Stephen Chmilar

Biography and cause of death of Stephen Chmilar

Stephen Victor Chmilar (May 1945 – 21 December 2024) Stephen Chmilar was a Canadian Ukrainian Greek Catholic hierarch. He served as Eparchial Bishop of Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Toronto from 3 May 2003 until his retirement on 9 November 2019.

Coat of arms of Bishop Stephen Chmilar

Stephen Chmilar Biography

Bishop Chmilar was born in the family of ethnical Ukrainian Greek-Catholics in Lamont, Alberta, Canada. After the school education, he subsequently joined the Order of Saint Basil the Great, where he had a solemn profession on November 17, 1968. Chmilar was ordained as a priest on June 11, 1972, after studies at the University of Ottawa (1966–1968) with bachelor’s degree in philosophy and Saint Paul University in Ottawa (1968–1972) with bachelor’s degree in theology.

After that he had a various pastoral assignments and served as a parish priest, spiritual director and director of the Christian summer camps at the Basilian and another ecclesiastical Institutes in Canada. In 1991 he left the Basilian Order and was incardinated in the Ukrainian Eparchy of Toronto.

On May 3, 2003, Fr. Chmilar was nominated by Pope John Paul II and on July 23, 2003 consecrated to the Episcopate as the third Eparchial Bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Toronto. The principal consecrator was Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, the Head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.

Bishop Chmilar retired on 9 November 2019, before reaching the age limit of 75. He died on the morning of 21 December 2024, at the age of 79.

Source: Wikipedia