FIDES DOSSIER (on Fides server) KAZAKHSTAN: WHERE EUROPE MEETS ASIA  Difficult Ethnic Balance - Soviet heritage - Economic and social situation  Religions - Islam  The History of the Catholic Church in Kazakhstan  Franciscan missions 13th and 14th century - first dioceses in Kazakhstan  Giovanni da Montecorvino, apostle of Central Asia  Bishops, missionaries and martyrs  The Church today  A Church more Kazak, antidote for ethnic conflict  Interview with Fr Edoardo Canetta, Italian Fidei donum priest in Astana  More Muslims than Christians may attend Papal Mass

KAZAKHSTAN: WHERE EUROPE MEETS ASIA
 

An Asian country with a European calling; a former Soviet territory with many resources but third world poverty; a Muslim country that respects all religions and went out of its way to have Pope John Paul II visit. This is Kazakhstan: a vast land 2,717,300 of sq. km., (larger than the 500,000 sq. km. of the whole European Union) extending from the Volga basin to the Tien Shan and Altai mountain ranges, as far as China.
The Republic of Kazakhstan was established in 1991. Although before it enjoyed a degree of autonomy, it only obtained full independence after the Soviet Union was dissolved.

Today Kazakhstan is a member of the United Nations Organisation and other international bodies. Because of its present economic situation it has been recognised as a third world country eligible for aid from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Community.
This presidential republic with a parliament consisting of a House and a Senate has a highly centralized administration. It is the President who appoints civic mayors and heads of semi-provincial/regional administrative structures.

Since independence, President Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbajev has been elected twice. A prominent figure already in Soviet times, in many ways similar to Gorbaciov, Nazarbajev faces the difficult task of transforming Kazakhstan society and economy from the Soviet system to a more liberal one, of which the process is still difficult to identify. He is hindered by an unstable and difficult situation and criticism of the President’s family voiced by the opposition.

Nevertheless Nazabajev plays an important role in re-building some sort of unity between the different countries of Central Asia, resuming constructive relations with Putin’s Russia and curbing Muslim fundamentalism spreading from Pakistan to Afghanistan, and beginning to enflame Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. A year ago Nazabajev declared that the Taleban and Ossama Bin Laden have chosen precisely Kazakhstan as their target for the next few years. Fundamentalist preachers and terrorists have no difficulty in invading the southern regions thanks to an uncontrolled border traffic; while Islamic print material floods bookshops all over the country. Unofficial reports say that in recent years more than a thousand mosques have been built in Kazakhstan with help from Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
It was Nazarbajev’s tenacity that accelerated the Pope’s visit to Kazakhstan. The President paid two calls on Pope John Paul II in the Vatican repeating his invitation to visit the country.

Observers say the Papal visit will help the country to make more contact with the international community, the West in particular, and counter the strong Turkish and Saudi influence. To avoid being caught in the net of Islam, the President asked to collaborate with the European Community. In 1996 he established the Eurasia University through which young Kazaks are able study in Germany, France, Russia and the United States. Kazakhstan succeeded in entering its major football team for the UEFA Cup.

The country’s vocation along the Silk Route is to be a land of passage, a meeting point for European and Asian cultures. At home, an important task is to maintain the delicate balance between about a hundred different ethnic groups, in particular between the Kazaks (about 50% of the population) and the others. Generally the other groups Germans, Poles, Russians… still feel they belong to an ethnic minority rather than the new social reality of the country.
 

It was after 1991 that the problem of ethnic balance first emerged, with the beginning of a sizeable exodus from Kazakhstan. Prompted by new freedom of movement and dominant poverty, the first to leave were the Jews, a lively minority from the cultural point of view. Then, en masse, the Germans, who had been deported to Kazakhstan by Stalin. Most of them came not from Germany but from German autonomous republics in the Volga and Crimea regions. Russians too, having lost control of what they used to consider a sort of colony, began to emigrate. Now, many descendents of Poles deported from Ukraine are preparing to leave. This migratory flow was compensated, only in part, by the arrival of Kazak groups of fugitives from Mongolia at the time of the Russian Revolution. According to a 1999 census the population was 14,953,126 (in 1989 it was 16,199,154).

In the last 10 years many of German, Ukrainian and Polish origin (mostly Catholics) left Kazakhstan to return to the lands of their forefathers. The rise recorded in the percentage of Kazaks (and Uzbeks, Tatars and Koreans) is due mainly to the departure other groups.

