Yesterday, the Holy Father appointed Father Borys Gudziak, 51, as the new apostolic exarch of France for the Ukrainian Greek Catholics. He will be the chief shepherd of the small community of this church’s faithful living in diaspora in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
While exact numbers are hard to find online, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, if we take the numbers for Belgium as a basis, likely counts several thousand faithful and a handful of priests in the Netherlands. Based primarily in the Ukraine and Belarus, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is in union with Rome but maintains her Byzantine traditions. It has been a heavily persecuted church, which accounts for the many refugees living in other countries.
American-born Bishop-elect Gudziak was until now the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. He succeeds 83-year-old Bishop Michel Hrynchyshyn, who had been the bishop since 1982. Msgr. Gudziak’s titular see, reflecting the subordinate status of his apostolic exarchate, is Carcabia in Tunisia. Previous titular bishops of this see include Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Clergy.
Bishop-elect Gudziak was born in Syracuse, New York in 1960 and gained his PhD in Byzantine and Slavic Studies from Harvard University. A date for his consecration, most likely at the Parisian Cathedral of Saint Vladimir the Great, has yet to be announced.
In Caelo et in Terra 
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