RUSSIA-KONDRUSIEWICZ Feb-28-2001 (610 words) xxxi
Russian Catholic Church faces pastoral challenges, says archbishop
By Frank Brown
Catholic News Service <http://www.catholicnews.com/index.html>

MOSCOW (CNS) -- Despite a decade of rapid growth, the Roman Catholic Church in Russia still faces huge challenges in seeking out and better serving Catholics in the world's largest country, said Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz.

``First we need to find these people. We say there are about 500,000 or 600,000 Latin-rite Catholics in Russia,'' said the archbishop, apostolic administrator of European Russia, adding that polls consistently show that 1 percent of Russia's 145 million people are Catholics.

``That would make one-and-a-half million. We need to find them. We are establishing parishes when people are coming to us, but our priests are not able to go everywhere,'' he said.

In April 1991, when Pope John Paul II named Archbishop Kondrusiewicz apostolic administrator for Latin-rite Catholics in European Russia, there were ``10 parishes and seven or eight priests, two of them over 80, for all of Russia,'' Archbishop Kondrusiewicz said.

Now, 219 priests and 210 nuns serve 220 parishes across 11 time zones.

In a wide-ranging interview in an empty office at the rear of Moscow's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz took stock of the Catholic Church, its prospects for the future, relations with the dominant Russian Orthodox Church and the likelihood of the pope someday meeting Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II.

Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, who heads the Russian bishops' conference and is credited with rebuilding much of the Catholic infrastructure destroyed by 70 years of communism, said there is tremendous room for further growth.

``We intend to go forward. We will not stop. I believe that, if there is not a revolution,'' he said with a chuckle, ``not only the (Latin) Catholics but other rites like the Greek Catholics, the Armenian Catholics will continue to grow. We have to think about them.''

One of the biggest impediments to the church's growth in Russia is the difficulty reclaiming the church buildings seized after the 1917 Russian Revolution that ushered in militant atheism and the systematic persecution of all faiths.

Not only is there no clear legislation governing the return of property in Russia, but the politically powerful, 80-million-member Russian Orthodox Church often seeks to thwart Catholic efforts at restitution. This forces the Catholic Church to rent meeting halls or construct new churches.

``It is very difficult for them to understand the problem abroad. Abroad they are selling churches, and here I am building them,'' quipped the archbishop, who travels frequently to the West and speaks fluent English.

In Moscow, relations between bishops of the Russian Orthodox and Catholic churches are quite cordial and friendly, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz said. That contrasts with a steady flow of rebukes and accusations directed at the Vatican from Patriarch Alexei.

Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, 55, who says he meets with Pope John Paul an average of two or three times a year, described the Polish pope's interest in Russia as keen.

``I remember when the statue of Our Lady of Fatima was here in 1996, 1997. Later on I brought some pictures to the pope. I never saw him so emotional as when he was looking at the picture from the Kremlin, from Red Square,'' recalled the archbishop, a square-jawed man with close-cropped hair.

To date, the pope has visited the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and, in 1999, Georgia. Archbishop Kondrusiewicz is hoping that the momentum created by the visits will eventually make a visit to Russia possible.

``I believe, I pray that if the Holy Father goes to Ukraine, later on goes to Armenia, goes maybe to Kazakstan, that society will change its attitude, change the attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church,'' Archbishop Kondrusiewicz said. http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/20010228.htm