Apostolic Exarchate of Donetsk
Archiepiscopal exarchate · Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church · Donetsk, Ukraine
Ukrainian Greek Catholic archiepiscopal exarchate for eastern Ukraine (Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts), founded 11 January 2002 as the Exarchate of Donetsk-Kharkiv and renamed on 2 April 2014 when Kharkiv was split off. The seat is the Cathedral of the Virgin of Mercy in Donetsk; roughly half its territory is under Russian occupation, with active parishes down from over 80 to 37.
The see
- Rank
- Archiepiscopal exarchate
- Tradition
- Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
- Erected
- 14 January 2002
- Annuario code
- 001000563
The see in figures
- Catholics
- 8,000
- Priests
- 61
- Catholics per priest
- 131
- Extent
- 112,298 km²
- Catholics per km²
- 0.1
Figures as recorded in the register, from the Annuario Pontificio and the see's own published statements. Shares and ratios are computed from the two figures shown beside them.
The bishop
- Archiepiscopal Exarch
- Maksym Ryabukha, S.D.B.
A see whose chair stands empty is recorded as vacant rather than filled with a guess. On what a bishop is, see the bishop.
The cathedral
Cathedral of the Virgin of Mercy, Donetsk stands in Donetsk, the church that holds the cathedra from which this see takes its name.
On what a cathedral is, see the cathedral; every see church on earth is gathered at the cathedrals.
History
Among the five Archiepiscopal Exarchates of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (Byzantine Rite, Ukrainian language), each an Eastern Catholic pre-diocesan missionary jurisdiction under a Major Archbishop, is the Ukrainian Catholic Archiepiscopal Exarchate of Donetsk (Latin: Archiepiscopi Exarchatus Doneckiensis) in Eastern Ukraine. Its cathedral episcopal see is the Cathedral of the Virgin of Mercy in Donetsk, and a Basilian monastery stands at Zvanivka in the north of Donetsk Oblast. Bishop Stepan Meniok, C.Ss.R., the first archiepiscopal exarch, retired in 2024 and was succeeded by Bishop Maksym Ryabukha.
How to reach it
- Chancery
- Vasnetsova 2B, 83087 Donetsk, Ukraina
- Telephone
- [097]401.90.00
- [email protected]
This see keeps no website of its own, so its chancery is published here: withholding it would protect nothing and leave a reader with nowhere to go. Where a see publishes its own site, the register sends you there instead.
What is kept by invitation
The record above is published because it is public: what this see is, when it was erected, who holds its chair, and where it stands among its neighbours.
The working record is not. The clergy of the see, and the hours of Mass, confession and adoration in the parishes within it, are kept for members, and a person reads every request.
Sources
This record is compiled from the published statements of the see and the references of the Holy See, among them the Annuario Pontificio. On the method, see the keeping of the record. Whoever finds an error is asked, in charity, to write: [email protected].