World’s youngest cardinal says he comes from a young church

by CNS · December 7, 2024

Cardinal-designate Bishop Mykola Bychok, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Sts. Peter and Paul of Melbourne, Australia. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

By Cindy Wooden, CNS – Cardinal-designate Mykola Bychok said he hopes the characteristics that make him unique in the College of Cardinals will benefit the Catholic Church and the Ukrainian people.

On the eve of receiving his red hat from Pope Francis and becoming, at 44, the world’s youngest cardinal, Bishop Bychok told reporters on Dec. 6 that his age is not that unusual in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to which he belongs.

For 70 years the Ukrainian church was outlawed and persecuted under the Soviet Union’s communist regime. Bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful were martyred, jailed or sent to Siberian gulags, he said. The faithful kept the church alive in the underground, and full freedom came only with Ukrainian independence in 1991.

“For that reason, our church is a young church,” Bishop Bychok said. “Many Ukrainian bishops, they are about my age, which is not bad. I think that is good for the future of the church, because we would like to have a young church.”

Rather than wearing a pectoral cross, Bishop Bychok wears around his neck what other Byzantine bishops do: an encolpion, which is a medallion with an icon in the centre.

Having members of the Eastern churches in the College of Cardinals, Bishop Bychok said, is good for the whole church because, as “St John Paul II said, the church breathes with two lungs, Eastern and Western.”