The wave of unusually cold weather from which Central Europe is suffering has seen the Church emerge as one of major institutions involved in relief to the homeless and the poor. That’s the case in Slovenia where, as the bishops’ spokesman Monsignor Andrei Saje explained, “the cold snap has already lasted for several days with maximum temperatures plunging to minus 20° in some areas”. To tackle the emergency, he adds, “the city of Ljubljana has placed some hostels at the disposal of the homeless where they can find shelter and a bed for the night. Diocesan Caritas for its part is activating a network of solidarity and assistance, offering clothing and warm meals to those in need. Solidarity is also being displayed by the parishes and by various religious orders that have opened their doors to the homeless, and are providing them with food, clothing and shelter. The wave of icy cold weather blowing down from Siberia has caused many victims in recent days: in Moscow, in various localities in Poland, at Sulejow, in the centre of the country, where the thermometers plunged to 31.5° below zero, and in eastern Ukraine where some 70,000 inhabitants were left without heating. Polar cold has also been reported in the Czech Republic, Romania, in the three Baltic Republics, especially in Latvia where some twenty deaths were reported, and has even reached as far as Germany and Turkey; here, in the eastern part of Anatolia, temperatures of 30 degrees below zero were reported.
