Military chaplain to become a bishop of RCC in Ukraine

On Monday, January 6, 2020, the Vatican officials reported that Pope Francis had appointed Fr Pavlo Honcharuk from among the clergy of the Diocese of Kamianets-Podilsky, the former economist of this Diocese and Director of the Diocesan Department of Caritas-Spes, to the office of Bishop of the Diocese of Kharkiv-Zaporizhia of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine. This is reported by Vatican Radio.

The nominee bishop Pavlo Honcharuk was born in 1978 in the village of Kornachivka, Yarmolynetskyy district, Khmelnytskyi region. He received theological training at the Higher Theological Seminary of the Holy Spirit in Horodok. He acquired licentiate in the Canon Law at the University of St. Stephen Wyszynski in Warsaw (Poland).

After his ordination as a priest on June 22, 2002, Fr Pavlo performed pastoral ministry in the Diocese of Kamianets-Podilsky. Since 2003, he has chaired the Caritas-Spes branch of the diocese, from 2005 to 2016, he served as a defender at the matrimonial unit in the Diocesan Church Tribunal, and in 2016, he was appointed a judge in this Tribunal. In addition, he is a diocesan economist and military chaplain. He speaks Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, Italian and German.

The Diocese of Kharkiv-Zaporizhia of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine was created by Pope John Paul II on May 2, 2002. It covers Church entites in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Luhansk, Poltava, Sumy and Kharkiv regions. The throne had become vacant after the then-ordinary Bishop, Bishop Stanislav Shyrokoradiuk was appointed bishop-coadjutor of the Odesa-Simferopol Diocese.