Pope Francis on Monday named U.K. nuncio Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti as the new prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Eastern Churches.
The 67-year-old Italian arch-bishop succeeds the Argentine Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, who has led the dicastery since 2007 and turned 79 on Nov. 18. The customary retirement age for bishops is 75, although a few other current Vatican prefects have also served beyond this age.
Archbishop Gugerotti, who will take up the new post in mid-January, has served as the aposto-lic nuncio to Great Britain since 2020.
Before the appointment, he was the papal representative to Ukraine for five years. That ex-perience should be helpful in his new role of overseeing relations between the Vatican and the 23 autonomous Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the pope. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is the largest of the 23 Churches.
The second-largest is the Syro-Malabar Church, based in India, which could provide the archbi-shop with his biggest test, due to a fierce internal dispute over litu-rgical changes that has drawn in the Vatican. Archbishop Gugerotti has written books about Eastern liturgies and may take a close interest in the debate.