Current Priests

Fr. Taras Svirchuk, C.Ss.R

Father Taras Svirchuk, son of Alexander and Lyubov, was born April 14, 1981 in the city of Novoyavorivsk. He has a younger sister Marianna.

From 1988 until 1998 he studied in High School No 2 in Novoyavorivsk and after completing this school he entered the Redemptorist monastery.

At the age of 7-8 he served at the altar of the Nativity of the Blessed Mother Chapel, which was under the care of the Redemptorists. He felt a calling to the monastery gradually. Fathers Stephan Fedchyshyn, Volodymy Vitowsky, Andriy Manko, Volodymyr Vons, Ihor Mykhlyak and many others who came to parish feasts, retreats and missions had a great impact on him.

He entered the monastery in June of 1998.

He professed his first vows on August 19, 1999 in the village of Kokhavyno (in the region of Lviv).

He studied in Lviv at the Blessed Nicholas Charnetsky Higher Theological Institute from 1999 until 2002.

From 2002-2005 he studied at the Redemptorist seminary in Tukhiv (in Poland). He got his Masters Degree in the New Testament on the topic of “Jesus, the intercessor between God and men (John 14, 4-5)”.

On August 15, he professed his final vows.

July 12, 2005, Bishop Ihor Wozniak, CSsR ordained him deacon at the Church of Martyr St. Josaphat in the city of Lviv.

He served as a deacon in the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother in Ternopil, March and April of 2006.

Bishop Ihor Wozniak, CSsR ordained him a priest in the city of Lviv, on April 7, 2006.

He worked as a priest at the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother which is part of the Redemptorist monastery in Ternopil.

From May 3, 2007 until 2008 he was assigned as Father Superior of the Monastery of St. Alphonsus and rector of the Blessed Nicholas Charnetsky Higher Theological Institute in Lviv (225 Zamarstynivska Street).

September 30, 2008 he came to the United States where he was assigned as assistant pastor in Newark, NJ and is there till the present day. While in Newark he worked with Father Andriy Manko until October 2012 when Fr. Andriy was assigned to a parish in Ukraine. In 2009 Father Taras entered Seton Hall University and in the spring of 2015 he received a Masters Degree in Theology.

From October 1, 2014 he is pastor of St. John’s Ukrainian Catholic Church in Newark.