News - June 2018 RSS Feed

SUGAR CREEK, Mo. — Benedictine Father Thomas Bailey drove about 80,000 miles over the past eight years in service to the Eparchy of Parma as the sacramental minister to St. Luke Byzantine Catholic Parish. Each round trip to the Sugar Creek community, where he celebrated Divine Liturgy on Sundays and holy days, was 180 miles. READ MORE.

BRUNSWICK, Ohio — Anna Tombazzi, parishioner of St. Emilian Byzantine Catholic Parish, was among the University of Akron’s graduates last month to receive the Top Ten Senior Award 2018. The award is among the university’s highest honors; each recipient’s name is engraved on a plaque in the student union building. The award is conferred “in recognition of exceptional contributions in scholarship, involvement and leadership throughout the undergraduate career.” Award recipients must also receive nominations from faculty and students. READ MORE.

ROME — Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople urged Christians to beware indifference and to address the “crisis of solidarity.” “Even in so-called ‘Christian’ societies there is a new martyrdom, the result of a lack of amazement, which is the martyrdom of the indifference of a post-religious society, of spiritual aridity,” he said in his reflection during a prayer service he led at the Basilica of the Twelve Holy Apostles in Rome May 23. READ MORE.

CLEVELAND — St. Mary Byzantine Catholic School’s 13 graduating students were honored with a Divine Liturgy and reception June 3. “As an educator, it has been most gratifying watching the development of the 13 graduates of the Class of 2018,” said the principal, Rita Basalla. “This class has grown to be persons who demonstrate the respectful and responsible behaviors that we all pray to see in graduates of our Catholic school.” READ MORE.

PITTSBURGH — Archbishop Alexander Golitzin of the Orthodox Church of America (OCA) gave the 18th annual Sts. Cyril and Methodius Lecture of the Byzantine Catholic Seminary May 16. Archbishop Golitzin heads two OCA dioceses — the Diocese of the South, based in Dallas, and the Bulgarian Diocese. The patristics scholar and former professor spoke on the theme, “The Place of the Presence of God: Aphrahat of Persia’s Portrait of the Christian Holy Man.” READ MORE.

ROME — Father Andrew Summerson, administrator of St. Mary Parish in Whiting, Indiana, successfully defended his doctoral thesis in patristic theology at the Pontifical Patristic Institute “Augustinianum” May 21. His work focused on the theology of the Church Fathers. He wrote on seventh-century Father Maximus the Confessor’s perspectives on Biblical interpretation and its role in understanding human emotion in relationship to the Divine. READ MORE.

Pentecost, in a certain sense, celebrates the birthday of the church. There, in the Upper room, the Apostles were gathered together with the Mother of God in prayer. In that moment, the promise of Jesus Christ was fulfilled. He who promised the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, now sends it in the form of tongues of fire on the disciples in the Upper Room. READ MORE.

CHICAGO — Pilgrims on Horizons’ fall pilgrimage to Central Europe will walk in the footsteps of three holy Ruthenian bishops martyred for the faith and pray at their tombs in Slovakia and Ukraine. The Byzantine Ruthenian Church boasts three 20th-century martyrs as outstanding examples of faith in the modern age. The three bishops, Theodore Romzha, Paul Gojdich, and Basil Hopko, all victims of communism, stood for the Gospel in the face of abject hatred of and violence against the church. READ MORE.

PARMA, Ohio — Bishop Milan Lach, SJ, will be enthroned as the fifth bishop of the Eparchy of Parma during a Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist June 30. He succeeds Bishop John Kudrick, whose resignation was accepted by the Vatican May 7, 2016. Bishop Lach’s appointment as eparch was announced June 1. Up until then, he had served as apostolic administrator, an appointment he received June 24, 2017. READ MORE.

PARMA, Ohio — Martin Kopmeyer began as the Eparchy of Parma’s new Chief Financial Officer at the end of April, succeeding Father James Batcha. The native of Livonia, Michigan, has been living in metro Cleveland for 25 years, the past 13 years in Brecksville. He and his wife of 24 years, Julie, have three children. “There’s nothing I enjoy more than spending time with my family,” he said. READ MORE.

MUNSTER, Ind. — The Byzantine Catholic community of Northwest Indiana welcomed back one of its homegrown religious vocations earlier this month and learned how families can nurture vocations among their children. Sister Kathleen Hutsko was born and raised at St. Mary Parish in Whiting, Indiana, and discerned a religious vocation, eventually settling on the Sister Servants of Mary Immaculate, a Byzantine Catholic order of active religious sisters. Thirty-eight years later, she serves in the leadership of the community as the provincial superior of the Immaculate Conception Province in the United States, headquartered in Sloatsburg, New York. READ MORE.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The cause for the canonization of an Eastern Catholic priest and three deacons, who were murdered in Iraq, was given the green light. The Vatican granted permission to open the cause May 14. Father Ragheed Aziz Ganni, a Chaldean Catholic priest, his cousin Deacon Basman Yousef Daud, and Deacons Wahid Hanna Isho and Gassan Isam Bidawed were killed June 3, 2007, in front of Holy Spirit Chaldean Catholic church in Mosul, where the young priest was pastor. Father Ganni had just finished celebrating Divine Liturgy. READ MORE.

BRECKSVILLE, Ohio — In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the papal encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” given by Blessed Paul VI in 1968, the Marriage and Family Ministry of the Eparchy of Parma and the Tabor Life Institute co-sponsored a daylong conference May 12. About 60 people attended the event, held in the hall of St. Joseph Byzantine Catholic Parish, including laypeople and clergy of the Eparchy of Parma, the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of St. Josaphat, and the Diocese of Cleveland. READ MORE.

WASHINGTON — Pope Francis has appointed as bishop of the Ruthenian Eparchy of Parma, the Most Reverend Milan Lach, SJ, who up until now served as apostolic administrator of the Eparchy. The Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma is the Catholic eparchy governing most Ruthenian Catholics in the mid-western United States. It is headquartered in Parma, Ohio. The appointment was publicized in Washington, DC, June 1, 2018 by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States. READ MORE.