Gebei, Petro

Gebei, Petro [Ґебей, Петро; Gebej], b 20 July 1864 in Kalnyk, Bereg komitat, Transcarpathia, d 26 April 1931 in Uzhhorod. Greek Catholic bishop, educator, and civic figure. He completed his theological studies in the Budapest Central Seminary (1889), and began teaching canon law at the Uzhhorod Eparchial Seminary, later becoming its rector. In 1927 he was consecrated bishop of the Mukachevo eparchy. In 1918–19 he was active in the Central Ruthenian People's Council, which sought Ukrainian national and religious autonomy both from the governments of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In 1925 he created the Central Chancellery for the Defense of the Faith, which successfully stemmed the mass conversions to Orthodoxy, defended his church’s rights, and convinced the Czechoslovak state to restore confiscated properties to the Greek Catholic church. A popular bishop, he had a populist orientation and belonged to both the Prosvita society and the Dukhnovych Society.

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