Besides almost 8 million Kazaks present in the country, there are another 5 million abroad, mainly in Mongolia and in the Russian region of Astrakan.
Emigration from Kazakhstan was also due to harsh climatic conditions in most of the country. Except for the south, in the Altai and Tien Shan mountain regions where the climate is almost Alpine, the rest of the territory is dominated by a “continental” extremes of 40 degrees Celsius in the brief Summer season and minus 40 degrees Celsius in the long Winter.

In the northern steppe land crops compatible with the extreme Winter temperatures are grown. In the rest of the country the steppe is arid, without trees and serves at the most be used as pasture and grazing. Kazakhstan is rich in resources, particularly oil with large deposits near the Caspian Sea. This resource is exploited by mainly foreign companies, American, Japanese, Chinese, Belgian and Italian (AGIP, ENI…).

Soviet heritage
 

Kazakhstan, a land of nomads along the Silk Route, received, for better and for worse, great impulse for its stability, industry and agriculture under the Soviet Union. It still has the famous Baikonur space centre manned together with the Russian Federation, and the former nuclear firing-ground at Semipalatinsk where more than 400 open-air nuclear tests caused serious environment damage.

In Soviet times Kazakhstan was one of the “preferred” places for deportation, of groups and individuals. Already in 1936, when the collectivisation plan started, whole groups of people, mostly from Ukraine, were deported to Kazakhstan and settled mainly in the Karaganda region.
The largest deportation was that of Germans from the Volga, in the 1930s and during the Second World War. This made Kazakhstan a land of martyrdom for many believers (lay persons, bishops, clergy) and for many members of Russian culture (author Alexander Solgenitsin was confined in Jhezgasghan lager which inspired his book “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovic”).

During the Second World War Kazakhstan was a land of deportation also for numerous prisoners of war of various nationalities. Not far from Karaganda, at Spassk, the site of a large concentration camp, there are the graves of thousands of war prisoners, Germans. Japanese [captured in Mancuria editor’s note] Italians, Frenchmen [from Vichy], Ukrainians, Fins etc., most of whom died of hunger, cold and disease.

Besides the deportees, Kazakhstan was also a land of pioneers, sent in successive epochs to exploit its resources. In Soviet times Astana, the capital today, was known as Tzelinograd, or “wheat-town”: it was an experimental centre for a collectivist campaign for wheat production.
 

The changeover from a Communist system to a liberal structure had serious effects on the country’s industry – most of the industries of the Soviet era closed for bankruptcy – and agriculture: with production stopped for lack of means and fertilizers. Unemployment increased, out of all proportion, throwing most of the population into poverty. Still today about 43% lives below the poverty line (1999 official statistics).
The country’s health system is unable to guarantee even a minimum standard of assistance. Because of living conditions, illnesses, including tuberculosis which is widespread, have increased. Ethnic difficulties or ridiculously low salaries (US$ 40 per month) have driven many medical doctors to leave the country: all this has added to the deterioration of health conditions.

More in general, the drastic fall of economic conditions, as well as the fear of inter-ethnic conflict, led many to emigrate. In the last 5 years the population dropped by 1.3 million and the growth rate decreased from 5.6 to 4.4 per thousand. In the last year Kazakhstan’s economy felt the effect of the global economic-financial rises which started at the end of 1997. The negative effects continued in 1998 and for most of 1999, which closed with a growth in the GNP of 1.7%.
In the first months of 2000 there were signs of improvement, confirmed also by economic results in the next three months. The GNP registered an increase of 11.9% compared to the same period of 1999. This increase, which can be attributed mainly to the rise in international prices of prime materials, of which Kazakhstan is a producer and exporter, was influenced also by an overall improvement of the economic situation.

Thanks to the stability of the US Dollar–Tenge exchange (1 dollar = 144 Tenge) in the second three months of 2000, the GNP per capita in US$ increased by 10.5% compared with the first three months and by 12% compared with the same period in 1999.

Looking in detail at the GNP structure in the first six months of 2000, compared with the same period in 1999, we note increases of 17.4% in industry, 32.2% in building, 20.8% in transportation – to be attributed mainly to goods transport since passenger movement dropped by 11.1% - and 31.9% in communications. Agriculture, thanks mainly to livestock, increased by 4.4%. The best results regarding industry have been reached in the sector of the extraction of oil and gas (+ 14%) and metals (+44.8%) and in oil by products (+33.8%) and ferrous and nonferrous metals (respectively +35% and +17.5%). A steep increase was also registered in machinery production (+51.8%), electrical equipment, farm machinery, equipment for the production of oil and gas, vehicles for goods transport, containers.

