World’s youngest cardinal is just 44 years old

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 10, 2024 / 08:00 am

Among the new crop of cardinals created by Pope Francis on Dec. 7, Cardinal Mykola Bychok, CSSR, stands out. He is the bishop of the Eparchy of Sts. Peter and Paul in Melbourne for Ukrainian Catholics in Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania, and at age 44, he has become the youngest cardinal in the world. 

The website of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Australia explains that the new cardinal belongs to an Eastern-rite church, so for the Dec. 7 occasion he wore “a purple robe according to the old Kyivan tradition” that was “adorned with embroidered images of Sts. Peter and Paul.”

“On his head he wore a black koukoul [or koukoulion] in accordance with the Ukrainian monastic tradition, styled after the 17th-century Brest Union and trimmed with a thin red border.” Bychok also wore on his chest a medallion with an image of the Virgin Mary.

During the ceremony, Pope Francis placed a red skullcap and biretta on the heads of all the other cardinals whereas on Bychok he placed the koukoulion.

The 1596 Union of Brest (or Brześć) united Orthodox Christians in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the Holy See, leading to what is now the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

Eastern rites and the Ukrainian rite

The website of Ukrainian Catholics in Australia explains that “the Ukrainian Catholic Church (UCC) is an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Apostolic See.”

“With more than 5.5 million faithful, it is the largest of all 23 Eastern Churches in the global Catholic community, second in number after the Latin (Roman Catholic) Church. The UCC is headed by the major archbishop of Kyiv and Halych, His Beatitude Sviatoslav [Shevchuk],” the site notes.

This church has “its own rite, which originates in the Constantinopolitan tradition, and preserves its liturgical, theological, spiritual, and disciplinary heritage in the cultural and historical circumstances of its people.”

The majority of Catholics in the Western world belong to the Latin rite.

‘Ukraine is in my heart’

“We have a special title in the Church, but we must remember who we are: human beings, dependent on God,” said the new cardinal following Saturday’s consistory, according to Vatican News.

After saying that he has not forgotten his native country, now ravaged by war, the 44-year-old cardinal said: “I am a bishop in Australia, a cardinal of the universal Church, but Ukraine is in my heart,” and he asked for prayers for Ukrainians.

Bychok was born on Feb. 13, 1980, in Ternopil, Ukraine. He was ordained a priest in 2005.

In 2020, he was appointed bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Sts. Peter and Paul in Melbourne. On June 7, 2020, the feast of Pentecost according to the Julian calendar, he was consecrated bishop in St. George’s Cathedral in Lviv, Ukraine.

His episcopal motto is Пресвятая Богородице, спаси нас (“Holy Mother of God, save us”). St. Sophia on Via Boccea was designated yesterday as his titular church as a cardinal.

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This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.