WASHINGTON – On December 9-12 the head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Patriarch Sviatoslav, together with the bishops of the Permanent Synod – an executive committee that helps the patriarch in leading the Church – visited Washington.
In addition to their working sessions, the bishops met with the Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S.A. Archbishop Christophe Pierre, representatives of the State Department, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic University of America, and others.
The Permanent Synod, which is elected for five years, now includes two Ukrainian American Catholic bishops, Metropolitan Borys Gudziak of Philadelphia and Bishop Bohdan Danylo of Parma, as well as Metropolitan of Przemyśl-Warsaw Eugene Popowicz (Poland), Auxiliary Bishop of Ternopil Teodor Martyniuk (Ukraine) and the secretary of the Synod of Bishops, Bishop Bohdan Dziurakh (Ukraine).