Eparch-emeritus of Toronto, bishop Cornelius John Pasichny passed away yesterday

On 30 January 2013 in Toronto died the eparch-emeritus of Toronto, Bishop Cornelius John Pasichny 

His biography in English posted on Facebook by Rev. Athanasius McVay:

Bishop Cornelius was born in the north end of Winnipeg on 27 March 1927 to Stefan Pasichny and Anastasia Kruk, parishioners of St. Nicholas Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Parish. He attended the parish School of St. Nicholas (today Immaculate Heart of Mary) and was active in parish life especially as an altar boy. In September 1942 at the age of 15 he entered the noviciate of the Basilian Order in Mundare, Alberta and, the following year, upon receiving his monastic tonsure, he assumed the religiousn name of Cornelius. His middle schooling (high school courses) took place at the Basilian Scholasticate in Mundare and Grimsby, Ontario from 1944 to 1948. He studied philosophy at the Basilian House of Studies in Glen Cove, Long Island, and sacred theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He professed solemn perpetual vows on  31 October 1948 and was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Ivam Buchko in Rome, at the Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, Piazza Madonna dei Monti, on 5 July 1953, following which he continued higher studies, obtaining a Licenciate in Philosophy from the Gregorian University the following year.

Returning to Canada in 1954 he continued to studies obtaining a a Masters of Philosophy from St. Paul’s University, Ottawa in 1956. That year he was assigned to the Basilian House of Studies at the Mundare Monastery where he taught philosophy to the scholastics (students) and served as parish priest of the Krakow and Borschiv areas. From 1958 to 1959 he served as interim pastor of St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church in Ottawa. From 1959 to 1963 he was vicarius (assistant superior) of the Mundare Monastery where he taught Latin, Church Slavonic and Ukrainian history to the Basilian students.

Father Cornelius was known for his love of the Ukrainian language and culture and music.  He served various pastoral and administrative charges in the Canadian Basilian Province of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, such as provincial consultor and bursar, and editor of the English-language periodical “Beacon.” From 1981 he served spiritual director at the newly-established  Holy Spirit Ukrainian Catholic Seminary. After 43 years away from his native Winnipeg, in 1985 his superiors assigned him to serve as parish priest of his home parish of St. Nicholas.

In November 1995 Blessed John Paul II appointed him Eparch of Saskatoon and he was ordained to the episcopacy at St. Nicholas Church on 17 January 1996 by Metropolitan Michael Bzdel, CSsR, Bishop Basil Filevych, eparch-emeritus of Saskatoon, and Bishop Severian Yakymyshyn, OSBM.  Only three years later, in September 1998, he was transferred to Toronto where he served as eparch until his retirement in May 2003.

During his time as eparch and thereafter, Bishop Cornelius lived in the Basilian Monastery of St. Gregory of Nyssa in Weston (Toronto), Ontario, where he continued to pastorally assist the eparchy and the Order and assisted in the diting of the Canadian Basilian’s Ukrainian-language publication Svitlo.