FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Most Reverend William C. Skurla, D.D. Named Metropolitan of Pittsburgh
WOODLAND PARK, New Jersey (Thursday, January 19, 2012) - It was announced today from Rome that the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has officially appointed Most Reverend William C. Skurla, D.D., as Metropolitan Archbishop of the Byzantine Archeparchy of Pittsburgh. The official appointment was announced on Thursday, January 19, 2012. He will be enthroned in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, April 18, 2012.
Archbishop-elect William Charles Skurla, D.D. was born in Duluth, Minnesota, June 1, 1956, the son of the late John and Mavis Skurla. He attended Catholic and public elementary schools and graduated in 1974 from Chisholm High School, Chisholm, MN.
He attended Deerfield Academy Post-Graduate program in Deerfield, Massachusetts from 1974-1975. He then attended Columbia University in New York City, graduating with a concentration in Philosophy in 1981. Following this, he then studied at Mary Immaculate Seminary in Northampton, Pennsylvania, receiving a Masters of Divinity in 1986 and a Masters of Theology in 1987.
Discerning a call to serve the Lord in a special way, William Skurla entered the Byzantine Franciscan community in Sybertsville, PA in 1981 and was Solemnly Professed in 1985. Bishop Michael Dudick ordained him to the diaconate in 1986 and to the Priesthood in 1987 at Saint Mary Byzantine Catholic Church in Freeland, PA. In 1996, having received and accepted his dispensation from solemn vows as a member of the Order of Friars Minor, he was incardinated into the Eparchy of Van Nuys, where he served as Pastoral Administrator at Saint Melany Byzantine Catholic Church in Tucson, AZ from 1993 until 2002.
Archbishop-elect was ordained to the Episcopacy and enthroned as the Third Bishop of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Van Nuys on April 23, 2002 in Phoenix, Arizona.
In December of 2007 he was appointed Fourth Bishop of the Eparchy of Passaic and was enthroned at St. Michael Cathedral, Passaic NJ on January 29, 2008.
Archbishop-elect William serves as the Episcopal chairperson of the Intereparchial Vocation Directors and Intereparchial Youth Commission for the Metropolia. He was a member of the Committee on the Laity with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and currently serves as a member of the USCCB Administrative Committee, Priority and Plans Committee and National Advisory Committee.
Skurla, 55, succeeds Metropolitan Archbishop Basil M. Schott, OFM, DD who died after a short illness in June 2010. The Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh is the only self-governing Eastern Catholic Church in the United States, meaning it is directly under the authority of the pope rather than a Catholic patriarch in Eastern Europe or the Middle East. It stretches from Erie to Texas and has 58,000 parishioners and 65 priests in 78 parishes.
