Basil Kovpak () is a Ukrainian Traditionalist Catholic priest and the founder and current head of the Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat. Formerly a priest of the Archeparchy of Lviv of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), Kovpak was excommunicated by the UGCC in 2007. Early life Kovpak grew up when the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was the world's largest illegal religious organization. According to Vlad Naumescu, Kovpak studied theology in a clandestine seminary run by Basilian monks. He headed the Basilian Third Order, which Naumescu has described as, "an uncompromisingly radical group of Greek Catholics, which did not accept any relation to Orthodoxy, 'reunited' priests, or the Soviet State." Kovpak left the Basilian Order, however, soon after being ordained to the priesthood in 1990, "having observed that the community was altering the tradition it had fought so hard to preserve during the underground era, now adapting to the general tendency of church renewal." Fr. Kovpak was first assigned to St. Peter and Paul's Church in the Lviv suburb of Riasne in 1991. While stationed at Riasne, he began a, "move to reclaim the spirit the UGCC had under socialism." According to Naumescu, "Underground Greek-Catholics believed that suffering was a unique marker of faith under the old regime and that an appreciation of this suffering is indispensable to the proper understanding of the local tradition." In Riasne, Fr. Kovpak, preached regularly of the importance of keeping, "the old traditions of the Greek Catholic Church and staying away from Orthodoxy." Fr. Kovpak also, "surrounded himself with a small group of priests and supporters who cherished the religious experience of the underground". Over time, Fr. Kovpak's assistant priests and parishioners either embraced his traditionalist agenda or, "switched to other parishes in the city." While at first many of Fr. Kovpak's supporters were elderly Greek Catholics who recalled, "how things were done before" the banning of the UGGC in 1946, over time, Fr. Kovpak's base supporters came increasingly from Greek Catholics who had participated in the Soviet era underground. According to Vlad Naumescu, "These were entire families spanning several generations, and people who kept close contact with each other over their common involvement in illegal religious services, domestic devotions, and clandestine informal networks. For former participants in such surreptitious activities, memories of those times evoke a strong sense of nostalgia whenever they were recounted." Beginning in the early 1990s, Fr. Kovpak began preparing