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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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Fox 29 Philadelphia - A delegation of Patriarchs and Archbishops from the Eastern Catholic Churches lead a prayer in Greek during the funeral of Pope Francis.
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The Orthodox and Catholic Churches have a united celebration in 2025, for the first time in eight years.
As in other years when Christianity’s central liturgical celebration coincides in East and West, it’s especially welcome for “blended” families that have both Catholic and Orthodox members.
“Since Easter falls on the same date this year, the only feeling one can have is joy,” Joseph Lovskiy, the only Catholic in his family in Yekaterinburg in Russia, told Catholic News Agency in a written interview translated from Russian.
Lovskiy’s wife, three children and six grandchildren are all Russian Orthodox, and his youngest son is a Russian Orthodox priest.
Arina Agnew, who was born Orthodox and converted with her family to Catholicism as she grew up in New Jersey, is an American Catholic who is similarly excited about the opportunity to celebrate a joint Easter in 2025 with her family members.
“But we still have family who is Orthodox, and we celebrate with them,” Agnew told EWTN News. “We are going to New Jersey to celebrate with them for this Easter since it’s at the same time.”
Orthodox faithful who live in the U.S. are also looking forward to being able to celebrate Easter in common with their Catholic relatives this year. “Almost 70, 75% of the Greek Orthodox, all Orthodox Christians, are married to non-Orthodox husbands or wives,” Archbishop Elpidophoros of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America told EWTN News. “Can you imagine how difficult it is for a family not to be able to celebrate together at the same day, the same feast? That’s a problem.”
The convergence of Easter occurs occasionally when the Gregorian calendar, used by the Catholic Church, and the Julian calendar, used by Orthodox Churches not in communion with Rome, align on their calculations for Easter. (The two calendars will next converge on April 9, 2034.)
Read the full story at ncregister.com. | Photo: Father John Basarab, pastor of Epiphany of Our Lord Byzantine Catholic Church, celebrates Easter 2024 in Annandale, Virginia. (photo: Courtesy of Father John Basarab )
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Letter from the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches
The “pro Terra Sancta” Collection
Summary Report from the Custody of the Holy Land on projects and works funded by the 2024/2024 Collection
Letter from the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches
Dear Brother in the Episcopate,
Here I am to talk to you once again about the Holy Land.
I feel a strong sense of responsibility to address the Catholic Bishops of the world, in the name of the Holy Father, conveying the Church’s appeal in response to the cry of those who are suffering so much.
As I write to you, our hearts are lifted by the ceasefire in effect. We know that it is fragile and that, by its very nature, it will not be enough on its own to solve the problems and extinguish the hatred in that area. But at least our eyes no longer see explosions, perpetuating the anguish of the irreparable.
We have witnessed tears, despair and destruction everywhere. Now our hope is that the defeat inflicted by death will not be its eternal victory. And our hope is renewed in seeing the Risen One, Jesus Christ our Lord, who in that very land revealed the wounds of His passion, alive.
Today we feel that the words addressed by the Holy Father to the Christians who live in the Holy Places were not a pious wish, but a possible hope: “you, brothers and sisters in Christ who dwell in the lands of which the Scriptures speak most often, are a small, defenceless flock, thirsting for peace. Thank you for what you are, thank you for wanting to remain in your lands, thank you for being able to pray and love despite everything. You are a seed loved by God. Just as a seed, apparently pressed down by the earth that covers it, is always able to find its way upwards, towards the light, in order to bear fruit and give life, do not let yourselves be engulfed by the darkness that surrounds you. Planted in your sacred lands, become sprouts of hope, because the light of faith leads you to testify to love amid words of hatred, to encounter amid growing confrontation, to unity amid increasing hostility” (Letter to the Catholics of the Middle East, 7 October 2024).
Immediately, our duty – and I use this term with both trepidation and determination – comes to mind: to run, as soon as concretely possible, to help life to be reborn. To you, Brother Bishop, and to all those whom you animate in your ministry, God’s dramatic appeal is addressed: “‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O LordGod, you know.’Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of theLord.Thus says the LordGod to these bones: I will cause spirit to enter you, and you shall live’” (Ezek. 37:3-5). Everyone, starting with children, has the right to live in peace and to have homes and schools again, to play together without the fear of seeing the satanic grin of death again. It is true. For us Christians, the Holy Places have a special value; they are the incarnation of the Incarnation. From the very beginning, Christian communities of diverse traditions have safeguarded them and, for centuries, the Friars Minor of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land have cared for them with admirable fidelity.
Initiatives of great pastoral value have sprung up around those places: parishes, schools, hospitals, homes for the elderly, and assistance centres for migrants, displaced persons and refugees. Precisely to help support all this, Pope Saint Paul VI instituted the Collection for the Holy Places, repeated annually on Good Friday or on another locally established date.
This year the Collection becomes an essential resource: after the pandemic, with the almost complete interruption of pilgrimages and the small economic activities that Christians in particular have created alongside them, many have been forced into exile. If we want to strengthen the Holy Land and ensure living contact with the Holy Places, we must sustain Christian communities that, in their various traditions, offer perennial praise to the God-with-us, also in our name. For this to happen, we absolutely need the generous support of your communities.
