Pope names New Mexico pastor as bishop of Byzantine Catholic eparchy in Phoenix

WASHINGTON (OSV News) -- Pope Francis has appointed Father Artur Bubnevych as the bishop of the Holy Protection of Mary Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Phoenix.

Bishop-designate Bubnevych, 49, is a priest of the eparchy and currently is pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He has been pastor there since 2014.

The appointment was publicized in Washington Nov. 8 by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

"As a priest of the Eparchy myself, I am overjoyed by the choice of the Holy Father, and join the people of the Eparchy in promising prayers and every possible support to the new Shepherd. May the Lord God grant to his high-priestly servant Artur Otexandrovych peace, health, and happiness for many blessed years!" said Bishop Kurt E. Burnette of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic, New Jersey, who is apostolic administrator of the Phoenix and Toronto eparchies.

Bishop Burnette noted that Bishop-designate Bubnevych learned of his new office on the feast day of Blessed Theodore Romzha, a Ukrainian Catholic bishop who was assassinated in November 1947 by the Soviet secret police and beatified as a martyr by St. John Paul II in 2001. Bishop Romzha headed the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo from 1944 to 1947.

Bishop-designate Bubnevych has chosen Bishop Romzha's episcopal motto as his motto: "l will love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my refuge." (Psalm 18:1-2)
"Christ is among us! By the grace of God and with deep feeling of unworthiness, but with a joyful heart and in utter thankfulness I say YES to the appointment of His Holiness Pope Francis to serve the clergy and the faithful of the Holy Protection of Mary Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Phoenix as their sixth bishop," Bishop-designate Bubnevych said in a statement.

He pledged "to continue to improve the good work of my predecessors by sowing seeds of the Gospel in every kind of soil alongside the clergy of the Eparchy of Phoenix, through my prayer, fasting, and penance with its religious and dedicated service to its laity."

Bishop-designate Bubnevych was born June 22, 1975, in the village of Perechyn, in the Transcarpathian region of Soviet Ukraine, part of what was then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The region is the site of the Eparchy of Mukachevo.

Due to the oppression of the Greek Catholic Church under communist rule, he was secretly baptized at home by Father Andrey Gleba, a Byzantine Catholic priest, on July 7, 1975.

In June 1994, he graduated from the Vinogradov Polytechnical College and then entered the Seminary of Blessed Theodore Romzha in the Eparchy of Mukachevo in August of that year.

The eparchy sent him to Austria where he learned English at the Language Catechetical Institute in 1995, and in 1996 he entered the International Theological Institute for studies on marriage and family for a master's degree in theology. He graduated from the seminary in 1998, and in December he was ordained to the order of subdiaconate by Bishop Ioann Semediy.

He had entered the licentiate program at the same institute and graduated from there with his licentiate in theology in 2001. He then worked for the Diocese of Liepaja in Latvia until 2005. He worked for the Eparchy of Mukachevo, serving as the project secretary with Bishop Milan Šašik 2006-2013. He also taught English at the seminary and was the main cantor at his home parish of St. Nicholas in Perechyn 2006-2011.

In 2013, he decided to apply to come to the United States as a missionary for the Byzantine Catholic Church, and worked in the Eparchy of Phoenix from September 2013 to March 2014 as a subdeacon and parish office assistant at St. Stephen Cathedral in Phoenix.

In 2014, Bishop Gerald N. Dino, then head of the Phoenix eparchy, ordained Bishop-designate Bubnevych to the diaconate March 9 and to the priesthood Sept. 14; both ordinations were celebrated at St Stephen's Cathedral.

Bishop-designate Bubnevych has served as pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Albuquerque, New Mexico, since 2014. He has also held positions within the eparchy, including as a member of the Inter Eparchial Youth and Young Adult Commission (May 2018- present) and member of the Eparchial Vocation Board (January 2023- present).

He speaks his native Ruthenian language as well as English, German, Latvian, Russian and Ukrainian. Besides his priestly ministry, Bishop-designate Artur enjoys the sports of downhill skiing and Mountain Biking along with camping.

The Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Holy Protection of Mary ministers to Catholics of the Byzantine-Ruthenian Catholic Church in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii.