Published November 4, 2005
Russian diocese has challenges similar to, greater than Anchorage’s
Catholics in Boston or Chicago might be awed at the challenges of the church in the Anchorage Archdiocese, where only 21 active priests minister to 32,000 Catholics spread over 140,000 square miles, and less than 10 percent of the population is Catholic, and some priests are forced to become pilots to reach people off the road system.
But a bishop from Russia who visited Anchorage last month put the archdiocese’s difficulties in perspective.
Bishop Cyryl Klimowicz’s Diocese of St. Joseph, headquartered in the city of Irkutsk in central Siberia, is a slab of geography more than 44 times the size of the Anchorage Archdiocese (it’s about 6.25 million square miles!), where Catholics are outnumbered by not only Russian Orthodox Christians but also Buddhists, Muslims and shamanists, and where for seven decades last century all religious activity was banned by the atheistic Soviet regime.
Bishop Klimowicz has 45 registered parishes, two of which he has not yet been able to visit since his arrival in Irkutsk 30 months ago.
He has 48 priests; only one of them is Russian. Most of the foreigners resist enculturation, instead holding tightly to the Catholic traditions of their home country. Many speak very little Russian.
And, from Bishop Klimowicz’s point of view, "it is a dream" to think a priest would have an airplane at his disposal.
The word "dismal" or "bleak" might come to an Alaska Catholic’s mind — and "impossible" to a Bostonian’s — but Bishop Klimowicz sees his situation as hopeful.
After all, compared to the time of religious suppression, just the freedom to worship openly is "an absolutely great change," he said, speaking to the Anchor through an interpreter when he was in Anchorage.
"There’s a structure of the church now, and we now have priests who came and are able to lead the people, help them pray and experience the sacraments, and religious sisters," he said.
Having priests and religious from all over — from Japan, Korea, the United States, Poland, Germany, Indonesia, Spain, Slovakia, India — presents communications and cultural challenges, to be sure, he said. But together they form a "beautiful mosaic" that matches the ethnic makeup of the Catholic population in Siberia, he said.
The time and expense of getting out to his people are also hurdles, he admits, but he shrugs his shoulders, smiles and says he has no choice but to "speak to the Lord about" some of the difficulties of his assignment.
From about 1918 to about 1990 all religions were suppressed in Russia, and Catholics from other parts of the Soviet Union were routinely exiled to Siberia for practicing their religious beliefs.
But Catholicism flourished underground in Siberia, according to Bishop Klimowicz.
"Many Catholics were sent to Siberia by the communists and even the czars before them, but they kept the faith in their hearts and in their families," he said.
"When they came, they brought with them prayer books and hymns, and they kept the church going in their homes. The faith was passed from grandmothers and grandfathers and mothers and fathers, and it was very alive, very strong."
He told about meeting a family with German roots; one of the women used to work "as a priest" ministering to the needy around town.
"When someone was dying she would go pray with the family; she was doing the same things as a priest, except the sacraments of course," Bishop Klimowicz said.
On Sundays, Ukranian families especially would secretly gather to pray, sing and celebrate a "paraliturgy" without the Eucharist, he said.
"They knew all the prayers and all the songs. That’s why the church is alive today."
Bishop Klimowicz, 54, knows firsthand the experience of so many of his Siberian flock. His family, too, was uprooted by the Soviets.
They were booted from the land they owned in Belarus, one of the Soviet republics, and expelled to Kazakhstan, another republic.
The family maintained its Catholic traditions, but Bishop Klimowicz said he remembered being taunted at school. A teacher once shaved a cross into his hair when she found out he was Catholic, and another flushed his Marian medal down the toilet.
When he was still young his mother sneaked him and his brother back to Belarus, and a year later the three escaped to Poland, where he grew up and eventually was ordained a priest.
His father eventually made it to Poland too but remained estranged from the family.
Bishop Klimowicz spent two weeks in October in Anchorage and Palmer, visiting parishes, meeting clergy and taking a tour of several Catholic Social Services operations.
He was impressed by the professionalism and dignified concern displayed by the staff, and said he was "jealous" of the local church’s work with the poor.
Homelessness is a "terrible situation" in his diocese, he said, and he would love to someday have a shelter for them if he can find the funding.
In his diocese, women religious are the backbone of the church’s outreach efforts, he said. Many of the 67 sisters in the diocese focus on street children and single mothers; some communities operate pre-schools for the poor.
During his visit Bishop Klimowicz also had a "very happy meeting" with Alaska’s Russian Orthodox Bishop Nikolai, whose cathedral is in Anchorage.
Bishop Klimowicz declined to provide details from the meeting but did say Bishop Nikolai was very gracious and warm.
"It’s just a beginning but I feel positively about it," he said. "It felt like we were friends."
Bishop Klimowicz came to Russia at a time when relations between the Orthodox and Catholic churches were very tense. His predecessor, Bishop Jerzy Mazur, a Polish citizen, was expelled from Russia without explanation in 2002, one of several Catholic leaders expelled after Pope John Paul II created four new dioceses in Russia. The Russian Orthodox leadership condemned the new dioceses as a sign of "Catholic expansionism" in Orthodox territory.