FALLS CHURCH, Va.–Ecclesial communion and support for the Catholic Church in Russia were the topics of a fund-raising conference just outside the Washington beltway last weekend.

Aid to the Church in Russia (ACR), a Vienna, Va.-based nonprofit sponsored the event, which included Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, apostolic administrator of European Russia, and Archbishop Sititas Tamkevicius, ordinary of Kaunas, Lithuania, among its speakers. Archbishop Tamkevicius spent eight years in labor camps in Siberia and elsewhere as a prisoner of the former Soviet communist regime.

Others on the platform included Msgr. George Sarauskas, executive director of National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) Office for Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, author-theologian Father John Hardon SJ; Dr. Warren Carroll, founder of Christendom College in Front Royal, Va.; Canon Dr. Michael Bourdeaux, founder and director of the Keston Institute in Oxford, England; Dr. Roger Pajak, national security advisor for Russian, East European, and Middle East affairs for the U.S. Treasury Department; and human rights advocate, author, and speaker Nina Shea.

The conference participants heard of many encouraging developments in the 300,000-member Russian Church, which has been present in the country for more than 1,000 years. Archbishop Kondrusiewicz said there now 96 parishes in European Russia, up from six at the time of the political changes in 1991. A total of 144 priests from 16 countries minister to Russian Catholics, and 59 native seminarians are enrolled in the five-year program of philosophy and theology in preparation for ordination.

The Russian Church is host to 115 foreign nuns who, together with 10 native religious, work in catechetics and various other ministries. St. Thomas Aquinas College of Catholic Theology, headquartered in Moscow, but with branches in four other cities, is preparing approximately 300 lay people for work as catechists and social workers within the Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has been promulgated in a Russian version for use in religious education, and a weekly newspaper and 18 hours of daily radio programming are also assisting to form the faithful.

In 1993 the Regina Apostolorum (Queen of Apostles) Seminary was established. Referring to it as the “heart of the Church” in Russia, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz noted that the St. Petersburg-based major seminary, together with adjacent Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary church, are on the site of the first such facility that the Latin Rite Church had established in Russia. It will give the Church its first native clergy in more than 70 years. ACR has contributed $90,000 toward continuing renovations of the structures since its first fund-raising campaign last year.

Msgr. Sarauskas indicated that the NCCB office he heads gives $6 million per year to the developing Churches in 22 European countries.

ACR president, Transitional Deacon Marcel Guarnizo, thanked the faithful of the Western Church for their prayerful support, but said the continued development of the Russian Church, would require more than faith alone. Now is the time to “put our hands to the plow,” said the Virginia native who is the first U.S. citizen to be ordained to the Russian clergy in the post-Soviet era.

Deacon Guarnizo said many people feel insecure about contributing financially to the Church in Russia, whose status may seem precarious in the transition from communism to democracy. He asked the audience, if they feel such support a gamble, to imagine themselves at a r/oulette table. If a beautiful lady, who came from a place where everything is known, told you what to bet on for a sure payoff, would you hesitate? That's what Our Lady did at Fatima. With her, he said, I'm asking you to play “8 Red.”

Archbishop Kondrusiewicz was guarded in response to questions about Russia's controversial new “freedom of religion” law. “Of course I am worried about conditions for the future activity of the Catholic Church in Russia, but I know well that in Russia it was never easy, and yet the Church survived until today. I believe, with the blessing of God, we will continue to survive.” (Peter Sonski)