A Brief Overview
During the first week of November 2026, the Ukrainian Catholic Metropolitan See of Canada marks the 70th anniversary of its founding and celebrates the enthronement of its fourth Metropolitan-Archbishop. Let us reflect briefly on the events that led to this moment in our history.
The presence of Ukrainian Catholics in Canada dates from 1891. At the request of pioneer settlers, Cardinal Sylvester Sembratovych, Metropolitan of Lviv-Halych, sent missionaries to serve them. A handful of secular priests had to work under the Roman Catholic bishops, as there was no Greek Catholic hierarchy in North America. The Canadian bishops tried to satisfy the pastoral needs of the settlers by enlisting Basilians, Redemptorists, Oblates, and Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate. However, too few missionaries and misunderstandings with Roman Catholic clergy led to calls for an Eastern Catholic bishop to be appointed.
In July 1912, Nykyta Budka was appointed Bishop for all Greek Catholics in Canada (Ukrainians, Rusyns, Slovaks, Croatians of the Byzantine Rite). On 6 December 1912, he was enthroned at Saint Nicholas Church in Winnipeg and, a week later, made Saints Volodymyr and Olha (which had refused to submit to the Roman Catholic hierarchy) his Pro-Cathedral. Budka established a separate diocesan structure, recruited priests and seminarians from Austrian Galicia (Western Ukraine), and tried to foster Canadian-born vocations. During his tenure, the Greek Catholic Church remained missionary in character.
Serving all of Canada was too arduous for a single hierarch. Budka asked severalmtimes for an auxiliary bishop to share the burden. In 1927, the Apostolic (papal) Delegate in Canada, Archbishop Cassulo, recommended that the Ordinariate be divided in three, with additional bishops in Edmonton and Toronto. Budka resigned due to ill health and near bankruptcy in 1928. The following year, he was succeeded by Basilian missionary Vasyliy Ladyka, who was enthroned at Saint Nicholas Church and lived with the Basilians at 612 Flora Avenue until an episcopal residence-chancery at 235 Scotia Street was completed.
Bishop Ladyka was Ukrainian born but had spent his entire ministry in Canada. Thus, he understood the need of homegrown clergy to serve a second generation of Canadian Ukrainians. New recruits had to be prepared for the rigors of missionary work in the severe Canadian climate. Under Ladyka, Canadian-born vocations to the Basilian and Redemptorist religious orders increased dramatically. He also taught his secular clergy to conceive their priesthood as a supernatural mission to sanctify and catechize their poorly instructed flocks, rather than patronizing community and nationalistic initiatives. After four years of intense missionary activity, having crisscrossed the country several times, Ladyka petitioned Vatican authorities to import more clergy, to establish two more bishoprics, and to name one of them as metropolitan, to ensure harmony in Church governance. Exhausting missionary work caused his health to break down in 1942, and he was finally given a helper. Nil Savaryn, a missionary in rural Alberta and Ihumen (superior) of the Basilian Monastery in Mundare, was named his auxiliary bishop on 29 March 1943.
From the 1930s the numbers of Ukrainian Catholic priests, religious, seminarians, and faithful, grew steadily in tandem with the number of new churches and mission stations. Schools, colleges, academies, hospitals, nursing homes, and printing presses were established by the Basilians, Redemptorists, Christian Brothers, and Sisters Servants. Inspirited by the Catholic Action movement, organizations such as the Ukrainian Catholic Brotherhood, Ukrainian Catholic Women’s League, and Ukrainian Catholic Youth, were established to involve the laity in the Church life.
In the summer of 1947, the head of the Vatican department for the Eastern Churches, Cardinal Eugène Tisserant, toured of North America, visiting Ukrainian communities from Montreal to Vancouver. He was impressed that the Ukrainian Catholic Church was flourishing even into the third generation. Tisserant realized that this growth necessitated additional bishoprics, so he told Apostolic Delegate Antoniutti to divide the Ordinariate into three Apostolic Exarchates, with bishops stationed in Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Toronto. On 3 March 1948, Bishop Savaryn was appointed to Edmonton as Exarch for Western Canada, and two secular priests were chosen: Isidore Boretsky to Toronto as Exarch for Eastern Canada, and Andrew Roboretsky as Ladyka’s new auxiliary. The Canadian hierarchy held its first conference and petitioned the Pope to establish a Metropolitan See. Instead, Ladyka, as the senior hierarch, was granted the honorary title of Archbishop.
In March 1951, the Central Exarchate was divided between Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Bishop Roboretsky became the Exarch of Saskatoon and was replaced as Ladyka’s auxiliary by Father Maxim Hermaniuk, who came Canada in 1948 to take charge of the Eastern-Rite Redemptorists. Due to the efforts of Father Vasyl Kushnir, Saints Volodymyr and Olha built a massive new church which became the exarchate’s cathedral. The opening on 15 April 1951 was attended by 8,000 people and an impressive number of church and civic dignitaries. Maxim Hermaniuk was consecrated bishop at the new Cathedral on 29 June 1951.
With new bishops and an influx of priests from Europe, the four exarchates expanded rapidly, establishing missions, building churches, setting up branches of the lay organizations, holding rallies and congresses. The Western and Eastern Exarchates began with great energy, augmented with refugee clergy and faithful from Europe. Edmonton held a provincial synod in 1952 but plans to establish colleges and schools evaporated during a conflict between Canadian-born and European clergy. The Basilians abandoned plans to establish a college in Edmonton, transferring their hopes to a high school in Toronto. As a result, the bishops asked the Redemptorists to establish a minor seminary for eparchial and monastic vocations. Saint The institution, Saint Vladimir’s College, opened in 1956 in Roblin, Manitoba. Over four decades, it fostered numerous priestly vocations and formed laity in an strong Ukrainian Catholic identity.
