Moscow Archbishop Visits Washington Area

By Michael F. Flach
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the issue of 3/14/02)

Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, Moscow's first Catholic archbishop since the 1917 Communist Revolution, visited the Washington area in early March. It was the archbishop's first trip to the West following the Vatican's announcement of a major restructuring of the Catholic Church in Russia.

The Vatican created dioceses in Russia as replacements for the "apostolic administrations" the Church has used to serve the Russian Catholic faithful since the fall of communism in 1991.

Some members of the Russian Orthodox Church protested the Vatican action, calling it a violation of its "canonical territory."

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls stated that in erecting the dioceses the Catholic Church has done no more than apply the same standard the Russian Orthodox have applied to the West.

The pope’s decision arises from "the same pastoral concern that has led the Russian Orthodox Church to create dioceses and other organizational structures for the faithful who live outside the traditional territory," said Navarro-Valls. The Russian Orthodox patriarchate has, for example, created dioceses in Vienna, Berlin and Brussels.

Approximately 1.3 million native Russians are Roman Catholics, many of them descendants of victims of forced Communist deportation to concentration camps and settlements in Siberia and elsewhere within the former Soviet Union. As head of the Russian bishops conference, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, a native Russian, is the spiritual leader of Russian Catholics.

Aid to the Church in Russia (ACR) hosted Archbishop Kondrusiewicz's March 3-8 visit to Washington. ACR is a non-profit organization based in Great Falls. It was founded in 1994 to assist in Russia’s spiritual, cultural, and humanitarian recovery from communist tyranny. Christopher Briggs is executive director.

ACR hosted a benefit dinner for the archbishop on March 6. Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, papal nuncio to the United States, and Cardinals Theodore McCarrick of Washington and William Keeler of Baltimore were invited, but did not attend the dinner.

The archbishop received a check for $300,000 to take back to Russia.

Earlier in the day Archbishop Montalvo and the two American cardinals were part of a Catholic delegation that met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, head of the Greek Orthodox Church and spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide.

The patriarch expressed hopes that the international Catholic-Orthodox theological commission will get past its current impasse over the status of the Eastern Catholic churches.

Archbishop Kondrusiewicz said it is difficult to understand the Orthodox reaction to the recent Vatican announcement.

"They (the Orthodox Church) have their dioceses around the world," he said. The Vatican action provides stability and is a natural progression from apostolic administration to diocese, he said.

The archbishop pointed out there are 2,500 Catholic dioceses worldwide and only 13 apostolic administrations.

The only Catholic seminary in Russia is located in St. Petersburg. It has 70 seminarians.

"It was very important to open the seminary," he said. "We didn't have space to train priests."

He said it was a struggle trying to get the Russian government to return Church property after more than 70 years of neglect, and an even greater challenge to rebuild the cathedral and other structures once they were returned.

The cathedral in Moscow was consecrated in 1999 by the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

Another struggle for the Church in Russia is the dependency on foreign priests. Eighty-five percent of the priests in Russia are foreign and 35 percent are from Poland, the archbishop said.

The archbishop is in desperate need of catechetical material. He is hopeful that a new translation of the catechism will be available soon.

"The personal and financial support of U.S. Catholics has been a great sign of solidarity between the two churches," he said.

In 2001, the Church in Russia celebrated the 10^th anniversary of the establishment of the apostolic administration of Moscow.

"After so many years, there was a spiritual vacuum," Archbishop Kondrusiewicz said. "Our future is in the young people."

When asked whether a papal trip to Russia is possible, the archbishop replied that two invitations are needed for the pope to come to Russia, one from Russia's president and the other from the local church. The pope has received both.

"But knowing John Paul II's openness toward ecumenism, he will wait for an invitation from the Orthodox patriarch before he comes to Russia," he said.

Archbishop Kondrusiewicz asked U.S. Catholics to pray the Church in Russia and to continue to show solidarity with their efforts to rebuild.

He would love to have U.S. priests and religious serving in Russia, but realizes many dioceses are finding it difficult to recruit priests for their own parishes.

In the meantime, 27 percent of parishes in Russia have no permanent place to worship, he said.

When asked if had a 10-year goal, the archbishop said, "It would be very helpful if every parish had a pastoral center, a place for worship."

He also would like to establish a good relationship with the Orthodox Church and to have the Catholic Church recognized as an integral part of Russian society.

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