Published February 2, 2001
10 years free and still growing
MAGADAN, Russia — The Parish of the Nativity of Jesus here held a dramatic 10-year anniversary celebration last month that included three special liturgies as well as the unveiling of plans to build a new church.
Archbishop Francis Hurley of Anchorage, who founded the parish in 1991, returned to Magadan for the events, and Bishop Jerzy Mazur of the Catholic Apostolic Administration of Irkutsk, which includes Magadan, also attended.
The Jan. 13-14 weekend included a big anniversary Mass, complete with poignant accolades and even fresh roses for the honored guests; the dedication of the new church building site; a wedding; a children’s Mass; and a meeting with a group of Magadan residents who survived Joseph Stalin’s prison labor camps.
Nativity pastor Father Michael Shields of Anchorage and associate pastor Father David Means of St. Louis concelebrated the liturgies along with visiting priests Father Richard Tero of Soldotna and Father Milosh Krakovski of Bratsk, Russia.
Archbishop Hurley told the story of the founding of the parish at the start of the Jan. 14 anniversary Mass.
In December 1990, as perestroika was slowly drawing open the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain, he and Father Shields came to Magadan and celebrated a Christmas Mass — the first public Mass ever in this city.
Secret Masses had been celebrated by priests imprisoned in the region’s notorious gulags, but 70 years of Soviet-enforced atheism had virtually erased religion from the common memory.
After that Christmas Mass, the archbishop’s return flight to Anchorage was canceled, forcing him to remain in Magadan an extra three weeks. In that time, he was able to gather the 12 signatures needed to officially register a new church.
That marked the beginning of the free Catholic church in Magadan.
In his anniversary Mass homily, translated for the congregation, the archbishop recalled a letter he’d written to the people of Magadan in January 1991.
"In it I said that the sign that Christ was present would be that you would have love one for another. Jesus said that this would be how we would be recognized as Christians.
"Now, 10 years later, it is very clear that you have a very strong love for one another," he told about 75 people crowded into the ground-level apartment that serves as the church.
Some parishioners who had been at that first Christmas Mass wiped away tears as the archbishop spoke.
Six months after registering the parish, the archbishop had found a priest, Eastern rite Father Austin Mohrbacher, to be the first pastor. The archbishop also started the Russian Desk, which now sends about $100,000 of donations per year to the parish, the bulk of it used to aid the poor.
At the anniversary Mass, Bishop Mazur thanked Archbishop Hurley for his efforts.
"When you first came here there were no priests, no church, no place for the people to pray," he said to the archbishop. "You obeyed Christ’s mandate to take the word of God to the people."
He also praised the parish for providing "spiritual and humanitarian help" in "this region that has suffered so much."
The bishop presented Archbishop Hurley with a rosary made of multicolored stones native to Siberia, and told the congregation that they must continue the work the Alaskan prelate had started.
After the anniversary Mass, two buses transported the entire congregation about a mile to the site of what will be the first Catholic church building in Magadan. The parish recently purchased the approximately one-acre lot with the foundation of a building already on it.
Bundled against a cold biting wind, children, parents and elderly people gathered on the lot, which sits on a major thoroughfare in this city of 130,000.
Bishop Mazur told the huddled crowd that the new church would have three purposes: to serve as a place of adequate size for the Catholic community to gather; to be a center for humanitarian outreach; and to honor the memory of those who suffered and died in the camps.
Then, as curious bystanders watched, Father Shields and Archbishop Hurley led the group through the concrete-block foundation and Bishop Mazur, near the front, blessed the site with incense and holy water.
About halfway through the foundation, Father Shields surveyed the group winding along behind. He turned to the archbishop and said, "Look at what you started."
Father Shields later said the bundled-up group trudging through the snow in a line evoked the memory of prisoners — many of whom were arrested for their faith — who were marched from the Magadan port to logging and gold-mining camps in the region.
"That line (of parishioners) was never-ending because it was connected to the generations who went before," he said.
The new church will be dedicated to the "martyrs of the camps," the estimated two million people who died and the hundreds of thousands who suffered but survived, he said.
The anniversary weekend also included a children’s Mass that emphasized the future but was presented in the context of Magadan’s troubled past.
Addressing the 40 or so children among the congregation for the Saturday evening Mass, Bishop Mazur told about meeting a group of camp survivors that afternoon.
"They said to me, ‘When I was in prison, prayer saved me,’ " he said. The children seemed fascinated when he told them the church was only 10 years old because for so long the government had forbidden belief.
"We must thank those who have helped us remember our faith and helped us to know the faith of our grandparents," he told the congregation.
There are an estimated one million people with Catholic roots in the Irkutsk Administration, but only about 50,000 are baptized.
Later in the liturgy, several youths testified about their faith.
"My mother learned we had a Catholic church here, so we started coming," said Elizabeth Korolyeva, whose ancestors were Catholic. "My brother started coming and now he wants to become a priest."
The growing number of children in the parish is the main reason a new church is needed, Father Shields told the assembly. "We are building a new church in the hope of helping people find God and helping them find happiness in God’s love," he said.
One obvious sign of love and happiness was the Jan. 12 wedding of Masha Grizun, who joined the parish 10 years ago as a 10-year-old.
Father Shields, who has been like a father to her for the last six years, processed into the little church arm in arm with the glowing bride. And Archbishop Hurley, whom she had met in 1990 at the Christmas Mass, celebrated the liturgy at her request.
"I got my two wishes: Father Michael walked me down the altar as my father, and Archbishop Hurley married me," said the new bride.