Most Rev. Walter Paska, 84, an auxiliary bishop

The Most Rev. Walter Paska, 84, retired auxiliary bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, died of complications of a stroke Saturday at AristaCare in Plymouth Meeting.

The archdiocese, as the archeparchy is also known, covers Eastern Pennsylvania and all of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia and numbers 22,500 communicants.

From 1975 until 2006, Bishop Paska was the judicial vicar and vocations director of the archeparchy.

Msgr. Peter Waslo, spokesman for the archdiocese, said Bishop Paska was ordained an auxiliary bishop in 1992 and served as rector of Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Philadelphia from 1992 to 2001.

A native of Elizabeth, N.J., Bishop Paska studied at St. Basil College in Stamford, Conn., and at St. Charles Seminary in Catonsville, Md., and was ordained in Philadelphia in 1947.

Bishop Paska earned a master's degree in medieval English literature from Fordham University in 1952.

He worked at parishes in Brooklyn, Elizabeth, N.J., Hempstead on Long Island, and Stamford, as well as at Holy Ghost Parish in Chester, St. Michael in Cherry Hill, and SS. Peter and Paul in Williamstown, N.J.

In 1963, Pope Paul VI named him a prelate of honor with the title of monsignor.

From 1969 to 1971, he was the first chancellor and vicar general of the Eparchy of St. Nicholas in Chicago. That diocese covers Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and all states west of the Mississippi River.

A former teacher at St. Basil Prep and College, Bishop Paska earned his doctorate in canon law at Catholic University in 1975 and was a professor of canon law there from 1975 to 1978. At St. Josaphat Seminary in Washington, he was rector from 1979 to 1984.

At the time of his death he reviewed canon law cases as a defender of the bond of the metropolitan tribunal.

Bishop Paska is survived by a niece and nephew.

A viewing will be held tomorrow at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, 830 N. Franklin St., beginning at 1:30 p.m., followed by a requiem service known as a Parastas beginning at 7 p.m. A funeral liturgy is to take place at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at the cathedral, followed by a fuNeral lunch in the cathedral hall, after which burial is set for Our Lady of Sorrows Cemetery in Langhorne.