LIFE OF THE CONGREGATION
In the month of July of this year, 1999, a course of permanent formation was given in the Italian language and held in Poland. It was a well prepared course which helped us to deepen our knowledge of several themes which are very important today: social commitment, ecumenism, the spirituality of the Heart of Jesus, the figure of Christ which reveals to us the Fatherly face of God, etc.
Certain weekend visits were particularly stimulating: to Auschwitz, to Niepokalànow (the city of Fr. Kolbe's Immaculate Virgin), the sanctuary of Czestochowa, center and heart of the civil and religious history of Poland...
In this article, however, we intend to talk about the visit we made (July 3-5) to our Polish brethren who work in Byelorussia, a border region and a meeting place between Catholics and members of the Orthodox Church. There are 12 brethren posted in various parishes there: Grodno-Wiszeniowiec, Ostryna, Iac, Lachowicze, Postwy, Lyntupy-Komaje and Szarkowszcyna.
During the first week Father Tadeusz Kaluzny, SCJ held a conference regarding that country of 207,000 sq. km and with more or less 8 million inhabitants: 80% are Byelorussians, 13% Russians, 4.1% Poles and 1% Jews. Religiously the country is divided up as follows: 40% indifferent and 60% faithful; of which 25% are Catholics and 25% Orthodox Christians. The relationship between these two Churches is not very friendly in this country, unlike other countries where Orthodox Christians and Catholics live together.
The visit to Byelorussia aroused various feelings in us: we were impatient at the frontier, where we had to wait over two hours before we could enter the country, and also later when we had to wait to get out, due to the slowness of passport control and to the bad will of the customs officers; but we also felt the deepest admiration for the people's acts and attitudes of true heroism during the period of the communist dictatorship.
The first city we visited was Grodno. Before 1945 this western part of Byelorussia belonged to Poland, therefore the people there still speak Polish. Grodno is a city of more or less 300,000 inhabitants. We were received in the city's diocesan seminary where 120 pupils, who come from 4 dioceses, study (philosophy and theology). During the period of communism it had been transformed into an institute of forensic medicine with accommodations for many doctors and nurses. Under the church were the refrigerator rooms where the corpses were kept for autopsy. After the fall of communism it was restored to the dioceses and restoration works are currently in progress. Both the priests and the seminarians received us fraternally and with great joy; in fact, though the ambiance is simple and humble, it is filled with enthusiasm and joy.
One of the stories which truly impressed us was that of the Catholic women of Grodno who occupied the cathedral church for 18 years in order not to let the communists make use of it for other, profane ends. And, since the celebration of the mass was forbidden, the priest would put on civilian clothes and sit among the faithful reciting the eucharistic prayers with them. In this way the communists were not able to discover who the priest was.
In Grodno the Polish Province looks after a parish situated in a poor, working-class district where approximately 80,000 people live. There is no parish church yet. Masses are celebrated in a rented room above a cafeteria and the parish priest and his vicar occupy a small government-owned apartment which is also used as a meeting place during the week for the various groups, which come in turns, made up of the 700 boys and girls who are preparing for their first communion. It is a poor parish with innumerable social problems, mainly unemployment and alcoholism. There is no industry in the city and the young people live a life without much hope. The monthly salary of a worker is approximately $20.00 (twenty American dollars).
When we saw how hard this reality was and learned of the difficulties which a government which is still communist puts in the way of religious activities, we greatly admired the work and, if we may say so, also the heroism of our brethren.
In this part of Byelorussia the people are very Catholic. They have Polish roots. They have a deep devotion to the Madonna of Czestochowa and they go there on pilgrimage, covering, on foot, the 130 km which separate these two cities.
Father Stanislav, SCJ, priest of the Parish of Divine Mercy, already has put together the plan for the new church: it will have to be built with foreign aid because the people here are too poor. The Bishop of Grodno and the SCJ Province have already signed a contract which stipulates that the Congregation will be responsible for the financing of the construction of the church.
In the city of Grodno there are 20 priests: 11 of which are diocesan. Fr. Maximilian Kolbe worked here from 1922 to 1927. In the church of the Conventual Franciscan one can still see the confessional where he carried out the ministry of reconciliation. It is from here that he set out in 1927 to found his great work in Niepokalanów.
A deeply felt religious problem is the fact that for almost 50 years there has been no religious formation: this was during the period in which the communist system was in power. Communism succeeded in creating a generation of agnostics, atheists or indifference. The Orthodox Christians, who were able to function during that period, did little regarding catechism. They did not perform such pastoral activities and accommodated themselves to the system.
In Grodno there are three Orthodox Christian churches.
In Ostryna, 30km from Grodno, we went to another SCJ parish and co-celebrated the 10:00 O'clock Mass on Sunday, July 4th. The new church, beautiful and large, was crowded. The faithful actively participated in all the prayers and hymns. They are humble people, simple and poor; I did not see one car. Those who lived farthest away came to church in horse drawn carts, the others on foot.
In this region we saw the famous kolkoz: the collected farms of the communist system. There were a lot of potatoes, beet root, grain and wheat, as well as pastures for raising livestock.
We also visited many other parishes and churches, each one had its stories to tell about the communist period. Some of the churches were old, others more modern, some were closed during the communist regime, others were used for various purposes: the rectory became the headquarters of the gestapo during the last war; after the war it became a hospital; now, once again, it is the home of the priests.
The joy of the parish priests and other priests which we went to visit was visible. They patiently explained everything to us. At Wasilinski we arrived just at the beginning of the 3:30 Mass. The parish priest presented us to the community; he asked each of us to introduce ourselves and to say a few words in our language; the assembly sang for us, with joy.
In these visits to so many of the churches in this region I was struck by the presence of images or paintings of the Madonna, not just of Czestochowa but also of Fatima and of Perpetual Aid; and also images of Sister Faustina's Jesus of Divine Mercy.
In conclusion, I would like to tell you that this visit allowed us to see a population which suffers a great deal, without much hope and poor, but with a deep and simple sense of faith. We greatly appreciated the work which our Dehonian religious are carrying out there. We saw the great communist kolkoz, the narrow and badly tended roads, the immense pine and fir forests, the strong military presence at the frontiers.
A lesson of life: where there is no freedom, man does not develop; where there is no private property, man loses his impetus to progress; where there is no respect for the human person and his rights, there is no true life, there is no hope. Any political system which does not set the human person as its prime objective is destined to total failure. There is no true life, there is no freedom where there is no love or respect for the human person.