b. 1960
Borys Gudziak
UGCC Metropolitan in the US, historian
In 1992 an American with a Harvard doctorate moved to Lviv to revive a theological academy. Borys Gudziak went on to lead it, and then the Ukrainian Catholic University that grew out of it. Since 2019 he has been the UGCC’s Metropolitan of Philadelphia.
Key accomplishments
- Founder and director of the Institute of Church History in Lviv (1992–2002)
- Rector of the Lviv Theological Academy (2000–2002), rector (2002–2012) and president (since 2013) of the Ukrainian Catholic University
- Head of the Image of Strength project, an oral history of the underground UGCC (1946–1989)
- Bishop of the Paris eparchy for Ukrainians (2013–2019); head of the UGCC’s Department of External Church Relations from 2014
- Metropolitan Archbishop of Philadelphia for Ukrainian Catholics in the USA (since 2019; as of October 2026)
A boy from Syracuse
Borys Gudziak was born in 1960 in Syracuse, New York, to immigrants from Ukraine. He studied biology and philosophy at Syracuse University, and in 1980 went to study in Rome. There he was also a student of the Ukrainian Catholic University founded by Patriarch Yosyf Slipyi, and grew up under his care.
From Harvard to Lviv
Next came Harvard, where in 1992 Gudziak earned his doctorate in Slavic and Byzantine cultural and church history. That same year he moved to Lviv and founded the Institute of Church History. He led the Image of Strength project, which recorded the memories of people who kept their faith in the underground Greek Catholic Church under Soviet rule (1946–1989).
Reviving the academy
The Theological Academy in Lviv was founded in 1928 by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytskyi, and the Soviet authorities closed it. From 1993 Gudziak chaired the commission to revive it, then became vice-rector and, in 2000, rector. In 2002 the academy became the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU); Gudziak was its rector, and in 2013 he became its president. He was ordained a priest in 1998.
A bishop in Paris and Philadelphia
Gudziak was consecrated a bishop in 2012. From 2013 to 2019 he led the Paris eparchy for Ukrainian Greek Catholics in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland, and in 2014 he became head of the UGCC’s Department of External Church Relations. He took an active part in the Revolution of Dignity of 2013–2014. In 2019 he was appointed Metropolitan Archbishop of Philadelphia for Ukrainian Catholics in the USA.
Why it matters today
With a Harvard doctorate, Borys Gudziak could have stayed in America; instead he moved to Lviv to revive what the Soviet authorities had closed. Because of that, the work of Andrei Sheptytskyi and Yosyf Slipyi did not end: the revived academy became a university in independent Ukraine. The memories he had recorded keep the voices of people who held on to their faith under persecution. His path shows that the diaspora can do more than remember Ukraine from afar: it can come back and help build it.
