Archbishops rejoice at Australian-based Ukrainian cardinal-elect Mykola Bychok

Bishop Mykola Bychok’s appointment to cardinal has come as ‘unexpected but wonderful news’.

Ukrainian Bishop Mykola Bychok at a mass in Melbourne’s St Patrick's Cathedral in 2022. Picture: Mark Stewart

Australia’s archbishops have rejoiced at Bishop Mykola Bychok’s “unexpected” appointment as cardinal, and have also used the significant moment to commend the Melbourne-based priest’s “dignity and strength” in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Pope Francis appointed cardinal-elect Bychok, aged just 44, as the Eparchial Bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Saints Peter and Paul of Melbourne in 2020.

Fast forward to this past weekend where the head of the Catholic Church in Rome named the Ukraine-born bishop one of the 21 new cardinals, in a move that has given Australia its first cardinal since the death of George Pell.

Bishop Bychok, a redemptorist priest born in Ukraine, is the youngest member of the latest intake of cardinals and will be formally appointed on December 8.

In his announcement on Sunday, the Pope also revealed that the number of the College of Cardinals will expand to 256, of those, 141 will be qualified to vote for the next pope.

Bishop Bychok. Picture: Mark Stewart

They will include a new swath of cardinals from Japan, The Philippines, Africa, South America, Italy, Canada and Iran.

The Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese said the appointment highlights the significance of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church within the global Catholic communion, as well as Pope Francis’ focus on reflecting the breadth of the church.

Melbourne’s Archbishop Peter Comensoli on social media called the appointment “unexpected but wonderful news”.

“Since first welcoming and installing him into Sts Peter and Paul in 2021, I have witnessed how closely Cardinal-designate Bychok lives after the heart of the Good Shepherd, working tirelessly among the lives of the faithful entrusted to his care,” Archbishop Peter Comensoli said.

“To come to a new country and then to face into the devastation for his peoples that the war against Ukraine has brought has been an enormous challenge … cardinal-designate Bychok has risen to this challenge with dignity and strength.”

Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president and Archbishop of Perth, Timothy Costelloe, spoke highly of the incoming cardinal and said that he had won the affection and admiration of the nation’s bishops.

“As we congratulate him on this new appointment we are reminded again of the terrible suffering of the people of Ukraine,” Archbishop Costelloe said.

“This appointment will bring great joy to Ukrainian Catholics here in Australia and indeed throughout the world.”

Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher also celebrated the appointment of the Australian-based bishop.

George Pell. Picture: Andrew Quilty.

“It is my sincere wish that this appointment brings both great joy and hope for the people of Ukraine, and Ukrainians in Australia who pray for peace and the end to senseless violence in their homeland,” he said.

Bishop Bychok was born in the western Ukraine city of Ternopil and has taken his work across the globe, serving in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, Poland, and later in the Russian region of Siberia, the US and Canada.

The Ukraine Catholic of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania described the appointment as a “significant event”.

Australia has been without a cardinal since the death of Pell, after an operation in Rome in January 2023, at the age of 81, after years of a campaign to discredit and convict him of claims found to be false by the High Court. Pell had already retired as a “voting” cardinal because of his age and as the Vatican’s “treasurer” after successfully pursuing corruption within the Holy See which ultimately led to revelations and prosecutions of criminal activity within the Catholic Church.

Since Pell’s death there has been an expectation that Australia, with a population of 25 million people, would receive the papal recognition of a red cap – a cardinal’s appointment.

But despite strong claims from Archbishop Fisher, Melbourne’s Comensoli and Hobart’s Julian Porteus, who has since resigned because of age restrictions – he turned 75 – there has been no announcement from the Vatican.