In the first five months of 2000 the number of workers (2,027,600) in large and medium industries dropped by 4.8% compared to the first three months of 1999, whereas it increased in the sectors of agriculture and building. According to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, the number of unemployed registered in June 2000 was 267,000 or 4.2% of the labour force. Of these only 24,500 receive unemployment benefits of about 1,218 Tenge (1 US$ + 144 Tenge) about 9% of their monthly salary.

Official data regarding average salaries reporting a nominal increase of 20.5%, differs from reality – a 5.1 increase % - because many companies delay wage payment or pay in kind. The monthly salary – which in 1999 was 10,984 Tenge (US$ 91.8) – varies from region to region. The highest (US$ 165) is paid in the region of Atyrau (an oil zone); the lowest in the region of Almaty (US$ 57).

Religion
 

At present in Kazakhstan out of a population of about 15 million, 8 million are Sunni Muslims and a little more than 6 million are Orthodox Christians. There are about 360,000 Latin Rite Catholics, and a small community of Greek Catholics. After the mortal grip of atheism with the negation of all religion in the Soviet period, since independence in about 10 years more than 600 different churches and sects have been officially registered, including many fundamentalist Protestant groups. The government is wary of these and of Muslim fundamentalists. This has led to a certain degree of control on religious freedom: permits are required for gatherings of any consistence; outdoor events, such as processions, decorations, signs are prohibited. Forbidden also any kind of “proselytism” and missionary activity.
In Kazakhstan relations between the Catholic community and the Orthodox Church and other religious groups are generally good. There are even cases of various visible forms of collaboration.

The presence of the Orthodox Church, historically much later than that of the Church of Rome, is connected with the arrival of Russians in Central Asia. When in 1600 the Czars built forts mostly along the rivers, the Cossacks came accompanied by Orthodox clergy who began timid evangelization among the Kazaks, particularly in the area of Semipalatinsk. Unfortunately, as we can see from Kazak historical sources, for many, becoming Christian meant becoming Russian, betraying one’s own people. On the other hand, it is undeniable that the Orthodox Church played a role, also cultural, as can be easily detected in the formation of many men of Kazak culture, beginning with the great Abai Kunambai.

Islam
 

Islam was brought to Central Asia first by Persian merchants and then by Arab armies. The brief Persian period, when Islam took root only in the Tagika area, was followed by violent Arab colonisation (early 8th century), resisted by the people who were reduced to slavery. While the Mediterranean basin passed from the Umayyade dynasty to the Abbasid dynasty, Central Asia lived a strictly orthodox type of Islam which launched harsh campaigns against the nomadic “infidels” and Christians in the region.

In the 11th and 12th centuries, when the territory was occupied by the Turkomans there emerged the extraordinary work of mediation by Ahmad Hodgi Yassawi, Kazakhstan’s greatest Sufi teacher, who forged an encounter between Islam and the steppe land peoples. Yassawi, a poet and mystic, was born at Isfijab (today Chimkent) and he died in 1166 at Yasy (today Turkestan), in southern Kazakhstan.

Whereas the Arabs persecuted the Sufi teachers, the Turks were devoted to them. Before Yassawi, in Central Asia, the Arabs (sustained by Persian culture) built a great civilisation. Famous were results obtained in sciences (Al-Biruni), in philosophy (with Avicenna), in architecture, in literature (Firdausi; Abu Bekr), but, apart from exceptions, this culture was never absorbed by the local nomads. Yassawi, a Sufi, translates the Koran into Kazak; he allows the people to continue the tradition of figurative arts (otherwise prohibited in Islam); he tolerates the cult of ancestors and nature, although connecting them with the worship of the one God; he avoids imposing aspects of the Sharia which could go against the Kazak traditional property and family rights. In this way Yassawi elaborates what might be called “the Kazak way to Islam”, which has reached our day.

The arrival of the Mongols with Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan (13th century) marks the Kazaks and Kirghiz also genetically, attenuating the Arab culture even further. The nomad Mongols, mostly followers of Shamanism, were in fact more open to different religions. The khanates into which in this period the empire was divided, gave rise to the modern day differences between the Turkmen, Uzbeks, Kazaks and Kirghiz (the Tajiks remain in the Afghan-Persian cultural area.).  At the same time Sufi confraternities grow in number and spread.

