The World’s Youngest Bishop Is from the East

At the age of 38, Bishop Petro Loza has become the youngest bishop in the Catholic Church. On April 12, 2018, the Holy Father confirmed the synod of the Greek-Catholic Church of Ukraine’s nomination of the young prelate as auxiliary bishop of Sokal and Zhovkva for the Ukrainians in the west of the country.

Born on June 3, 1979, in Kolodyantsi, near Lviv, Petro Loza entered the Redemptorists in 1997, where he made his perpetual vows in 2003.

After studying at the Redemptorist seminary in Lviv, then at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, Petro Loza was ordained a priest in 2007. He served as vicar in Vinnytsa, then parish administrator in Hnizdychiv-Kohavyno.

Provincial Counsellor for the Ukrainian Redemptorists from 2011 to 2014, he administered – until his episcopal nomination – the parish of Sts. Peter and Paul in Tchernihiv, where he also served as chaplain for the city’s two prisons.

As the youngest bishop of the Catholic Church, Bishop Loza succeeds another Ukrainian, Bishop Eduard Kava, nominated auxiliary bishop of Lviv for the Latins on May 13, 2017.

The five youngest Catholic bishops now are all Ukrainian, and with the exception of Bishop Kava, belong to the Greek Catholic rite. A clear sign of a young Church rising again from her ashes after the Communist occupation. A hierarchy that is a prey, like everywhere, to other dangers, such as the widespread modernism and relativism, and that needs to keep its guard up so as not to be immolated on the altar of ecumenical dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox.