Ivan Ljavinec

Ivan Ljavinec 1996

coat of arms

Ivan Ljavinec (born April 18, 1923 in Volovec , Carpathian Ukraine , † December 9, 2012 ) was a Greek-Catholic clergyman and Apostolic Exarch of the Czech Republic .

Life

Ivan Ljavinec studied theology in Uzhhorod and Vienna after graduating from school in Mukachevo . He received on 28 July 1946 Pavel Peter Gojdič , Archbishop of Prešov , the ordination . After the Russian occupation of his homeland, the Carpathian Ukraine , he first settled in Prešov, Slovakia , and became Pavol Gojdič's secretary. He was also the editor of Blahovistnik and Zorja magazine . In 1949 he became a spiritual director at the Prešov seminary .

After the ban on the Eastern Catholic Churches after the Second World War by the communist regime and the imprisonment of Bishop Pavol Gojdič and Auxiliary Bishop Vasiľ Hopko in 1950, Ivan Ljavinec was the highest representative of his church as vicar general . In 1955 Ljavinec was also arrested and sentenced to four years in a labor camp a year later. After his release he was banned from living and working in the districts of Košice and Prešov. In Prague he worked as a craftsman. Together with František Tomášek , the Archbishop of Prague, he successfully fought for a readmission of the Eastern Churches according to the Byzantine rite . In 1969 he became pastor of St. Clement's Church in Prague. In 1993 he was appointed administrator of the Eastern Churches according to the Byzantine Rite in the Czech Republic.

On January 18, 1996, Pope John Paul II appointed him Titular Bishop of Acalissus and the first Apostolic Exarch of the Eastern Churches according to the Byzantine Rite of the Czech Republic and the first Apostolic Exarch of the Greek Catholic Church in the Czech Republic. The secretary of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches Miroslav Stefan Marusyn donated to him on 30 March 1996 in the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome the episcopal ordination ; Co-consecrators were Giovanni Coppa , Apostolic Nuncio in the Czech Republic and Slovakia , and Irynej Bilyk OSBM , Auxiliary Bishop in Ivano-Frankivsk .

On April 23, 2003, Pope John Paul II accepted his age-related resignation.

Web links

• Entry on Ivan Ljavinec on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on December 23, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Msgr Ivan Ljavinec. Czech Bishops' Conference , archived from the original on December 14, 2012 ; accessed on December 11, 2012 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
---	Apostolic Exarch of the Czech Republic 1996–2003	Ladislav Hučko