Bishop of Saint Nicholas of Chicago (Ukrainian)
Bishop Venedykt (Valeriy) Aleksiychuk, Bishop of Saint Nicholas of Chicago (Ukrainian), Illinois, USA, was born on 1 January 1968 in the village of Borshchivka, Rivne region, Ukraine. He attended the Major Seminary of Drohobych and was ordained a priest on 29 March 1992. In 1993 he was received into the Dormition Lavra of the Studite Monks of Univ, and on 31 December 1995 he made first vows. He obtained a doctorate in Spiritual Theology at the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. He ministered at the parish of Bystrytsia in the Drohobych deanery; in Belarus at Polock and in the parish of Vitebsk from 1994 to 1996; and in Canada from 1996 to 1999. He was hegumen of the Lavra of Univ in 2000 and was re-elected in 2005; a member of the Major Archbishop's Commission for Monasticism in 2004; and administrator of Saint Nicholas Parish in Peremyshlany in 2004. From 2007 he was responsible for the secretariat of the council of monks of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, president of the liturgical council, and president of the Major Superiors of the male religious institutes of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Elected Auxiliary Bishop of Lviv of the Ukrainians on 3 August 2010, he was consecrated on the following 5 September.