A long time after the death of Yassawi, the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane or Timur (1370-1405) began the building of a splendid mausoleum in memory of the Sufi teacher at Turkestan. The site became a place of pilgrimage and a symbol of Kazak culture. Many exponents of this culture are buried at Turkestan. It has even been said that for Muslims, the pilgrimage to Turkestan is second in importance only to the Mecca.

Kazak Islam was subject to violent persecution in the 17th and 18th century by hordes of Kalmuk Buddhists, until the arrival of Russian armies in the mid 18th century. With the Revolution of 1917, the Muslims in Central Asia sought to obtain independence, but they were suppressed. The Sufi confraternities were considered as rebel seed beds.

Soviet repression to some extent devitalized Kazak Islam, reducing it often to merely an expression of folklore. However, Kazak Islam has always shown tolerance towards non Muslims. In fact for Kazaks the term “infidel”, generally used by Muslims to indicate non Muslims, refers more to bad Muslims. People of other religions are regarded with respect and referred to with their name, Christians, Jews, Buddhists…

The general wave of revival in the world of Islam fundamentalism, is beginning to question the validity of “Kazak Islam”, triggering debate among Kazaks which promises to be lively. In the meantime Kazakhstan watches, often powerless, an invasion of fundamentalist Islam preachers coming from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

History of the Catholic Church in Kazakhstan
 

The Catholic Church has deep roots in Kazakhstan. Historians at Tashkent University say that as early as the second century AD in the town of Merv, today known as Mary, (on the Uzbekistan border in southern Kazakhstan) there were Christians among Roman soldiers taken prisoners after a battle lost against the Persians. A bishop’s see existed here in the year 334. In the same place, at the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th centuries, we find a Melkite monastery.
In the south there were also Nestorian communities. Until the 13th century, under the rule of a Nestorian Patriarch, there were 25 metropolitan sees and about 150 bishops (!). One of these metropolitan sees was at Marcanda (Samarkand), the ancient capital of Sogdiana, a famous historical-cultural region of Central Asia. In the second half of the 7th century, Metropolitan Ilia of Merv probably took part in the conversion of the Turks. The conversion of the ‘Kagan’ of the Turks is attributed to this bishop.

In the 7th and 8th centuries Nestorian Christianity spread in southern Kazakhstan and Semiretchinsk (Turkmenistan) and later in the 9th and 10th centuries led to the founding of the Metropolitan See of Karluki. Christian churches exist in Taraz and Mirke. In Taraz today there are still Christian families of Syrian origin (easily recognised by their dark skin) who claim that their ancestors came here to escape persecutions the memory of which has been lost in time. In the 8th century there was the conversion Uighur peoples.

In the year 1009, Nestorian missionaries baptised one of the numerous groups of Mongol speaking ethnic Kereiti whose Khan took the Christian name Mark, Marguz. In the same period the Nestorian tendency spread among other peoples of Central Asia, and the metropolitan sees of Kachgar (Xinjiang – China) and Navakheta were established.

Nestorian Christianity was popular at court. In the family of the Mongol emperors, many noble women at Court were Christians and important Uighur and Kereiti ministers were often Nestorians. In the 7th century Nestorian monks went as far as Changan (today Xian) to the court of the Chinese emperor Tang.
During the reign of the Grand Khan Kubilai, (1260-1295) the Venetian merchants, Mafeo and Marco Polo discovered more than 700,000 Chinese families (!) who called themselves “Christians” and they were probably one of the surviving branches of Nestorian Christians or Manichaean Christians (of Persian origin, found until the 17th century in the Fujian province of China.

Franciscan missions in the 13th and 14th century
 

The appearance of mendicant monastic Orders marks the beginning of Catholic missions to the Far East. One example of missionary activity was the journey undertaken by Flemish Franciscan William of Rubroeck (1253-1255), who traveled 16,000 km in two years, from Constantinople to Karakorum, capital of the steppe land empire. Most of the territory covered by Rubroeck was in present day Kazakhstan.

At the end of his journey Rubroeck meets the Great Khan Munke (who later becomes a Christian). The Franciscan seeks to illuminate Khan Sartac, the son of Batu-Khan grandchild of Genghis Khan. Towards the middle of the year 1254 prince Sartac converts to Christianity and the news is communicated to Pope Innocent IV.
 

