Catholic World News News Feature
An Internet apostolate December 27, 2001
Follow Up story
With the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991, the underground Catholic Church looked forward to a time of new freedom and openness. But the delighted Catholics did not reckon with the formidable power of the Russian Orthodox Church.
During the Soviet era many Catholics--particularly those in the Eastern rites--were forced to join the state-approved Orthodox Church. Huge tracts of Catholic Church property were appropriated by the Orthodox. As the Communist system crumbled, Catholics emerged from the catacombs to reclaim their religious identity and their property. That movement led to a predictable backlash from the Orthodox hierarchy, who last year persuaded the Russian government to pass a law restricting the activities of "non-traditional" religions, including Catholicism. The Vatican's Apostolic Administrator in Russia, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusewicz, complained in February that the Catholic Church now had difficulty finding places of worship in Russia.
One man who is trying to rectify that problem--and using the Internet to do it--is 29-year-old Father Philip Andrews, a native of Cork in Ireland. Father Philip (a nephew of the Irish foreign-affairs minister David Andrews) was ordained three years ago by Archbishop Kondrusewicz; he became the first Catholic priest to be incardinated in European Russia since before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The counselor to the papal nuncio declared that the ordination marked "the beginning of the process of normalization of the Catholic Church in Russia."
Today Father Philip works in a new Catholic parish on the borders of Kazakhstan--and also in cyberspace. But it was far from the steppes of Russia that Father Philip began his ministry. After being educated in Limerick and Cork, he spent a year at the diocesan seminary in Tipperary, before deciding that the Irish diocesan priesthood was not for him. In 1986-87, he spent a year at Fatima, working and praying about his vocation.
With the knowledge of Portuguese he had gained in Portugal, Philip decided next to go to Brazil, where he spent two years gaining a bachelor's degree in philosophy at the Instituto Sapientiae in Anapolis, 120 miles from the nation's capital, Brasilia. Returning to Europe, he spent six months improving his German with the Canons Regular in Innsbruck. In 1990, he spent a year in Rome at the study house of the Order of the Holy Cross, learning Italian and studying theology at the Angelicum.
At about the same time, the old Soviet system was starting to show signs of collapse. In April 1991, in response to Russian Catholic demands for priests, Pope John Paul appointed Archbishop Kondrusewicz (a Belarussian Pole) as the Apostolic Administrator of Latin-rite Catholics in European Russia. Philip met Archbishop Kondrusewicz in Rome while continuing his studies: two more years of theology, a license in philosophy at the Lateran University and a license in Oriental theology at the Orientalium. From then on, Philip made regular visits to Russia. First he spent a week in Moscow, staying with Russian friends whom he had met in Czestokowa during the Pope's visit to his native country. His first impressions of Russia were of great changes and enormous opportunities. The people were friendly and enthusiastic, and seemed to be looking for something to replace Communism. The cost of living was still low since, for most people, the downturn in the Russian economy had not yet hit home.
Philip visited the Assumptionist church of St. Louis near the infamous Lubyanka Prison. At the time it was the only Catholic church in Moscow, and was served by an elderly Lithuanian priest who has since died. Although Philip did not speak Russian at the time, he felt that this was where God wanted him to be. From that time forward he spent every summer in Moscow and added Russian to the seven languages he had already mastered.
In 1992, Philip spent the summer helping Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity before traveling to Rostov on the Don, a 600 miles from Moscow, to assist a Polish priest who was starting a new parish there. In 1993, after finishing his studies in theology, he made a pilgrimage that retraced the steps of St. Paul on his missionary journey through Greece, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine before catching a bus to Rostov to help out in the new Polish Catholic parish.
After his ordination in 1995, Father Philip was sent to Samara on the Volga River, about 700 miles from Moscow and just 150 miles from Kazakhstan. The parish priest there is Salesian Father Tom Donaghy, one of several Irish missionaries who had already begun restoring the Catholic presence in Russia. There were three Irish priests already in the Caucasus, two in Samara, and one in Moscow.
Father Philip's first task was to restore the church of the Sacred Heart, which had been converted into a museum during the years of Soviet rule. Most of his parishioners were elderly Germans and Poles, who had been forced to move eastwards during World War II. There was great enthusiasm but little money, so Father Philip decided to take his work to a bigger parish-- on the Internet.
He now hosts two sites (http://www.glasnet.ru/~stbasil/homepage.htm and http://catholic- church.org/church-unity/homepage.htm). The St. Basil page gives the history of the Catholic parish of the Holy Cherubim and Seraphim in the town of Syzran in Samara province. The page includes maps, pictures of the town and a history of the area and the parish. It features the illustrated story of the building of the chapel, as well as links to other Catholic parishes in Russia. For non-believers, the page offers a unique service: "If you find it hard to pray or difficult to believe in prayer, please CLICK HERE and let us pray on your behalf!"
The new Russian religious law has exacerbated tensions between Catholics and the Orthodox, a problem which Father Philip is doing his best to help resolve. His ecumenical efforts include involvement in anti-drug programs in the town and lecturing in philosophy in Samara University. He has also taken his ecumenical work onto the Internet. His Church unity site gives an outline of the relationship between the Catholic and Orthodox churches and links to features on Russian Orthodoxy and her traditions, ecumenism and theology, philosophy and culture, and the Catholic Church in Russia. Father Philip sees the Internet as a powerful tool which can be used to improve relations between the Orthodox and Catholics in Russia, as well as to bolster the revival of Catholicism in the country.
"The Russian people have experienced incredible suffering and emptiness," he says, "yet they have retained a deep personal reverence for God, above all the Eucharist. They are truly fertile soil for the Gospel and I hope that the Internet will help provide some of the seeds that will flourish in that soil."
- Kieron Wood
