Tag: Christianity

The village of Naberezhny in Russia’s northern Pechora region arose essentially on the site of what was once a large cemetery—a cemetery of prisoners of the labor camps that built the Pechora Bridge and railway.

Over time, a settlement grew here, in which now nothing reminds one of the former island of the Gulag—there is no memorial plaque, no church, no chapel, not even a Pilgrimage Cross…

And the residents and guests of the Pechora region come to Naberezhny to capture at its main symbol—the Pechora Bridge, because it is located on the territory of this settlement, and therefore the best views of it can be photographed right here. Actually, that’s also why I came here once…

The bridge over the Pechora River by Naberezhnaya     

Roads run everywhere

On the day of my arrival in the settlement, I was met by the head of the local House of Culture, Victoria Grigorishina, who gave me a one-hour tour of Naberezhny. We looked at the once city-forming enterprise—the Pechora oil depot. We also noticed that many houses are being built in the settlement—not summer cottages, but substantial ones, built on the principle of “my home is my fortress.” As Victoria Vladimirovna explained, many young families wish to settle in this picturesque corner of the Pechora district.

The oil depot   

Although Naberezhny has a “river” name [naberezhnaya means “embankment”], it feels as though it’s entirely made up of railways—at least, during my walk around the settlement, I often had to walk over the tracks.

“This road leads to the Pechora oil depot; commuter trains run on it, which take us to Pechora. A ten-minute ride, and we’re in the city,” said my companion.

Another road and the Pechora Bridge connect the small settlement of Naberezhny with the whole of Russia! After visiting the hard-to-reach villages of the Pripetchorye region, I couldn’t help but think how lucky these people are, living by the river yet being able to reach anywhere by railroad. The main thing is, they appreciate what surrounds them and do not strive to leave their native settlement! Besides, the settlement has a House of Culture, a school, a kindergarten, and even its own medical facility.

You can see old houses in the settlement that are contemporaries of eighty-five-year-old Naberezhny. But what surprised me in Naberezhny were the well-maintained apartment buildings built by the Pechora oil depot for its employees.

As it turned out, there is also a museum room in Naberezhny, which was opened in the local House of Culture. The idea of its creation belongs to the creative residents of the settlement, Marina Ivanovna and Ekaterina Alexeyevna Arteyev, originally from the village of Ust-Tsylma, who brought a piece of their homeland to the settlement of Naberezhny, eventually creating a museum here. The basis of its exposition consists of household items used by the ancestors of the founders of this repository of history for centuries. And I was so impressed that all the exhibits are labeled!

A museum corner in Naberezhnaya     

“It’s because guests often visit our museum,” Victoria Vladimirovna informed me.

In addition, the settlement’s cultural center operates seven clubs and the well-known and beloved folklore ensemble “Usttsylyomochka,” whose soloists are the founders of the museum in Naberezhny—Marina and Ekaterina Arteeva.

Nina Artemevna Arteyeva     

But then I went to Naberezhny, shared my journey on social media, took photos of the Pechora Bridge, and intended to stop there, because I didn’t find an interesting topic for my article here. But “trouble” was knocking on the door of the residents of Naberezhny.

“They are closing the school in the settlement! Help!”

    

After a while, educators and parents of the Naberezhny settlement school approached me asking for assistance in preserving the local school, which Pechora officials had decided to close. As I shared in one of my articles published on the Pravoslavie.Ru website, a journalist working in the northern hinterland is, in the understanding of its inhabitants, someone who can help solve a complex problem. So, I went to Naberezhny again, this time to meet with teachers, parents, and students of the school.

Then, for several months, I worked with the materials from this conversation and analyzed the work of the school, which, as I found out, is one of the best in the district. Teachers of this small “country of knowledge” participate in professional competitions—and win them; besides, the school successfully participates in grant competitions held by Lukoil [a large Russian oil holding]. And with prize money, it acquires equipment for ecological research, occupational experiments, and so on.

    

Morever, according to the results of a competition among educational institutions in the Komi Republic, the school cafeteria in the settlement of Naberezhny was recognized as one of the best.

The problem of the local “land of knowledge” was that in neighboring settlements, there were educational institutions where parents from Naberezhny increasingly began to send their children, believing that there the child would perhaps receive a better education. Consequently, their own local school began to lose students.

While I continued my work with the materials gathered during my visit to the school, I advised my protagonists to pray to the Mother of God, and here’s why.