In the year 1278 the Holy See attempted to organise ecclesiastical structures in the territory of Kazakhstan and in Central Asia. Because of the countless conversions made by the Franciscan, Pope Nicholas III established the diocese of Kipciak. Franciscans in the territory of Kipciak receive special privileges, from the Khan – probably Monke-Timur (1267-1280) – which were renewed by later Khans: for example all Latin clergy were exempt from military service, corvée, (unpaid labour) and tax. This all corresponded to the general legislation promulgated earlier by Genghis Khan. The Khan were obliged to protect Catholic churches and bell towers. The legislation mentioned above established a stable and ordered situation for missionaries throughout the empire.

One of the greatest missionary-diplomats of the 13th and 14th century was Italian Giovanni da Montecorvino (1247-1328 or 1333). Sent to Asia by Pope Nicholas IV in 1289 like other Franciscans including Arnold of Cologne and Odorico of Pordenone, Friar Giovanni reached Kamablik in 1294 where he soon won the esteem of prince who ruled the region of Tenduk (part of Mongolia and what is today Manchuria, north of Beijing. The prince had already been baptised by the Nestorians with the Christian name of George, Kirghiz in Turkic. The name of this Khan was later given to ethnic groups known as the Kirghiz, literally “people of St George”. Under the influence of Montecorvino, prince Kirghiz became a member of the Catholic Church and even received Minor Orders from the Franciscan. It is said that the Prince himself served Giovanni at the altar during Mass.

Bishops, Missionaries and Martyrs
 

In a letter to Nicholas IV in 1306 Montecorvino asks the Pope for more missionaries. But a group of Dominicans reaches only as far as Kiptchak. In 1307 Pope Clement V designates Montecorvino to be archbishop in the city of Kambalik and Patriarch of the Far East. He then calls 7 Franciscans for mission in China. They are ordained as bishops and instructed to ordain Montecorvino archbishop of Kambalik on their arrival. Six of them set out on the journey but three soon die. One of the remaining three, Gerard Albuini stops at Zayton or Kaitong a port on the Fu-jian river, today Quangzhou, to tend to the many Catholics there. The other two, one of whom was bishop Andrea of Perugia, continue the journey. In 1311 they reach Peking and at last Archbishop Giovanni Montecorvino receives Episcopal ordination. It was Pope John XXII who created the archdiocese of Kambalik (Beijing) in 1318. The missionary activity of Montecorvino, he had the Bible translated into Mongolian, led to hundreds of thousands of conversions. Dioceses were established at Almalik and Urghenc. Altogether 31 missionary dioceses were set up in the Far East. After the deaths of Giovanni da Montecorvino and the Khan the situation becomes complicated. Using religion to forge political alliances, the Khan convert to Islam and persecution of the Christians begins. Among those killed at Almalik, Richard of Bourgogne, 6 monks (three priests and three brothers) and an Italian merchant, Guglielmo da Modena. From the next six hundred years Kazakhstan was without a Catholic bishop until 1991, when by Pope John Paul II appointed Jan Pavel Lenga Apostolic Administrator of Karaganda, Kazakhstan.

The Church today
 

Paradoxically it can be said that the history of the Catholic Church in Kazakhstan resumed  in the 20th century when Stalin ordered the “deportation” to Central Asia of whole peoples of Catholic tradition. Providence turned a diabolical plan into a missionary event beyond the boldest dreams of even Propaganda Fide college or any missionary strategist.

From 1930 onwards, many priests were deported and sent to concentration camps in Kazakhstan. Released from the lagers they settled among the people and began “clandestine” ministry. They include:

1) Fr Tadeusz Fedorowicz, spiritual director of the young Karol Wojtyla. Fr Tadeusz was a young priest in the archdiocese of Lviv, in what is today Ukraine, considered by the Poles a cradle of their culture. On learning that a group of parishioners were being deported to Central Asia, he obtained permission from the Archbishop to share their plight, setting out as one of them and then “inventing” a new sort of “pastoral for deportees”.

2) Fr Wladislaw Bukowinski. When, after spending several years in a lager he was told he could return to Poland he chose to remain and with the help of young Sr. Gertrude from Karaganda, he put himself at the service of the Catholic community, even secretly founding a congregation of nuns. Today these sisters are numerous and they work in various parts of the former Soviet Union territories.

3) Bishop Alexander Chira, of Oriental Rite, ordained clandestinely in a concentration camp (1956). He too, after being released, asks to remain in Karaganda to work with Fr. Bukowinski. He starts as an ambulance driver; later, after the death of Stalin and when the situation improves, he begins to work as assistant to the parish priest who is quite unawares that he has a bishop in his service.

