CHURCHES IN BRIEF" "
Czech Republic: Olomouc, Eucharistic congress “Transmitting to the faithful renewed impetus in their spiritual life and offering them an experience of communion with the Church is the goal of the upcoming Eucharistic Congress of the archdiocese of Olomouc, said father Petr Bulvas, delegate for pastoral care, a coordinator of the event. The meeting of Catholics from throughout the diocese will take place May 15-16 in the framework of preparations for this year’s national Eucharistic Congress due to take place in October. “We hereby intend to revive people’s faith and the love for the Eucharist in our Country”, said Mons. Jan Vokal, delegate of Eucharistic Congresses for the Bishops’ Conference. The archdiocese of Olomouc is the only diocese in the Czech Republic that organizes the Eucharistic Congress at diocesan level. The program envisages catechesis for children, theatre performances, guided tours to the historical ecclesial monuments of Olomouc, concerts, adoration, history conferences, liturgical celebrations of the Eucharist and its veneration. Participants in the diocesan meeting will have the opportunity of visiting an exhibition on the Eucharist and the artistic creations. Slovakia: destinations of medieval monasteries “Medieval monasteries and their destinations in Slovakia” is the title of an exhibition that opened this week in Kosice on the occasion of the Year of Consecrated Life and of the International Day of Monuments and Historical Sites held, by tradition, on April 18. This unique event is organized by the Institute for Slovakian Monuments in conjunction with the Dominican monastery of Kosice. “From 1010 to 1526 over one hundred monasteries were founded in the region of present Slovakia which – in addition to pastoral activity – has played an important role in the dissemination of civilization, education and culture, thereby significantly integrating the region in the European cultural arena”, said the promoters of the project. The photographic exhibition of Slavo Halama was showcased for the first time in 2008, an event that marked the successful cooperation between ecclesial institutions, religious orders and congregations with the contribution of experts in various sectors, for the “presentation of a precious cultural and spiritual patrimony”. The exhibit will be open until May 10. Austria: 250thousand books of the Abbey of the Holy Cross Two hundred fifty thousand books, weighing 40 tons, will be transferred in the coming days from the Salesian Benediktbeuern College of Don Bosco in Bavaria to the Abbey of the Holy Cross in the city of Heiligenkreuz im Wienerwald, in Lower Austria, near Vienna. The transfer of the volumes of the monumental Bavarian library was agreed in summer 2013, at the end of the education activities of the Salesian College. The Salesians offered the books and its inventory to the theological faculty of the Cistercian Heiligenkreuz Abbey, one of the fastest developing university centres in Austria. The area that will host the huge library has finally been completed, with over six kilometers of new shelves, as well as new study and cataloguing halls. The dean of the College, Father Karl Wallner, said that the entire week starting April 20 would be dedicated to the books’ transportation, which will be carried out by a specialized company with four trucks. The entire digital archive will also be transferred, so that study activities may soon make the most of the new fund. The librarian of the Heligenkreuz Abbey is tasked with planning academic exchanges with a large number of university institutions also in the light of the fact that in the new library there will still be plenty of empty shelves, leaving space to be used in the next decades”. The transfer must be completed within a few days since the dedication of the new College of the Holy Cross is scheduled for April 30. At 10.30 there will be a thanksgiving prayer in honour of Don Bosco’s Salesians in the Abbey’s imperial hall with the Archbishop of Salzburg Msgr. Franz Lackner, while at 15:00 the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, will celebrate Mass, followed by the blessing of the new library building and of the theological faculty.
