Husar named exarch of Kyiv-Vyshhorod (04/07/96)

Husar named exarch of Kyiv-Vyshhorod

by Marta Kolomayets
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Bishop Lubomyr Husar has been named exarch of the newly established Kyiv-Vyshhorod Exarchate, according to the press office of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Lviv.

The announcement was made on April 2 by the Very Rev. Ivan Dacko, chancellor of the curia of Major Archbishop Myroslav Ivan Lubachivsky. He also told reporters during a news conference at the metropolitan's residence across from St. George Cathedral that Bishop Ivan Choma has been named Cardinal Lubachivsky's special envoy to Rome.

"I am convinced that in Bishop Lubomyr the faithful of our Church in Kyiv and eastern Ukraine will have a wise and able spiritual leader and shepherd, and that Bishop Ivan will admirably represent our Church's matters in Rome. Our Church, for a long while now, has been enriched by the work and experience of these bishops. With their new appointments, our Church and its faithful have received a special blessing from God," noted Cardinal Lubachivsky in an April 2 statement.

April 2 marked 19 years since the day the late Patriarch Josyf Slipyj secretly consecrated both Bishops Husar and Choma at the Studite Monastery at Castelgondolfo, near Rome.

But, it was only during the Ukrainian Catholic Church Bishops' Synod in Rome last November that the hierarchs determined that the time was right for these two underground bishops to serve the Church in their capacities as bishops.

According to various Church sources, the Vatican recognized the two bishops soon after they were consecrated, but the Ukrainian Catholic Synod of Bishops did not think it prudent - given the political climate in Ukraine - until this time to reveal their ordinations to their faithful.

Thus, they are two of the last bishops to come out of the underground. Their lives have been dedicated to the rebirth of the Greek-Catholic Church in Ukraine, as they have shared the dream of their late great mentor, Patriarch Josyf, and his successor, Cardinal Lubachivsky.

Both bishops are natives of Ukraine. They will be presented to their faithful by Cardinal Lubachivsky in Lviv on April 7, during Palm Sunday services at the Church of the Transfiguration.

Bishop Husar, 63, who belongs to the Studite monastic order, will be in Kyiv to conduct Easter Sunday services on April 14. His installation as bishop of the Kyiv-Vyshhorod Exarchate will be held in May.

As exarch of the Kyiv-Vyshhorod Exarchate, Bishop Husar will serve a territory which includes Kyiv, Vyshhorod, Okhtyrka, Sumy, Dnipropetrovske, Dniprodzerzhynske, Kryvyi Rih, Luhanske, Kharkiv, Poltava, Donetske, Mykolayiv, Odessa, Kherson, Yalta, Sevastopil, Kamianets-Podilsky, Pervomayske, Khmelnytsky, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Volodymyr Volynsky, Rivne, Sarny, Dubno, Lutske and other towns.

This territory is now served by 34 priests and 12 nuns. The exarchate was formed to serve the more than 80 Ukrainian Greek-Catholic communities and some 600,000 faithful outside of western Ukraine.

Bishop Choma, 72, will continue to live in Rome, where he will serve as a spokesman for the Greek-Catholic Church to the Vatican. He has served as a member of the "krylos" (council) of the Lviv Archeparchy since 1978, while the Church was still in the catacombs. He had been the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome prior to his new appointment.

Bishop Husar served as vicar general of the Lviv Archeparchy, working out of Rome until the return of Cardinal Lubachivsky to this western Ukrainian city.

In 1993, he and fellow members of the Studite monastic community in Castelgondolfo returned to their homeland. In 1993-1994, he worked at the Lviv Theological Seminary of the Holy Spirit, and since 1995 his home has been the Monastery of St. Theodore the Studite in the village of Kolodiyivka, in the Ternopil region.

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