Only in 1980, when the Church of St Joseph in Karaganda is consecrated – built after endless disputes between the Soviet authorities and the people, and not only Catholics -  Bishop Chira reveals his identity. It is moving to think of this bishop humbly teaching the faith to hundreds of young people, many future priests (including the present Bishop in Novosibirsk, Mgr Joseph Werth apostolic administrator of West Siberia of the Latins) without revealing his authority even to “his” parish priest.

In 1991, after the “perestroika”, Pope John Paul II appointed Fr Pavel Lenga apostolic administrator of Karaganda for Catholics of Latin Rite in Kazakhstan and the other 4 former Soviet territory republics of Central Asia Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. He was ordained at Krasnoarmiejsk but the Episcopal See is Karaganda, the main centre of Catholicism in Kazakhstan.

On June 25 1995, Bishop Lenga consecrated Kazakhstan to Mary Queen of Peace at the shrine dedicated to Our Lady under this title at Oziornoje, northern Kazakhstan. This is the only Marian shrine in this part of the world. It was built as an act of thanksgiving by deported Poles who in 1941 were literally dying of hunger. A nearby lake was miraculously filled with fish and the people survived. (see Fides March 23, 2001).

In the Spring of 1996, a statue of Our Lady of Fatima, brought from Portugal, was carried in pilgrimage across Kazakhstan and other parts of Central Asia, after Russia and Siberia. A touching moment in Karaganda was when the Statue was placed for a moment of prayer in what was once a concentration camp for women.
In 1994 a few priests began to teach at university, not religion which is still forbidden but other secular subjects. In the north of the country there is the country’s first “Christian School” opened in October 1995 by Fr Lorenz, a retired priest from Berlin who moved here to continue his ministry. There are 20 seminarians at Karaganda seminary, 4 study at St Petersburg and several others in various seminaries in Poland.

In 1994 diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Kazakhstan were established. Archbishop Marian Oles is Apostolic Nuncio to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Besides Catholics of Latin Rite, Kazakhstan also has Catholics of Oriental Rite. Two Greek-Catholic priests work respectively at Karaganda and Pavlodar, under the jurisdiction of the local ordinary.

One of challenges here is to deepen the people’s knowledge of the faith. Years of Soviet rule weakened family faith life and Christian education of the children. Many adults today have no proper understanding of the value of the Sacraments. For example, for many people, including Catholics, church-weddings do not exist. The wedding ceremony is still Soviet style: a wreath laid at the war dead memorial and the couple are married. (7/9/2001)
 

A Church more Kazak, antidote for ethnic conflict

Interview with Fr Edoardo Canetta, Italian Fidei donum priest in Astana
 

Astana (Fides) – Fr Edoardo Canetta, aged 51, is a Fidei Donum priest from the diocese of Milan. He has been in Kazakhstan for ten years, first in Karaganda and now at Astana. He is on the committee charged with preparing the papal visit. Fides asked Fr Canetta about Kazakhstan today.

Tell us about the Catholic Church in Kazakhstan

Since 1991 Kazakhstan has a Catholic diocese and three apostolic administrations. Karaganda is a diocese, but it is a minute diocese in a large “desert” with three “parishes”. The Bishop is Jan Pavel Lenga, who before 1999 was responsible for Catholics all over Kazakhstan. After a brief experience with the Redemptoris Mater Seminary, which was opened by the Neo Catechumen Way and which closed after a year, in 1998 a local priest was asked to establish a seminary. Two priests came to Karaganda from Astana respectively as rector and vice-rector of a college to serve the Catholic Church all over Kazakhstan, not only in Karaganda.

1) Astana, the new capital, is an apostolic administration in the care of Bishop Tomaz Peta. Today it is a new city built on the foundations of the old one. It is situated in the north where in the past there were more Russians/Ukrainians than Kazaks, and it has a church. Among the Catholics in Astana many are Poles (and many are priests) living in large farming settlements. Traditional pastoral care is used among these deportee Catholics. There are about 20 priests with parishes which date back to Soviet times. It is almost like a piece of Poland. I teach Italian Culture at the university, where I am accepted as a teacher, but not as a priest. University centres are being expanded as part of the President’s policy to increase contact with the rest of the world.

2) Almaty (in southern Kazakhstan bordering on China) is the responsibility of Franciscan Bishop Henry Hovaniec. Almaty is the country’s main city. We already have here one Catholic parish church and another is being built. The Franciscans who work here come from various countries (Italy, America, Poland, Korea etc.) There are also a number of Fidei Donum priests from Italy and Spain. This area is traditionally Kazak.