Archbishop Ladyka’s failing health and lack of financial oversight led to Bishop Hermaniuk being named Coadjutor in February 1955, and Administrator of the Winnipeg Exarchate on 19 January 1956. Ladyka died on 1 September 1956. On Cardinal Tisserant’s recommendation, Pope Pius XII created a Ukrainian Catholic Metropolia (ecclesiastical province) on 3 November 1956, elevating the three Apostolic Exarchates of Edmonton, Toronto, and Saskatoon to Eparchies and Winnipeg to an Archeparchy. Maxim Hermaniuk was appointed as Ladyka’s successor and the first Metropolitan.
On 12 February 1957, Apostolic Delegate Giovanni Panico enthroned Metropolitan Maxim at Saints Volodymyr and Olha Cathedral. In his remarks, he paid tribute to Metropolitan Slipyi, who was in Soviet captivity, and honoured the memory of Nykyta Budka, the first bishop who later perished in the Soviet gulag. Maxim Hermaniuk’s enthronement was attended by 21 Canadian Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops and the entire Ukrainian Catholic hierarchy in Canada, USA, and Europe, the Manitoba Lieutenant Governor, the Premier, the Mayor of Winnipeg, and a representative of the Prime Minister.
The day after his enthronement, Hermaniuk held the first Conference of the worldwide Ukrainian and Ruthenian Catholic hierarchy, which issued a joint pastoral letter to mark the historic development. This same Conference actively lobbied for the release of Metropolitan Yosyf Slipyi at the beginning of the Second Vatican Council. Slipyi’s release led to profound changes within the Ukrainian Catholic Church. He and the bishops consistently petitioned the Apostolic See to restore synodal governance to the Church and for a Ukrainian patriarchate.
In 1962, Metropolitan Hermaniuk held a provincial synod of the Canadian Metropolia and a new Ukrainian Catholic elementary school, Immaculate Heart of Mary, was opened near the Cathedral. Both the school and the Catechetical Centre, which Hermaniuk later established archeparchial chancery, were administered by the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate. From 1962 to 1965, Hermaniuk actively participated in all four sessions of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.
Metropolitan Maxim welcomed the Head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Cardinal Yosyf Slipyi to Canada in 1968 and 1973. A fifth eparchy in New Westminster was established for British Columbia and Yukon in 1974, and a Ukrainian Catholic Seminary was established in Ottawa in 1981. Hermaniuk welcomed Pope Saint John Paul II in September 1984, and Slipyi’s successor, Cardinal Myroslav-Ivan Lubachvsky, in 1986. Finally, the Archeparchy held a Ukrainian Youth for Christ Rally in 1985. In his last ten years of his service, Hermaniuk was assisted by Auxiliary Bishop Myron Daciuk, who has served for many years in Winnipeg as Basilan Provincial Superior and pastor. In those years, Hermaniuk also entrusted much of the archeparchial administration to his energetic chancellor, Monsignor Michael Buyachok.
After 36 years as Metropolitan-Archbishop, on 16 December 1992, Maxim Hermaniuk retired. He was succeeded by Redemptorist Provincial Superior Michael Bzdel, who was consecrated and enthroned at Saints Volodymyr and Olha on 9 March 1993. Bzdel received Stefan Soroka as his Auxiliary Bishop in 1996 and David Motiuk in 2002, and appointed Fathers Michael Winn and Richard Soo as chancellors. In September 2002, Bzdel presided over the transfer of the relics of Blessed Vasyl Velychkovsky to a shrine at Saint Joseph’s Parish and convoked an archeparchial sobor of clergy and laity in October 2003. He also welcomed the patriarch of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, first in February 2003, then for a Canada-wide Ukrainian Clergy encounter in May 2005.
Michael Bzdel was succeeded on 9 January 2006 by Lawrence Huculak, hitherto Edmonton Eparch. Metropolitan Lawrence was enthroned on 11 February 2006. He hosted the Synod of the Ukrainian Catholic hierarchy, led by Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk, in September 2012. The event coincided with nation-wide celebrations marking the centennial of the first bishop, Blessed Martyr Nykyta Budka. Huculak received Andriy Rabiy as his Auxiliary Bishop in 2022 and served as Apostolic Administrator of the Saskatoon Eparchy from 2022 to 2024. He was succeeded, on 9 July 2026, by Michael Kwiatkowski, hitherto Eparch of New Westminster.
Michael Kwiatkowski was ordained a priest of the Winnipeg Archeparchy in 1985 and served at Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Holy Eucharist Parishes, and later as archeparchial chancellor. For nine years, from 1996 to 2005, he ministered in Ukraine as Chancellor of the Patriarchal Curia and Vice-Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. After returning to Canada, he was Spiritual Director of Holy Spirit Seminary in Ottawa from 2006 to 2010, before returning to parish and chancery work in Winnipeg.
The Ukrainian Catholic Metropolia marks 70 years on 3 November 2026. Five days later, on 8 November, Kyr Michael will be enthroned by Patriarch Sviatoslav at Saints Volodymyr and Olha as the fourth Archbishop of Winnipeg and Metropolitan of Canada. The date is the Feast of the new Metropolitan’s patron, Saint Michael the Archangel, and the third anniversary of his episcopal consecration in the same Metropolitan Cathedral.
Based on a longer article at Annales Ecclesiae Ucrainae