I would like you, Brother Bishops, to become persuasive apostles of this commitment, remembering the images of destruction and death that have passed before our eyes in these times of new Calvary. The Holy Land, the Holy Places, the Holy People of God are your family, because they are the heritage of all of us. I implore you to feel the Collection as one of your pastoral priorities: at stake is the survival of this precious presence of ours, which dates back directly to the time of Jesus. I am certain that you will transmitted your enthusiasm and your affectionate care to the communities entrusted to you.
Please avoid that promoting parallel collections for the same purpose, which would compromise the meaning and effectiveness of your charity, a universal initiative of the Successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome. The Commissariats of the Holy Land in your country can send what you collect directly to this Dicastery. We anticipate that no community will consider this “liturgy”, as it was called in ancient times, as something that is not its concern.
Pope Francis sends all of you his Blessing: God will not forget, especially in this Jubilee Year of Hope, those who have become witnesses of His Providence and instruments of His Peace. Our Christians of the Holy Land await you. Thank you and have a good Jubilee pilgrimage.
Claudio Card. Gugerotti
Prefect
✠ Michel Jalakh, OAM
Archbishop Secretary
More information can be found at a lengthier version of this story at vatican.va.
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vatican.va - The Holy Father has accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the apostolic exarchate for Ukrainian Catholic faithful of Byzantine rite resident in Italy, presented by Bishop Paulo Dionisio Lachovicz, O.S.B.M., and has appointed Bishop Hryhoriy Komar, until now auxiliary bishop of the eparchy of Sambir-Drohobych, Ukraine, as apostolic administrator sede vacante et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis of the same exarchate.
Curriculum vitae
Bishop Hryhoriy Komar was born on 19 June 1976 in Ukraine, in Letnya, in the eparchy of Sambir-Drohobych.
He attended the major seminary of Ivano-Frankivsk, and was ordained a priest in the eparchy of Sambir-Drohobych on 22 April 2001.
After ordination, he first served as collaborator in the major seminary of Ivano-Frankivsk and pastoral cooperator of the Most Holy Trinity in the same city. He was awarded a licentiate in Oriental ecclesiastical sciences from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome (2003), and went on to hold the roles of vice rector, bursar and lecturer in the major seminary of Sambir-Drohobych, collaborating at the same time with various parishes in Stebnyk and Drohobych.
In March 2012 he was appointed protosyncellus of the eparchy.
On 25 June 2014 he was elected auxiliary bishop of the eparchy of Sambir-Drohobych and, with pontifical assent, was assigned the titular see of Acci; he received episcopal ordination the following 22 August in the Cathedral of Sambir-Drohobych.
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vatican.va - The Holy Father has appointed Bishop Milan Lach, S.J., auxiliary of Bratislava for Catholics of Byzantine rite, as apostolic visitator for Slovakian Greek-Catholic faithful in Western Europe.
Curriculum vitae
Bishop Milan Lach, S.J., was born on 18 November 1973 in Kežmarok, in the archeparchy of Prešov of the Byzantines, Slovakia.
He attended the Greek-Catholic Theological Faculty of Prešov, and in 1995 entered the Jesuit novitiate in Trnava, subsequently completing his studies at the Theological Faculty of the University of Trnava.
He was ordained a priest on 1 July 2001 in Košice.
After ordination, he first served as an employee in the scientific area (2001-2003) and superior (2009-2011) of the Michal Lacko Centre for East-West Spirituality in Košice. He was awarded a doctorate in Oriental ecclesiastical sciences from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome (2009), and went on to serve as spiritual father at the Pontifical College Russicum (2009), spiritual assistant of the Federation of Scouts of Europe (2009), member of the editorial team of the theological journal Verba Theologica, and vice-dean of the Theological Faculty of the University of Trnava (since 2011).
On 19 April 2013, the Holy Father appointed him as auxiliary bishop of the archeparchy of Prešov of the Byzantines, assigning him the titular see of Ostracine.
From 2016 to 2017 he was visitator of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches for the Oriental Seminaries and Colleges of Rome.
On 24 June 2017 he was appointed apostolic administrator sede vacante of the eparchy of Parma of the Ruthenians, United States of America, becoming bishop of the same circumscription on 1 June 2018.
Since 23 January 2023 he has held the office of auxiliary bishop of the eparchy of Bratislava for Catholics of Byzantine rite.
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vatican.va - The Holy Father has appointed the Reverend Artur Bubneyvch, of the clergy of Holy Protection of Mary Byzantine Catholic eparchy of Phoenix, United States of America, until now parish priest of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as bishop of the same eparchy.
Curriculum vitae
Msgr. Artur Bubneyvch was born on 22 June 1975 in Perechin, Zakarpattia, in Ukraine, and entered the Greek-Catholic seminary of the eparchy of Mukachavo in Uzhgorod. From 1996 to 2001 he studied theology at the International Theological Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Gaming, Austria. From 2007 he collaborated with Bishop Milan Šašik, engaged in the formation of young people and teaching the English language.
He transferred to the United States, in the Byzantine eparchy of Holy Protection of Mary of Phoenix, and was ordained a deacon on 9 March 2014. He received priestly ordination the following 14 September. He was appointed parish priest of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 1 December 2014. He is a member of the Eparchial Vocation Board and the board of Intereparchial Youth Adult Commission.