3) Lastly there is the new apostolic administration of Atyrau, looked after by Rev. Janusz Kaleta. There are only three priests for the whole region. The area, rich in minerals is expected to develop considerably in the future. Already a number of foreign banks and companies have opened offices here and this often calls for pastoral work among the employees. The foreign businesses include AGIP, the Italian oil company, and the Italian Bishops’ Conference hopes soon to provide an Italian priest. The region is mostly arid steppe land.

What is the Church’s mission here?

There has always been traditional pastoral care, mainly for immigrants (or perhaps we should say deportees). Now there is less request for this type of ministry since many of the Germans, Ukrainians/Russians and Poles have left. Actually the Polish government offers to pay expenses incurred by Poles who decide to return to their own country. This has led to a sort of emigration frenzy which is not a good sign. In some areas Church communities, comprising mainly families of former deportees, are in danger of disappearing altogether. This is why together with traditional pastoral care, missionary work is also necessary.
Why do the people decide to leave?

This tendency is due I think not only to the poor situation of Kazak economy. Kazakhstan has lived a crisis, but things are improving. A more sensitive question is an ethnic problem which is beginning to appear. In Kazakhstan before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kazaks were about 32% of the population. With the return home of Germans, Poles and Russians, Kazaks today are 53% of the population and they hold 80% or 90% of positions of political power. Laws regarding language result mathematically in the reserving of 70% of jobs at universities or in the police force for people who speak Kazak. In actual fact the law reserves 50% of jobs for Kazak speakers and the other 50% for Russian speakers, but the majority are still Kazaks. This explains the ethnic unbalance in government posts. On the other hand, if the different groups (Germans, Russians, Poles etc.), are content to speak Russian and make no effort to learn Kazak they are bound to be excluded! [This year Fr Canetta is giving his courses in Kazak: perhaps he is one of the few foreign Catholics to do so. Editor’s note].

 Last year Russian President Putin visited Kazakhstan’s Eurasia University in Karaganda, and on that occasion he said in public in front of President Nazarbajev: “My Russian friends living here, tell me that they find it hard to live with Kazaks and so they are leaving.” This was a serious statement which is a threat to the future of peaceful co-existence and also the presence of the Catholic Church. I suspect that the Polish government’s measures to facilitate the return home of their compatriots is also due to fear of ethnic conflict.

Are there signs of such conflict?

For the moment the contrast is noted in economic activities. In the past Russian and Kazak businesses competed at the same level, today, Kazak enterprises are privileged. On the other hand “white” immigrants still consider themselves colonialists: they make no effort to learn the local language, they look down on Kazaks. It should be said that at least 99% of the Catholics are “white” immigrants (Poles, Germans, Ukrainians). There is also a group of Korean Catholics but as they are without a priest of their language, many are drawn to Protestant sects which, on the contrary, are supplied with dozens of ministers on the spot. Not many Kazaks are Catholic. Until recently missionary work among the Kazaks was not even thought of. For many Catholics here religion still coincides with nationality. Although among mature Christians there is a desire to help everyone encounter Christ, Soviet traditions closed them in ethnic-religious ghettos.

Is there any ad gentes mission activity at all?

Most of this happens by chance: for example people may hear about Jesus Christ when coming together with neighbours or friends, or meeting a priest on a train or a bus. There are other fields of encounter, for example the university where I myself work, and then in prisons and factories. We have a few small groups of people who attend weekly catechism sessions.

What challenges face the Catholic community here?

The main challenge, which we hope will be facilitated by the Holy Father’s visit, is for Catholics to obtain full recognition, rights and dignity, equal to the Muslim and Orthodox majority groups. In Kazakhstan today there is pressure from various sides. On one side, Muslim fundamentalism, supported by Afghanistan, is gaining ground; on the other, the Patriarchate of Moscow is pushing to have the Orthodox community here recognised as the only representative of all Christian communities. The Muslims claim that Islam is Kazakhstan’s only original religion, the Orthodox say they are the only true Christians. But in actual fact the history of Catholics is older than either that of the Muslims or the Orthodox. Traces of the Catholic Church in Kazakhstan can be found as early as the 3rd century.
Our position is somewhat peculiar: we refuse to be listed as one of the many Sects, we are not recognised as equal to the Orthodox Church here. At the moment we have a sort of “special status” guaranteed by an agreement between the Holy See and the government of Kazakhstan. But while we demand that others recognise that Catholics have equal cultural, historical and social dignity, we must do our part and become more familiar with Kazak culture. Hitherto Russian laws regarding religious freedom, implicating registration, control, annual revision and even three monthly visas for Catholic missionaries, have not affected Kazakhstan. Laws here are secular and liberal. But recently, pressured by the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, the government is considering introducing stricter regulations.

