Documentary recounts suffering of nuns under European Communism
August 10, 2009
A documentary that examines the persecution of nuns in Eastern Europe between the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 will air on many ABC affiliates in September. Interrupted Lives, which recounts the exile of some women religious to Siberia and the trials of others who kept their vocations secret, was funded in part by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
At her superiors’ initiative, Sister Anne Lehner, SSS, escaped from Hungary into Austria in 1952. Now a nun in Buffalo, she recounts:
My reflection on the journey through Communism, my own journey? I would say it was the dark night of the spirit for the people who lived there. It was a time of purification. It was a time that forced people to live radically their faith because without radicality, they could not continue as practicing Christians. In some people, faith has grown very deep. And in many people, faith has been extinguished. It was like a sword cutting. It is something of which Christ’s speaks in the Gospel of Luke: That a daughter is [to] be against a mother and a mother against a daughter. br>
But whoever remains faithful to the deepest reality which is relationship with God, this is where it led some of the people. And I would say I bless God for what I went through. I wouldn’t be the person who I am without what happened to me, to my family and to my community. And God was there all the time. But it wasn’t easy.
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