completing the eighth grade in 1983, he entered the Chernivtsi Construction College, where he graduated in 1987 with a degree in industrial, civil, and agricultural construction.
In 1987-1989, he did his compulsory military service in the Soviet Army in Riga, Latvia.
In the spring of 1989, during the demonstrations for Latvian independence in Riga, he first experienced a deep rethinking of the truth about the enslavement of free countries by Soviet occupation, and learned the first truth about the destroyed Ukrainian Church.
In the autumn of 1989, when he returned to Ukraine, he found himself, by chance, at the excavations of the Demian's Hole in Ivano-Frankivsk, where representatives of the Memorial cell were excavating the graves of victims of the communist regime.
There, on the hills of Demianovyi Laz, he had his first meeting with the Ukrainian bishop of the catacomb church, Bishop Pavlo Vasylyk, and realised his priestly vocation, and became a student at the Ivano-Frankivsk Theological Seminary of the UGCC.
As a theology student, he published his first spiritual poems and prepared episodes of the religious and educational TV programme "The Living Word".
In the fourth year of his studies, in 1994, he was ordained a deacon by His Grace Bishop Pavlo Vasylyk, and a year later he was ordained a priest.
From April to August 1995, he was sent for temporary pastoral work in eastern Ukraine to Donetsk to assist the local pastor of the newly organised Donetsk community of the UGCC.
At the end of his secondment, Father Valeriy was placed under the care of Bishop Pavlo Vasylyk of Kolomyia and Chernivtsi to continue his work in Chernivtsi.
In 1997, he began studying theology at the Catholic University of Lublin. Under the supervision of Father Doctor Zbigniew Krzyślowski, he defends his master's thesis on "The Role of Contemporary Religious Music in Pastoral Care" and receives the title of Master of Theology on 7 December 2001.
In 2006, he defended his diploma in moral theology.
He was awarded diplomas and certificates of state and church competitions and festivals.
In 1998, he became the first priest to be awarded the Song of the Year prize at the All-Ukrainian Radio Festival for his poems and music to the song "O, All-Praised One" (performers: the Pysanka duo - Honoured Artists of Ukraine Oksana Savchuk and Ivan Kavatsiuk).
On 20 July 1999, His Beatitude Myroslav Ivan Cardinal Lubachivsky appointed Father Valeriy Syrotyuk as a metropolitan protopresbyter with the right to wear a mitre, a pectoral cross and a cassock.
On 16 May 2003, while in Rome for the Ukrainian artistic festival of the Mother, he received an invitation from the Holy Father John Paul II, Pope of Rome, to attend the morning Liturgy in the pontiff's private chapel. After the prayer, Blessed John Paul II bestowed his blessing on the young Ukrainian priest for his priestly and artistic achievements.
On 17 April 2006, the ruling bishop of the Kolomyia-Chernivtsi Eparchy, Bishop Mykola (Simkaylo), by his decree, named Father Valeriy Syrotyuk Sinkel (Vicar) of the newly formed Bukovyna Vicariate.
Father Syrotyuk is a member of the Ukrainian Theological Scientific Society.
Since 1995 he has lived and worked in Chernivtsi, is married and has two daughters.
Creative activity
In 1999, as the author of the lyrics and music for the song "Kyrie Ellison," Father Valeriy won the first prize of the Ukrainian State Festival "Song Vernissage-99" and received the Golden Nickel in the nomination for the dissemination of spiritual works.
He has written more than 50 songs of spiritual content.
He is also the author
screenplay
of the documentary film Bukovyna Pilgrimage,
music films:
"My Christian Family";
"Hail Mary";
"Musical Sermon;
"A small poem of a big life";
"No to Abortion!
"Sidor Vorobkevych";
numerous religious and educational radio programmes;
theological burnings.
In 2006, Father Valeriy Syrotyuk widely presented a multimedia project - a singing book "Kyrie Ellison" (book + CD audio).
