Oleg Molenko


Father Oleg Molenko, born Oleg Uryupin - is the founder of the community "The Church of John the Theologian" in Canada and its only priest.

Biography

He was born in 1954 in the Ukrainian city of Kiev. For several years, he was a recluse in the Caucasus Mountains, but he did not take the monastic tonsure, but later returned to the city and got married. He was ordained to the priesthood on December 16, 1992, by Barnabas, Bishop of Cannes of the ROCOR, and later went over with his flock to the True Orthodox Church of Greece. He spent two years in prison on trumped-up charges by the SBU for possession of 40 rounds of ammunition. In 1997 he came to the United States, then received the status of refugee in Canada, where he founded the new community.

The Mystery of John the Theologian

The unusuality of Father Oleg's ecclesiastical position is the so-called mystery of John the Theologian - the teaching that in the last times the whole Church of Christ will be led by the Apostle John the Theologian in the flesh
. This position is one of the ancient interpretations of a passage from the Gospel of John 21:20-24:
"Seeing him, Peter saith to Jesus, Lord, and what of this man? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou Me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? This is the disciple that beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his witness is true."

Works