Paul Fitzpatrick Russell

Russell was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts in 1959 to Isabelle Fitzpatrick and Thaddeus Russell. The family lived in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, then moved to Malden, Massachusetts and then Willmington, Massachusetts. In a 2016 interview, Russell said that he first thought of becoming a priest in the first grade.[1]

When Russell was in third grade, his parents divorced and he moved with his mother and siblings to Alpena, Michigan He then attended the parish school of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Russell graduated from Alpena High School in 1977, and then spent a year in France as an exchange student.[1]

After returning from France, Russell entered at Saint John's Seminary in Boston. Wanting to learn Spanish, he traveled to Peru and Bolivia with the St. James Society, spending a year in South America. Part of his time there was in language school, the other part was living with a poor family.[1]

Russell returned to St. John Seminary around 1985 to resume his studies. On Jan. 31, 1987, he was ordained a transitional deacon and was assigned to St. Joseph Parish in Wakefield, Massachusetts. On June 20, 1987, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Boston by then Archbishop Bernard Law.

Russell's first posting after ordination was to Sacred Heart Parish in West Lynn, Massachusetts. Shortly after arriving at a new assignment at St. Eulalia Parish in Winchester, Massachusetts in 1992, Law asked Russell to become his priest-secretary. In 1993, Law invited Russell to joined the Vatican Diplomatic Service.[1]

In 1993, Russell entered the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the training ground for Vatican diplomats, where he earned his licentiate and doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University.[1]

On July 1, 1997, Russell entered the diplomatic service,[2] serving first for a short while in Rome working with then-Bishop James Harvey. Later in 1997, Russell was assigned to the Apostolic Nunciature to Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti, stationed in Ethiopia. He worked there for three years. In 2000, Russell was transferred to the Apostolic Nunciature to Turkey and Turkmenistan. In 2002, he was sent to the Apostolic Nunciature to Switzerland, when he also assumed pastoral duties of an English-language parish. In 2005, Russell went to the Apostolic Nunciature to Nigeria, remaining there three years.

On May 2, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI named Russell chargé d'affaires of the Apostolic Nunciature to China (located in Taiwan, the Republic of China), making him the head of the diplomatic mission.[1][lower-alpha 1]

On March 19, 2016, Pope Francis appointed him Apostolic Nuncio to Turkey and Turkmenistan .[2][4] On June 3, 2016, Russell was consecrated titular archbishop of Novi in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston by Cardinal Seán Patrick O'Malley, with Archbishop Allen Vigneron and Archbishop Leo Cushley serving as the co-consecrators.[1] The post of Nuncio to Azerbaijan was added to Russell's responsibilities on April 7, 2018.[5][6] Russell resigned his post as apostolic nuncio on February 2, 2022.[7]

Russell carries a devotion to his mother's cousin Michał Piaszczyński, a beatified priest who died in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II. [1] Russell is fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, and German.[2]