UGCC bishop appointed to lead Apostolic Exarchate in the Vatican

UGCC hierarch Hryhoriy Komar. Photo: ugcc.ua

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of 78-year-old Dionisio Lachovicz, who requested it three years ago, and appointed Bishop Hryhoriy Komar of the Sambir-Drohobych Eparchy of the UGCC as the head of the Apostolic Exarchate for Uniates in Italy. This was reported by the ugcc.ua website on March 7, 2025.

Pope Francis decided to establish the "Apostolic Exarchate for Ukrainian Catholics of the Byzantine Rite" residing in Italy in 2019. Its first administrator was Cardinal Angelo De Donatis. In October 2020, Bishop Dionisio Lachovicz was appointed Apostolic Exarch. Upon reaching the age of 75, he requested to step down, but the pontiff accepted his resignation only now.

The new exarch, 48-year-old Bishop Hryhoriy Komar, was born in the village of Letnia in Lviv Oblast. He earned a degree in Eastern Theology from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. He served as vice-rector and bursar at the Drohobych Theological Seminary, as well as a censor of the eparchy, an advisor to the Theological Department of the UGCC’s Patriarchal Curia, and the protosyncellus of the Sambir-Drohobych Eparchy. In 2014, he was consecrated as an auxiliary bishop of the Sambir-Drohobych Eparchy. In July 2022, he became the head of the UGCC Patriarchal Liturgical Commission.

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