Goidych, Pavlo Petro

Goidych, Pavlo Petro [Ґойдич, Павло Петро; Gojdyč], b 17 July 1888 in Ruski Pekliany in the Prešov region, d 17 July 1960 in Leopoldov, Slovakia. Ukrainian Catholic bishop, church and cultural figure. He was ordained in 1911 after studying theology in Prešov and Budapest. He worked in the Prešov eparchy administration from 1914 until 1922, when he entered the Chernecha Hora Monastery of the Basilian monastic order near Mukachevo. In 1927 he was appointed bishop-administrator and in 1940 ordinary bishop of Prešov eparchy. The eparchy flourished under Goidych’s care: he founded monasteries, a gymnasium, a bursa, and the Blahovisnyk publishing house, promoted charities, and resisted the Slovakization of the Ukrainian national minority. His arrest in June 1950 and mock trial in January 1951 for ‘espionage and treason’ in Bratislava marked the first step in the abolition of the Greek Catholic church in Czechoslovakia by the communist authorities. Goidych died in Leopoldov prison. After the restoration of the Greek Catholic church in 1968, his remains were transferred to the Prešov Cathedral.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
J.E. Pavel Gojdic, ČSSV, jepiskop prjaševsky (1927–1947) (Prešov 1947)
Pekar, A. Bishop P. Gojdich, OSBM—Confessor of Our Times (Pittsburgh 1980)

Atanasii Pekar

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]