What about Catholic Muslim relations?

With regard to Islam it should be said that Kazak Islam, influenced by Sufism, is not lived very intensely. There are Muslims who are not even clear about the meaning of certain religious feast-days. Fundamentalist pressure creeping in from the south is pressing for a revision. The new Grand Mufti Absattar Derbassaliev, former pro-rector of Kazakhstan’s important Al Farabi University, has said “Kazak Islam is finished, it is time to return to the Arab roots of Islam”. But in this way he is going against the people and against Kazak tradition. The Grand Mufti, who spent several years in Saudi Arabia as cultural attaché, has also declared that the memorial in Turkestan, southern Kazakhstan, which for Kazak Muslims has always been a traditional place of pilgrimage, cannot be seen as the “new Mecca”; he insists on banning alcohol, whereas Kazaks are great drinkers; he wants all paintings and images (much loved by Kazak culture ) removed; lastly he wants the national Spring festival Nauriz, of Zoroastrian origin, abolished on the grounds that it is “pagan” feast. Many Kazaks are rejecting this type of Islam: “We prefer to live as Kazaks, rather than as the Imam demand”. Recently, members of the Kazak Ministry of Culture, who studied in Pakistan, stated that although they remain “Muslims in spirit ” they will no longer profess Islam in public or keep the annual Ramadan fast. This points to incipient conflict between Islam and Kazak culture.

Lastly, tell us about youth in Kazakhstan

What concerns me is that they appear to live without hope. The economic situation offers no prospects. At the same time religious traditions are too weak, after the Soviet past, to offer values for life. Young people here have one dream: to emigrate, to live somewhere else. We, as Church, have the task of helping them discover the dignity and beauty of their life and culture. (7/9/2001)
 

More Muslims than Christians may attend Papal Mass
 

Astana (Fides) – “ There will probably be more Muslims than Christians attending the Papal Mass in the capital” . This is the opinion of Italian Fr Edoardo Canetta, “lent” by Milan diocese seven years ago as a Fidei Donum priest in Kazakhstan. On September 6, Fr Canetta, who is on the preparatory committee for the Papal Visit, (September 22-25), presented the visit to about 60 journalists at the National Press Centre in Astana. Also present Catholic Bishop Tomas Peta, apostolic administrator of Astana, and, representing the local Catholic Press Centre, Fr Alexander Khan, director and Brother Damian Wojciechowski in charge of contact with TV companies. The press conference was reported on national television and radio.

At five different points in the capital, the Opera House, the Catholic Cathedral, two large supermarkets and the Youth Building, passes for the Mass and other meetings with the Pope are being distributed. 90% of those asking for passes appear to be Kazak’s who are traditionally Muslims. “There is a real rush for passes”,

Fr Canetta says. There is great excitement everywhere, not only in Catholic circles, but also among Muslims, Orthodox and other Christians.
 The Grand Mufti has asked the Muslim majority to prepare to welcome the important Guest. Several Mullah are even encouraging Muslims to attend the Papal Mass. “Mass is a sacred act, they are telling their people, it will be good for us too”.

This reaction comes as a surprise. In Kazakhstan only about 360,000, out of a population of 15 million, are Catholics. But the Pope’s fame goes before him. Two years ago a national poll for the “Personality of the 20th Century” voted Pope Woyjtyla.

 The other Christians in Kazakhstan are also looking forward to seeing the Pope. Tomorrow Bishop Peta has a meeting with Orthodox representatives. In Kazakhstan relations between the two confessions are generally good. There are even cases of parish buildings shared by Orthodox and Catholic communities. Orthodox Bishop Alexei is very friendly towards Catholics. Bishop Peta will also meet with the new Lutheran Bishop. Catholic/Lutheran relations here are excellent. Very often, when the Pastor is absent, Lutheran communities rely on the help of Catholic priests.

 John Paul II’s visit to Kazakhstan is drawing attention in other former Soviet territories, among journalists as well as Catholics in Ukraine, Poland, Siberia and Russia. The number of journalists from outside Kazakhstan who have requested accreditation is already 500. (7/9/2001)
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