Sviatoslav Shevchuk

His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk
Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Galicia Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Shevchuk in 2011
Church	Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Elected	23 March 2011
Installed	27 March 2011
Predecessor	Lubomyr Husar
Other post(s)	Metropolitan of Kyiv President of Synod of the Ukrainian Catholic Church Grand Chancellor of Ukrainian Catholic University Member of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches Member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
Orders
Ordination	26 June 1994 by Myroslav Lubachivsky
Consecration	7 April 2009 by Ihor Vozniak
Personal details
Born	(1970-05-05) 5 May 1970 (age 54) Stryi, Ukrainian SSR
Nationality	Ukrainian
Denomination	Catholic Church
Motto	Church Slavonic: Гдⷭ҇ь просвѣще́нїє моє́ и҆ сп҃си́тель мо́й The LORD is my light and my salvation
Coat of arms
Ordination history
History Diaconal ordination Ordained by Philemon Kurchaba Date 21 May 1994 Priestly ordination Ordained by Ivan Cardinal Lubachivsky Date 26 June 1994 Episcopal consecration Principal consecrator Ihor Voznyak Co-consecrators Miguel Mykycej and Julian Voronovsky Date 7 April 2009
Episcopal succession Bishops consecrated by Sviatoslav Shevchuk as principal consecrator Dmytro Hryhorak 18 September 2011 Borys Andrij Gudziak 26 August 2012 Eugeniusz Mirosław Popowicz 21 December 2013 Mykhaylo Bubniy 7 April 2014 Vasyl Volodymyr Tuchapets 21 May 2014 Bohdan Manyshyn 24 May 2014 Yosafat Moschych 3 August 2014 Hryhoriy Komar 22 August 2014 Bohdan John Danylo 4 November 2014 Teodor Martynyuk 22 May 2015 Volodymyr Hrutsa 7 April 2016 Andriy Rabiy 3 September 2017 Petro Loza 12 July 2018 Ivan Kulyk 1 December 2019 Stepan Sus 12 January 2020 Mykola Bychok 7 June 2020 Arkadiusz Trochanowski 23 January 2021 Michael Smolinski 20 January 2024

Sviatoslav Shevchuk (Ukrainian: Святосла́в Шевчу́к; born 5 May 1970 in Stryi, Ukrainian SSR) is a Ukrainian Catholic prelate who has served as the Major Archbishop of Kyiv–Galicia and Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) since 25 March 2011.

At the time he was born, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was illegal under the Soviet Union. His parents and grandparents were devout Catholics and active in the Underground Church. He recalled that on a family trip to the Orthodox shrine of Pochaev around 1985, he prayed before an icon of the Theotokos, expressing his desire to become a priest. A couple of years later, while studying medicine in the city of Boryslav, he began to attend a secret seminary in Yaremche, in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.^[1]

He completed his mandatory military service as a field medic, based in Eastern Ukraine. In the waning days of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was legalized again, and Shevchuk was able to complete his seminary studies in a reopened seminary in Lviv.^[2]

In August 1991, at the direction of his superiors, he moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to study philosophy. He briefly spent time with the Salesian community there. Returning to Ukraine, he was ordained a deacon on May 21, 1994.^[2]