Life and Work of Rev. S. Jarmus

By Iryna Tsybukh

The Very Rev. Dr. Stephan Jarmus (B.A., T.M., M.Div, D.Min., S.T.D.) in 2005 celebrated his 80th Birthday, in 2006 50 years of priest­hood and 35 years of work as professor. He earned two doctoral, honoris causa, from the Kyivan Theological Academy and St. Andrew’s College in Winnipeg.  He authored and published over two dozen works on the topics of Pastoral Theology, philosophy and culture, collected and prepared for publication (posthumously) about a dozen works of other authors. Six of his books were published in Ukraine. He wrote and contributed over 70 entries to three encyclopedias in Ukraine, is honorary professor of Philosophy at the University of Lutsk in Western Ukraine, and a visiting professor in the Seminary and Theological Academy in Kyiv, Ukraine; he is also a fellow of the Institute of Philosophy at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.  His lectures on contemporary Pastorship – taught in the Seminary and the Theological Academy in Kyiv in 1994 – were published as a book that now serves as a manual in theological schools throughout Ukraine. This work was published in Canada in 1995. His treatise on Pastoral Anthropology (conclusion of his D.Min thesis) was printed in several publications in Ukraine. Rev. Jarmus’s thinking is anthropocentric, more horizontal in orientation. Along with his scholarly work – teaching and writing – for about 40 years, Rev. Jarmus was a visiting minister of a Ukrainian Orthodox congregation in Kenora, Ontario – 210 kilometres east of Winnipeg. Rev Jarmus was editor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada’s periodical “Visnyk” (The Herald) and all the Church’s publications. He was Chairman of the Presidium, UOCC Consistory, and the leading negotiator in the talks with the Patriarchate of Constantinople that led to the establishment of Eucharistic unity of the Church with world Orthodoxy. Rev. Jarmus’s wife, Constance Houghton, died in 2006 and his only son Andrew, now a priest, lives and works in New York. With the establishment of the independent state of Ukraine in 1991, Rev. Jarmus has visited the “land of his fathers” almost every year as a teacher, public speaker, consultant to students, or participant in various events.