Reviving spirituality

“The future of Russia and its spiritual regeneration depends on the conditions of the Church: we must draw advantage from the present historical phase” in which, after the collapse of the “old Marxist-Leninist system”, “no new system has yet been built”: “a vacuum” that, according to Archbishop TADEUSZ KONDRUSIEWICZ of Moscow, “the Church is obliged to fill”. The archbishop was speaking at the first plenary session of the CCEE (Council of the European Bishops’ Conferences) in 2006, now being held in St. Petersburg (Russia) until 8 October, during which the Presidents of the 34 Bishops’ Conferences of Europe that are members of the CCEE will proceed to the election of its new executive for the five-year period 2006-2011. A NEW GOLGOTHA. In his intervention, after a brief retrospect of the history of the Catholic Church in Russia, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz dwelt on the situation of religion and the Church in the country today. “Before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 – he explained – there were 250 parishes in Russia and some 800,000 faithful, assisted by 300 clergy”. During the regime “the blood of the martyrs once again bathed Russian soil and the country became the Golgotha of the 20th century. Except for two churches, one in Moscow and one in Leningrad, the ecclesiastical structures were closed or turned into factories or offices”. According to the archbishop, “some 200,000 Orthodox priests were executed and 300,000 interned; several hundred Catholic priests – the figures are still incomplete – were also persecuted or killed. No official data on the victims of the regime exist – pointed out Kondrusiewicz -; some sources speak of 50 million, others as many as 70”. CATHOLIC CHURCH TODAY. After the fall of Communism, Russia was once again able to enjoy religious freedom. Two apostolic administrations were created at Moscow and Novosibirsk in 1991; a further two at Saratov and Irkutsk in 1999. “These were temporary ecclesiastical structures, but they were erected into dioceses in 2002”, explained the archbishop. Today the country comprises over 144 million inhabitants, of whom 81.5% of Russian ethnic origin. The vast majority of them are Orthodox. There are some 600,000 Catholics, even “if some data speak of 1% of the population, i.e. 1,400,000 faithful”. The archbishop of Moscow then noted that the Catholic Church also expresses itself through eight publishing houses, which, in total, have published over 600 religious titles; two radio stations and the weekly magazine “The Light of the Gospel”. The main cultural institutions run by the Catholic Church include the Major Seminary of St. Petersburg and the “St. Thomas” Institute of Philosophy, Theology and History in Moscow. The biggest difficulties, he continued, are “the lack of churches (25% of parishes are without one) and the shortage of priests, nuns and catechists”. Mons. Kondrusiewicz then discussed the state of dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church: “delegates of the Vatican and of the Patriarchate of Moscow meet regularly” and “a mixed Catholic-Orthodox Commission has existed since 2004”. “We look to the future with hope – he commented – and we believe that” the two Churches “will be able to offer common witness and respond to the challenges of modernity”. A COMMON EFFORT. According to Mons. Kondrusiewicz, “religious life in Russia is still suffering from various problems; one of the main ones is that of catechesis and the religious education of the faithful, vital tasks not only for children, but also for the adults who in the past had no opportunity to learn about the faith”. Unfortunately “trained catechists and teachers of religion are in short supply”. The level of religious faith is therefore still low: “only some 5% of the faithful, in some areas 8-10%, regularly attend Sunday mass, though parishes with a percentage of 25% of practising Catholics are not unknown”. The archbishop then denounced the extremely high divorce rate in Russia: 50%, “a percentage that rises to as much as 80% for younger marriages”, the “very high number of abortions: officially 3.5 to 4 millions per year, unofficially 7 millions”, and “the worrying spread of criminality, especially among the young”. These are all social indicators of the “unfavourable moral and religious conditions of the nation”. That is why the archbishop hopes for “a great effort together with the Russian Orthodox Church” with the aim of “reviving spirituality in the country”, so that “in the eyes of everyone and before God “the nation may once again be “the Holy Russia that glorifies the one God, albeit in different rites, and venerates the same Mother”.