Published December 20, 2002
Nativity of Jesus Church in Magadan to receive blessing on Christmas Day
The small Catholic community in Magadan, Russia, is set to celebrate a major milestone: the blessing of its new church.
The Parish of the Nativity of Jesus will open the doors of its nearly completed church for a Christmas day blessing ceremony and Mass. Some interior finish work remains to be done, but the church can be used now and parish leaders decided not to wait any longer to begin doing so. Plus, they reasoned, what better day than Christmas to bless a church called Nativity of Jesus?
Nativity of Jesus is the first Catholic church ever built in this city of 115,000, located about halfway up Russia’s east coast. Magadan began as a hub of area slave labor camps during Stalin’s brutal atheist regime; a handful of Nativity of Jesus parishioners were sent there as prisoners because they were Catholic.
The survivors, as they are called in Magadan, kept their faith alive during years or decades of imprisonment by practicing clandestinely, celebrating the sacraments with priests imprisoned alongside them. Some even crafted rosaries and other devotional items out of a mixture of bread dough and sawdust.
In 1989, when the Soviet Union was in the process of breaking apart, Archbishop Francis Hurley traveled to Magadan as part of an exchange program that included scientists and various community leaders. During the stay he met Catholic people who had been forbidden for decades to practice their faith.
Archbishop Hurley, who retired as archbishop of Anchorage in 2001, returned to Magadan in December 1990 with a young Anchorage priest, Father Michael Shields.
They rented a theater building and celebrated the first public Mass in Magadan’s history.
The following month the archbishop and several residents of Magadan officially registered Nativity of Jesus Parish.
A Russian-speaking priest from the eastern United States served as the parish’s first pastor, and Father Shields took his place in 1994. Two years later, Father David Means, a priest from St. Louis, was named associate pastor.
Until now, a renovated apartment has served as the parish worship space. About 100 people can squeeze into it, with children sitting on laps and the aisles lined with late-comers.
In 2001, when Archbishop Hurley returned to Magadan to celebrate the parish’s 10-year anniversary, Fathers Shields and Means were in the early stages of building a church. They had purchased a lot on a busy street a few miles from the apartment. It already had a concrete foundation, the remains of a failed business plan.
Now a modest two-level building with a bell tower and gleaming cross sits on that foundation. The upper level is the worship space, with seating for 200. Below is the Mercy Center that will soon house a soup kitchen and outreach ministry programs.
A small chapel dedicated to the estimated 2 million people who perished in the region’s slave labor camps stands just outside the main building and welcomes people of all faiths to remember the dead.
Inside, the church is being outfitted with traditional Russian religious art, including icons and a "Franciscan cross" in honor of St. Francis of Assisi and Archbishop Francis Hurley.
"The church has to be beautiful not only for good worship but for the Russian: a church must reflect God’s beauty," Father Shields said. Russian artists, several of them from Magadan, have created most of the interior art.
The church blessing, which Archbishop Hurley will celebrate, is a scaled-down version of the full dedication rite that typically happens when a church is built. The church will be formally dedicated someday, but organizers opted for a low-key event because of increased Catholic-Orthodox tensions this year in Russia.
Four foreign Catholic priests and one bishop were expelled from the country earlier this year after Pope John Paul II elevated the country’s Catholic administrative structures into full-fledged dioceses. Russian Orthodox leaders angrily described the move as Catholic "expansionism."
Magadan is part of the diocese of the expelled prelate, Bishop Jerzy Mazur, a Polish citizen. Bishop Mazur is sending a message to be read during the blessing ceremony. There is no word yet on when or if he will be allowed to return.
Father Shields said that relations between the faiths seems to be on the mend, and that he isn’t aware of any threats or hostilities associated with the upcoming church blessing.
"I can share that sometimes a few months back when we were publicly attacked and myself slandered I felt we would have a very difficult time with the opening of the church," he said. But as the momentous date approaches, he said, all he’s gotten are "questions on when it will open."
He said he has the sense that people are welcoming the addition of a beautiful structure "in this city known for the ugliness of the gulags."