Appointment of metropolitan archbishop of Kaunas, Lithuania

The Holy Father has appointed Bishop Kestutis Kėvalas of Telšiai, Lithuania, as metropolitan archbishop of Kaunas, Lithuania.

Bishop Kestutis Kėvalas

Bishop Kestutis Kėvalas was born on 17 February 1972 in Kaunas. Following his secondary studies from 1990 to 1992 he attended the Kaunas University of Technology in the Faculty of Radioelectricity. In 1993 he entered the Kaunas Seminary, where he studied philosophy and theology until 1997, after which he continued his studies at Saint Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, United States of America. He then obtained a licentiate in theology and was ordained a priest on 29 June 2000.

He was director of the propaedeutic course at the archiepiscopal seminary and chaplain for youth pastoral care for the archdiocese. Since 2002 he has taught moral theology in the Faculty of Theology at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. On 18 January 2008 at the same University he was awarded a doctorate in theology.

From June 2005 to August 2006 he served as spiritual director in the seminary of Kaunas. For one year he resumed his studies in the United States. Returning to the diocese from 2007 to 2012 he carried out his pastoral ministry at the Cathedral of Kaunas and that of confessor at the seminary. On 8 February 2010 he was appointed as director of Radio Maria programming in Lithuania. On 27 September 2012 he was appointed as auxiliary bishop of Kaunas and titular of Abziri. He received episcopal consecration on 24 November 2012. He was appointed as coadjutor bishop of Telšiai on 20 April, 2017, and succeeded as bishop on 18 September 2017.