A ceremony to exhume the remains of prominent Ukrainian military and political figure, colonel of the Army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1938-1964 Andriy Melnyk and his wife Sofia Fedak-Melnyk was held in Luxembourg on Tuesday, First Deputy Head of the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine Bohdan Chervak has said.
“On May 19 this year, a ceremony to exhume the remains of OUN head Colonel Andriy Melnyk and his wife Sofia took place in Luxembourg. Everything took place in accordance with the ceremony of his burial in 1964: roses, the OUN flag, a prayer service, mournful singing, tears. But this time there was one significant difference: the Colonel was paid the highest honors by independent Ukraine,” Chervak said on Facebook.
According to him, authorized representatives of the Ukrainian authorities attended the exhumation ceremony, including representatives of the Office of the President of Ukraine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance.
As reported, on May 15, the Cabinet of Ministers instructed that the remains of Andriy Melnyk and his wife Sofia Fedak-Melnyk be reburied in Ukraine at the National Military Memorial Cemetery.
The Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Kyiv said that funeral services would be held on May 22-24 in connection with the arrival in Ukraine of the mortal remains of Melnyk and his wife, while the reburial itself in the Pantheon of Outstanding Ukrainians at the National Military Memorial Cemetery would take place on May 24.