A forgotten icon of the Mother of God “Quick to Hear”

In one of the school rooms you can see a “Quick to Hear” icon of the Mother of God     

The thing is, the director of the educational institution, Vera Kokovkina, and the deputy director, Vera Galasheva, gave me a tour of the school, which recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary, meaning it’s a new and modern building. I visited beautifully decorated classrooms, a miniature library, which nevertheless has all the necessary literature, and a cozy cafeteria where even roses bloom.

In the school library     

When we arrived at the English language, history—and judging by the globes in the cupboard, geography—classroom with Vera Vladimirovna, I suddenly noticed among the school supplies an icon of the Mother of God, called “Quick to Hear.” As is known, there is a monastery in the city of Pechora dedicated to this icon of the Mother of God.

The Naberezhnaya school principal, Vera Kokovkina     

“But why is it here, in the Naberezhny school?” I wondered.

“The thing is, this classroom used to house the school museum, and the icon remained from those museum times, despite the fact that the historical collection is now located in the House of Culture,” the principal explained.

And I told Vera Vladimirovna that people turn to this image of the Mother of God for help in their affairs if they are dictated by good intentions. The Mother of God hears each of us, and that’s why the icon is called “Quick to Hear,” meaning speedy hearing, prompt fulfillment of our requests. Therefore, I advised my companions to pray before this icon of the Mother of God for the preservation of the school.

And on September 1, the settlement’s “land of knowledge” opened its doors to its students! As of today, the work of the school in Naberezhny continues!

I also decided to continue my research work.

Liudmila Valentinovna Udovenko     

I also decided to continue my research work in the settlement, believing that my return here was not accidental. I asked Liudmila Udovenko, a teacher of the primary classes, to arrange meetings for me with longtime residents and Orthodox Christians of Naberezhny. Some came to talk in the medical center, while others invited me into their homes.

I was fortunate enough to visit the home of Naberezhny’s longtime residents and record their memories of the GULAG past of this wonderful corner of the Pripetchorye region.

From exile in the Komi Republic to building a family nest in Naberezhny

The memories of one villager, Nina Arteyeva, proved invaluable to me. However, as I found out, Nina Artemyevna originally came from the Kirov region.

“But how did you end up here, in the Komi Republic?” I asked during our conversation in the courtyard of her house.

“It’s a long story,” she smiles. “I was two years old when they brought me to this northern region in 1942. You see, my father went missing, and so my mother and I were sent to the North. My father was a participant in the Finnish war, and when World War II began he went to the front, and in 1942, he disappeared without a trace… Later they found my father, and my mother and I were allowed to return home. But there was nowhere to return to—our house was occupied by relatives. And we had no means to travel back to the Kirov region—we were brought here on horses! At that time, the railway had just opened, and the first freight train was dispatched. So the North became our home, and the Komi people welcomed us very warmly and kindly.”

Before she settled in Naberezhnaya, Nina Artemyevna lived in Ust-Kozhva     

“Nina Artemyevna, do you remember others like you and your mother, who were exiles? What were these people like?” we continue our conversation.

“I don’t remember anyone by name anymore. People usually didn’t talk about being exiles. But they were very good and kind people,” she recalls warmly. “Soon after, my mother received my father’s death notice, then she received a second one. After some time, she remarried, and we moved to live in the village of Ust-Kozhva.”

Nina went to school in the present-day Naberezhny settlement, which is located near Ust-Kozhva. I was curious about what the settlement was like back then.

“There were graves all around the settlement,” Nina Artemyevna recalls. “And I saw one of the ass burials on what is now Pervomayskaya Street, and many unmarked graves at the turn, as you head towards our settlement. There were no crosses on the graves, just mounds.”

Here on the turn of the road, Nina Arteyeva saw unmarked grave mounds.     

“Nina Artemyevna, how did you manage to remember such details if you were still a child at the time?”

“Well, we children ran around everywhere and saw a lot!” she explained.

Family Nest

Later, Nina Artemyevna moved to live in Naberezhny. While her husband was serving in the army, she managed to build a house here!

“And does the place where your house is built also have a sad history?”

Residents of Naberezhny told me stories of finding human bones when building their houses or digging plots.

“I can’t say anything about my plot. When I started building my house, there was still a forest here.”

