Archbishop of Belgrade, Dr. Ladislav Nemet, will be appointed the first cardinal in the history of the Catholic Church in Serbia, the Archdiocese of Belgrade announced after Pope Francis released a list of 21 new cardinals.
The ceremony for the new appointments, known as a consistory, will take place on 8 December.
Dr. Ladislav Nemet was born in Odžaci on 7 September 1956. He joined the Verbite order on 7 September 1977, and pursued higher education in Poland, where he took his religious vows on 8 September 1982. He earned a master’s degree from the Catholic University of Lublin on 7 April 1983, and was ordained a priest in Odžaci on 1 May 1983.
From 1985 to 1987, he continued his studies in Rome, and from 1987 to 1990, he served as a chaplain in the Philippines.
In 1994, he obtained a doctorate in dogmatics from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. From 1994 to 2000, he taught dogmatics in Austria at the Verbite University of Philosophy and Theology, and from 2000 to 2004, he served at the permanent international representation of the Holy See in Vienna.
Between 2004 and 2007, he was the provincial superior of the Verbites in Hungary, and on June 15, 2006, he was appointed General Secretary of the Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, a position he held until 2008.
Pope Benedict appointed him Bishop of the Zrenjanin Diocese on 23 April 2008. He was consecrated as a bishop on 5 July of the same year in the Zrenjanin Cathedral.
He was elected President of the International Episcopal Conference of Saints Cyril and Methodius for a five-year term in 2016, and re-elected for another five-year term in 2021. Previously, from April 2011 to 16 March 2016, he served as the General Secretary of the same Conference.
Since 25 September 2021, he has served as Vice President of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences. Pope Francis appointed him Archbishop and Metropolitan of Belgrade on 5 November 2022.
He speaks Hungarian, Serbian, English, German, Polish, Italian, and Croatian.
Photo: Beogradska Nadbiskupija