Documentary exploring the plight of Eastern-rite and Latin-rite Sisters under Soviet domination - who lived out their religious vocations underground from the end of WWII to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Documentary exploring the plight of Eastern-rite and Latin-rite Sisters under Soviet domination - who lived out their religious vocations underground from the end of WWII to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
EWTN Sat 08/21/10 2:00 PM ET, 11 AM PT 1 hour
Thanks for sharing this! I wasn't able to watch it as I don't have a TV, but I was able to view the online trailer, and it seems very well-made.
Here's a similar one. Well, an excerpt from a similar one:
The full documentary (about 45 minutes), is available for a donation from Aid to the Church in Need, the folks who made it. It focuses on 2 orders of nuns in Bulgaria - the Byzantine Catholic Carmelites and one Roman Catholic order (I haven't watched it in a while, but as I recall, it's the Sisters of the Eucharist).
I know some of the Byzantine Carmelite sisters in the film, as well as the priest, Fr Srecko, from when I lived in Bulgaria. Fr Srecko told me many stories from that time, some of which are in the film. Under Communism, the Byzantine sisters lived for many years in their little church, after their convent was taken from them. They were put out on the street, and had nowhere to go. They made little individual cells in the choir loft, and one or two had their cells in the bell tower. They did what little cooking they could in the sacristy. And they had an outhouse in the church yard. Eventually, some were taken to the labor camp/prison at Belene, an island in the Danube. They suffered much for the faith, but they persevered.
Fr Srecko said he and the sisters had some reservations about some parts of the film, for example, the use of Bulgarian folk music in the beginning is a bit odd, things like that. They didn't have any control over the final product. But all in all, it tells an important story that should not be forgotten, just as "Interrupted Lives" does.
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