|
News Archive
ASTANA October 30, 2003 (UCAN) -- A village Marian shrine in Kazakhstan testifies to the Blessed Mother's role in sustaining local Catholics during religious repression when the country was a Soviet republic. The significance of Mary, Queen of Peace Shrine in Ozernoe, a village north of Astana, the Kazakh capital, was explained in a report presented to the First Asian Congress of Shrine Rectors, held Oct. 20-25 near Manila. The congress gathered rectors and pilgrimage directors of 51 shrines in Asia. Archbishop Tomasz Peta of Astana, former parish priest at the shrine in Ozernoe, current pastor Father Lucjan Pocalun and Filipino Franciscan Brother Joseph Moreno, who works in Kazakhstan, presented the report. It begins by saying, "In the past, Kazakhstan was a land of sorrow, soaked with blood and tears of martyrs." It recounts that in the 1930s and 1940s, people of various nationalities within the former Soviet Union, some of them Catholics, were deported to the vast steppes of Kazakhstan. Thousands died there in "gulags," Soviet labor and penal camps. "In extremely difficult life conditions without any priests or any other hope, (the Catholics) relied only on God and took up the rosary as a weapon of prayer," the report said. The rosary filled up for the absence of Mass and the Sacraments, as well as priests and churches, it explains. The report detailed the history of the Mary, Queen of Peace shrine, which it says is a sign of God's providence and Our Lady's presence in Kazakhstan. Ozernoe, which now has about 600 people, was founded in 1936 by Catholics deported from Ukraine, also then part of the Soviet Union. In 1941, the snow around the area melted for three days beginning March 25, the Annunciation, which commemorates the appearance of an angel to Mary telling her she would bear Jesus. The melted snow formed a lake five kilometers from the village that was soon full of fish. The fish in the lake saved the people from famine during the Second World War. Lasting gratitude to the Blessed Mother led Ozernoe villagers who built a church in the early 1990s to name it after Mary. the actual name, Mary, Queen of Peace, was given by a Dutch priest, Father Nico Hoogland, who sent a statue of the Blessed Mother from Holland for the church. The villagers also wrote a hymn to the Blessed Mother after religious freedom was established following independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It contains the verse: "You, Blessed Mother, opened the door for me into the Kazakh steppes and met me with the rosary in hand." In 1995, Bishop Jan Pawel Lenga of Karaganda, then apostolic administrator of Kazakhstan, entrusted the country to Mary, Queen of Peace. That is why, the report noted, Pope John Paul II's designation of October 2002-October 2003 as the Year of the Rosary was a great joy for the Catholics in Kazakhstan. It said that
when the pope visited Astana in 2001, he also "spiritually
visited Ozernoe" and called it the national sanctuary of Kazakhstan.
"It shows a great example of God's reward for the prayers and
trust," the report added. Kazakhstan
Plans Tight Security for Papal Visit ASTANA, Kazakhstan, SEPT. 18, 2001 (Zenit.org).- Following last week's attacks on America, Kazakhstan is taking "unprecedented" security measures for John Paul II's visit this weekend, the country's Foreign Minister announced. "The security measures are unprecedented, given the recent terrorist attacks in the United States," Bulat Iskakov, the head of Kazakh diplomacy, said Monday in statements to the Russian Interfax agency. According to the Foreign Minister, 2,400 police and soldiers will be responsible for security during the Pontiff's stay in Astana, the capital. It is the only city the Pope will visit. On Monday, when he received the new Kazakh ambassador to the Vatican, the Holy Father said he aims to promote dialogue between cultures and religions during his Sept. 22-25 visit to this former Soviet republic. Kazakhstan has a mix of ethnic and religious groups. Uzbekistan separates Kazakhstan from Afghanistan. Leaders in the region are bracing for possible U.S. action against Afghanistan, which has sheltered Osama bin Laden, a suspect in last Tuesday's attacks in New York and near Washington, D.C. Half of Kazakhstan's 16 million inhabitants are Sunni Muslims. Just over 6 million are Orthodox, and about 300,000 are Latin-rite Catholics. There are also Greek-Catholics in the country. Since the republic gained independence in 1991, some 600 churches and sects have registered officially in the country, including many Protestant fundamentalist groups. The agency
Fides reports that the Kazakh government has fears of fundamentalist
groups, including Islamic organizations, and hence tries to control
religious liberty. Large meetings require special authorization,
and demonstrations and processions are prohibited. "Proselytism"
and active missionary work are also banned.
