Byzantine Catholic Metropolitan Basil Schott dies

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting the death this morning of Metropolitan Basil Schott, the head of the Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh.

Here are the early details from the newspaper:

"Metropolitan Basil Schott, archbishop of the Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh, died 3:45 a.m. this morning from cancer that he had been diagnosed with last year.

"The 70-year-old Franciscan friar had been archbishop of the only self-governing Eastern Catholic Church in the United States since 2002.

"Eastern Catholic Churches are loyal to the pope and in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church but follow the liturgy and many other practices of Eastern Orthodoxy and have greater ability to govern themselves than do Latin Catholic dioceses. The Archeparchy -- the eastern term for archdiocese -- of Pittsburgh stretches diagonally from Pennsylvania through Tennessee into Texas."


Update: Here is the official announcement from the Chancery, with funeral arrangements.