Lubomyr Cardinal Husar
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Cardinal Husar

Lubomyr Husar, MSU (Ukrainian: Любомир Гузар) (born 26 February 1933) is the major archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a minority church in Ukraine but the largest sui juris Eastern church in full communion with the Holy See. He is also a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. After the recent transfer of the see of Lviv to Kiev in August, 2005, he is now the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Major Archbishop of Kiev and Halych.

Biography

Born in Lviv (then Lwów in Poland), Husar fled with his parents in 1944 during World War II. They briefly lived in Salzburg, Austria, then emigrated to the United States.

From 1950 to 1954 he studied at St. Basil College Seminary in Stamford, Connecticut. He studied at The Catholic University of America and Fordham University in the United States, and was ordained a priest on 30 March 1958 for the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Stamford.

From 1958 to 1969, he taught at St. Basil College Seminary and was pastor at Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church in Kerhonkson, New York between 1966 and 1969. In 1969, Husar went to Rome, where he spent three years earning a doctorate in theology at the Pontifical Urbaniana University. He then entered the Monastery of the Studites in Grottaferrata in Italy, and was named its Superior in 1974.

Styles of Lubomyr Husar
Reference style	His Beatitude
Spoken style	Your Beatitude
Informal style	Cardinal
See	Kiev and Halych

He was consecrated a bishop in 1977 in the Castel Gandolfo chapel by Patriarch Josyf Slipyj without the papal permission (apostolic mandate) in an act which caused many irritations in the Roman Curia,¹ as Roman canon law required papal permission for the consecration of a bishop, but at that time Eastern canon law did not. He was named Archimandrite (Archabbot) of the Studite Monks in Europe and America in 1978. He organized a new Studite monastery in Ternopil, Ukraine, in 1994, and was elected by the Synod of Bishops of the Ukrainian Church as exarch of the archiepiscopal exarchy of Kiev and Vyshhorod in 1995, confirmed by the Pope the following year. Although once a citizen of the United States, Husar gave up his American citizenship upon returning to his native Ukraine.

In December 2000, Pope John Paul II named Husar apostolic administrator of the Ukrainian Greek Major-Archeparchy of Lviv, and in January 2001 the Ukrainian Greek synod elected him Major Archbishop. The next month, Pope John Paul II appointed him Cardinal Priest of Santa Sofia a Via Boccea. He was one of the cardinals considered papabile (unusual for an Eastern Catholic) at the 2005 Papal conclave to succeed John Paul II, participated as a cardinal elector.

The major archiepiscopal see of Lviv was moved on August 21, 2005, to the city of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. He is acclaimed by his followers to be the Patriarch of Kiev and Halych, but Rome does not recognize his office as a patriarchate.

In October, 2007, Husar received an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of America in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the first assigning of a bishop of the UGCC to the United States.²

In February 2008, a celebratory liturgy was held in the Basilica of Santa Sophia in Rome on the occasion of the 75th birthday and 50th anniversary of priesthood of Cardinal Husar. The Head of the UGCC was greeted by Pope Benedict XVI, whose address was read by the secretary of Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Monsignor Maurizio Malvestiti.³

Sources and References

1. ^ Apostolische Nachfolge. Ukraine. German [English site of the German CSSp Province].
2. ^ RISU News
3. ^ Pope Honors Head of UGCC on Priesthood Anniversary

External links

• Cardinalrating pages concerning him
• An interview published in February, 2004 by Zerkalo Nedeli (Mirror Weekly), Kiev, in Ukrainian and in Russian.
• Biography at catholic-pages.com