Kazakhstan
Preparing for a Papal Visit MOSCOW, JULY 5, 2001 (Zenit.org).- In his next international trip, John Paul II will visit Kazakhstan, the largest of the Central Asian republics, born after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Cardinal Lubomyr Husar confirmed the news at the end of the papal visit to Ukraine, and Monsignor Renato Boccardo, the new organizer of papal trips, has already made a reconnaissance tour of Kazakhstan. Preparations are in full swing in the capital, Astana, which will be the first stage of John Paul II's trip to Armenia in September. At first it seems strange for the Pope to travel to a country halfway between Rome and Beijing, with a small Catholic presence -- only about 300,000, or 2% of the population. There hasn't been an official Vatican announcement of the trip. But there was talk of a possible visit back in 1999, as part of John Paul II's return from India. The Pope had been invited a year earlier by President Nursultan Nazarbayev during an audience at the Vatican. On that occasion, a bilateral agreement was signed with the consequent juridical recognition of the Catholic Church in this republic of 16.7 million people. The new ecclesiastical organization took shape a few months later. Until then, it had only had an apostolic administrator. Now, there are five dioceses with four bishops, serving a territory almost four times the size of Texas. Kazakhstan was part of the ancient silk-trade route. Franciscan missionaries evangelized it in the 14th century, and today it is a frontier land in which Christianity and Islam coexist. In the past, it was a land of deportation. Millions of people were forced to move to its inhospitable steppes. Many died of privation and those who survived were obliged to build collective factories near the local people, who in turn were forced to break with the nomad tradition and work in the kolkhozes, or collective farms, in the best of cases, or in concentration camps. In this tragic exile, Christians knew heroism and martyrdom. The Church's rebirth over the past 10 years has been without the clashes with the Orthodox that have been common in Russia. Relations are very good between Catholics and the faithful of the Moscow Patriarchate in Kazakhstan. Metropolitan Alexy of Alma-Ata regularly meets with Catholic priests, appreciates their work, and favors close cooperation in charitable work. Christian alliances seem natural in a country of Muslim majority that is aiming to relaunch its own Kazakh identity. In a recent survey on the world figures most liked by the Kazakhs, John Paul II was No. 1. Even the Muslims, who have not suffered from the fundamentalism that dominates other former Soviet countries, look forward to the papal visit. ZE01070511 IT
KEPT THE FAITH: KAZAKHSTAN GETS A BISHOP VATICAN CITY, MAR. 19, 2001 (Zenit.org) <http://www.zenit.org> .- Among the nine bishops ordained here this morning was the leader of Latin-rite Catholics in Kazakhstan, a country where the Church is re-emerging after years of Soviet persecution. Father Tomasz Peta had been parish priest of the village of Osiornoe since 1990. The village is a community of Ukrainian Catholic exiles deported by Stalin in 1936. Since then, these few thousand Latin-rite Catholics and their children lived in isolation from the world, in the heart of the Kazakh steppes, without the ministry of a priest, the Vatican missionary agency Fides reported. A priest who was sent to a concentration camp visited the community once after his release. Later, after World War II, another priest occasionally and secretly visited the community. In 1981, Father Jan Pavel Lenga, the present bishop of Karaganda, combed the area in search of exiled Catholics. Despite the difficulties created by the police, he discovered the community of Osiornoe, which kept the faith intact despite its isolation. His presence gave hope and dynamism to this community, which at the time of perestroika was given permission to construct a church. In 1990 the community received Father Peta, a Polish missionary. A year later, Kazakhstan became an independent republic. The country, which borders China and is about four times the size of Texas, has a population of 16.7 million people. In 1995 the church in Osiornoe became Kazakhstan's shrine dedicated to Mary, Queen of Peace. Upon seeing the faith of these people, John Paul II decided to give them a bishop as pastor, Father Peta himself. ZE01031906 |