Iraqi nun, a convert, helps lead New England’s largest Catholic chaplaincy
September 16, 2010
The National Catholic Register contains the extraordinary story of Sister Olga of the Eucharist Yaqob, an Iraqi convert to Catholicism who was recently appointed as co-director of the Catholic Center at Boston University, the largest university chaplaincy in New England.
Sister Olga was raised in the Assyrian Church of the East, a separated Eastern church whose communion with the Holy See ceased following the Council of Ephesus in 431. Her deep love for the Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Mother led her to minister to prisoners at Abu Ghraib and to found that church’s first women’s religious institute in 700 years. In time, her bishop asked her to leave the religious order she founded.
In 2001, she began studies in the United States, and four years later, she was received into the Catholic Church by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston. “Since coming to America, I have found young people, in loneliness and despair, with a hopelessness invading their lives, brought about by the materialistic and hedonistic ideals of the society in which they find themselves,” she says.
For all current news, visit our News home page.
Further information:
All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a current donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!
-
Posted by: scotch meg -
Sep. 16, 2010 6:30 PM ET USA
Sr. Olga works miracles at the Boston University Catholic Center, helping students to discover and deepen their faith. She is the heart of an island of sanity on a secular campus. She is true to the Church and true to her mission. And she needs help! Recently she lost all diocesan funding.