The Missionaries of Charity, better known as Mother Teresa's Sisters, began work in Russia following the Armenian earthquake in 1988.
Although other religious congregations were preparing themselves for ministry in Russia, Mother Teresa's Sisters were among the first to arrive. This is proof, according to the Sisters in Novosibirsk, that, "the Lord uses his nothingness to show his greatness.."
The four Sisters in Novosibirsk consider their work to be very simple, something anybody can do. On Thursday they care for the homeless at the central railway station. They recognize those who need a warm cup of tea and a sandwich by their hands, their faces, their dress. To those they know and those who ask, they give a Miraculous Medal or an old postcard with a religious picture on it.
Life at the station is becoming more difficult, as it costs ten rubles now to stay for the night. The homeless spend less time in the station, and the Sisters find them waiting in bread shops. Many of the homeless know them and point out to them others who need help.
Twice a year the Sisters organize a "party." They rent a bus and bring the homeless to the Franciscan church to get a hair cut, a full meal, and clean clothes. The Sisters would like a house in the center of the city to care for those at the station, but a suitable one has not yet been found.
Three days a week, the Sisters visit people in their homes. They cook and clean, talk and listen to them. Originally the Red Cross gave them a list of people to visit, but folks now stop them on the streets to tell them of others in need.
Russians often stop to ask who the Sisters are and what they are doing. For many it is the first time they have even seen nuns. Usually the reaction is positive when the Sisters, three from India and one from Poland, are seen working for the poor in Russia. Harassment does occur, however. Their long white and blue garments cause them to be thought of as gypsies, and the Sisters from India are thought to be Africans. Unfortunately, in neither case are they always readily accepted.
The congregation has been accepted, though, in 10 cities throughout the former Soviet Union: Tiblisi in Georgia, Kretinga in Lithuania, Tallin in Estonia, Dyshambay in Tajikistan, Kiev in the Ukraine, Yerevan in Armenia, and Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Tomsk in Russia. Soon there will also be a new house in Tashkent in Uzbekestan. The congregation of approximately 3,500 Sisters has houses in nearly every country of the world except China and Switzerland.
Throughout the former Soviet Union their work is the same, whether caring for mentally retarded orphans in Moscow or visiting a cancer hospital in Tomsk. The Sisters are always reminding people of the presence and love of God. They do not like to be interviewed or to talk about themselves. They prefer to say, "Write about what you see," or simply, "Come and see."
The Information Service of the Novosibirsk Apostolic Administration (ISNAA ), a weekly Russian-language service published by Fr. Jerzy Karpinski, S.J., with the help of correspondents in Siberia and the Vatican Information Service, issued its first release on April 2. ISNAA publishes information about the Church in Russia and throughout the world.
Caritas Novosibirsk gave vegetable oil, sugar, peas, and lentils to the Missionaries of Charity and the organization's own volunteers in April for distribution to the city's poor.
By late April, the snow had melted in Novosibirsk and left a lot of mud. Morning temperature: 5° C. (41° F.) Afternoon: 10° C. (50° F.).
ALTAI. Eighteen young people, aged 6-15, from the Sunday school of Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish, Novosibirsk, made a three-day pilgrimage in March to the German-Catholic communities of Barnaul, Thalmenka, and Kyrochkina in the Altai, a mountainous region of Siberia bordering Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan. At Barnaul they visited the home for the aged, where they and the elderly prayed and sang together and took part in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
MAGADAN. Fr. Stanislav Pomykala, S.J., from Novosibirsk led a retreat in Magadan, March 22-28, focusing on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
TOMSK. The Catechetical School of Tomsk will open July 30 through Aug. 22 to train lay workers committed to church ministry within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Topics to be examined include discipleship, Scripture, community, and evangelization. The school invites ecumenical collaboration and participants from within the CIS and abroad. Those interested in the program should write to Barbara Skowronek, ul. Kalinowa 8, 20-143, Lublin, Poland, tel. 48 (81) 77-93-41.
MARX. Bishop Joseph Werth, former parish priest in Marx in what was once the Volga-German Republic, attended the cornerstone laying March 28 at Marx's Christ the King Church. The first Catholic Church under construction in European Russia since the persecution of Christians in the 1930s, it was begun by Werth in early 1991. Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusievicz, apostolic administrator for European Russia, consecrated the stone, which was taken from the ruins of the old Marx Catholic church, built in 1815 and destroyed in 1986.
Mass is currently celebrated in a private house in Marx. The Sisters known as the Servants of Christ in the Eucharist also have a convent in Marx, which also houses the formation program for those interested in joining the congregation.
MOSCOW. The Apostolic Administration for European Russia and the Health Administration of Moscow signed an agreement Jan. 16 to open a hospital in the northeast part of the city. The hospital will serve as a 30-bed consultative and diagnostic center for children with neurological problems.
Is there a Papal Volunteer program to Russia.? Do
the Capuchins have any mission plans there? What
about the OFM's from Cincirmati? How does one
become a Franciscan lay missionary?
---- John E. Pfeiffer, Spearfish SD
There is no papal volunteer program for Russia. Capuchin Franciscans (O.F.M.Cap.) are already active in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, and the Ukraine, and friar volunteers are being sought for Kazakhstan; but there are no Capuchins yet in Russia The OFM Franciscans have international fraternities at Lvov in the Ukraine, Alma Ata in Kazakhstan, and St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Novosibirsk in Russia.
Fr. Silas Oleksinski from Cincinnati has been at Alma Ata, but is currently at the Order's headquarters in Rome. Concerning Franciscan lay missionaries, contact Franciscan Mission Service, P.O. Box 29034, Washington DC 20017. (B.B.)
A little more than a week after being written in Novosibirsk, this third letter from SIBERIA was mailed from Hays to 530 friends of Bishop Werth and his co-workers in Siberia.
This is a quantum leap from the 13 weeks that it took a letter from a Russian museum director in Marx to reach me. The gentleman who wrote the letter had been to Kansas for several weeks and had already returned to Russia in the meantime.
The speed with which this newsletter reaches you could be further increased if someone in the Hays area could put me in touch with someone here capable of receiving E-mail.
Thus far spontaneous donations from six people (for which we are grateful) have more than covered the first letter from SIBERIA, but help is still needed to pay for #2 and #3. The labor has been a Capuchin gift to Bishop Werth, but we are hopeful that each issue's $80 printing and postage bill will be covered by those who want to keep the letter coming.
Donations to Bishop Werth, however, should still be sent directly to the Capuchin Mission Office in Denver, or to one of the other agencies listed below.
The HTML version of this issue is posted at
http://feefhs.org/lfs/lfs-03.html
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