Nina Arteyeva’s house in Naberezhnaya     

After such an enlightening conversation in the courtyard of her family nest, Nina Artemyevna invited us into her home for tea and relaxation. But I wasn’t in the mood for that. While examining old photos of her relatives displayed on the walls of the old house, I noticed the Gospel and the icon corners. Icons were everywhere in Nina Arteyeva’s house.

“Nina Artemyevna, besides being the keeper of Naberezhny’s history, are you also an Orthodox Christian?” I exclaimed.

“Yes! I’ve believed since childhood!” she continued, to my astonishment. “All my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are baptized and Orthodox. Some were baptized in Malmyzh, a city in the Kirov region, and others in the church in the city of Klintsy, Bryansk region. And my mother, Agafya Alexeyevna, baptized me in one of the churches in the Kirov region when I was a child.”

About the Chapel in the Settlement

We also talked with Nina Artemyevna about the construction of a chapel in Naberezhny in memory of those killed during the years of repression in the camp. and the erection of a memorial cross.

“Oh, I don’t know…” she lamented. “Of course, it’s up to you, but I think… it’s unnecessary.”

Although she herself is a believer, Nina Artemyevna still believes that it is not worth building a chapel in the settlement with its Gulag past.

“Why?” I asked her, a little sadly.

“The kids nowadays, the teenagers! They’re not like we were. They don’t listen to anyone—not their parents, not their teachers. And they swear. They could start misbehaving in the chapel, and we’d have to guard the cross from them too,” clarified Nina Artemyevna.

“Because of all my housework, I often didn’t go to church.”

However, perhaps there’s another reason. Nina Artemyevna mentioned that she often didn’t go to church.

“I have three children, and there were six people living in our house altogether. We had to chop wood, wash clothes by hand for everyone. We would come home from work and rush to the store, and also gather supplies for the winter—picking mushrooms and berries. In the summer, I would go to the forest several times a day for mushrooms,” she said, to my amazement. “My husband and I managed to furtively hunt before the start of the workday, and after the end of the shift, we rushed to the forest as well. And on Saturday and Sunday, it was impossible to get me out of the woods. If I was collecting mushrooms in the nearby forest, I would fill one bucket after another and run home. That’s why there was no time left to visit the church, although a church opened in the 1990s not far from us in the neighboring village of Kozhva. There was also a church in the railway part of the city of Pechora. We baptized our grandchildren there.”

Naberezhnaya in winter     

So, from my conversation with Nina Artemyeva I concluded that the residents of the settlement, which never had a church, have become accustomed to living without it.

Nadezhda Petrovna’s house church

During one of my visits to Naberezhny, I met Nadezhda Petrovna Gerasimovich. Nadezhda Petrovna is a deeply religious person who can no longer attend churches in other settlements of the district due to health reasons, so she arranged a kind of church… in her apartment!

The Church of Holy Hieromartyr Herman (Ryashentsev)     

So, in the living room and in the kitchen, I saw icon corners; and in the hallway icons were everywhere—in closets, and on the shelves and walls. Nadezhda Petrovna explained, she mostly acquired holy images when she visited the “Quick to Hear” Mother of God Convent and churches in the city of Pechora and the neighboring settlement of Puteyets, which also has a church named after the Holy Hieromartyr Herman (Ryashentsev).

Nadezhda Gerasimovich     

How long have you been a believer? we continued our conversation.

Since childhood. My grandmother, Tatiana Artyemova, was an Old Believer, and she lived in the village of Ust-Kozhva. That’s where I was born. And while my grandmother was alive, I lived with her and inherited my faith from her. I think my grandmother baptized me, although I can’t say for sure. I don’t remember.

Then, when I started attending the Orthodox church and told our Fr. Mikhail my story, he told me that I needed to convert to Orthodoxy, which I did, but at an advanced age.

Nina Arteyevna’s family     

“Why do you have so many icons in your house?”

“I love icons. I bought my first icon of Jesus Christ in the settlement at a time when a worker from the convent brought the holy icons to our Naberezhny,” she explained.

And so apparently Nadezhda Petrovna found a way out in the absence of a church in Naberezhny by creating a kind of house church in her apartment. But just the same, “If a church is built in our settlement, I will visit it every day,” the woman quietly remarked as we parted.

To be continued…

St. Agnes of Prague was born in Prague in 1200. She was the daughter of the King of Bohemia and Constance of Hungary, who was a relative of St. Elizabeth. When she was young, Agnes was sent to the monastery of Treinitz, where she was educated by the Cistercian religious. 

Agnes was betrothed to Henry, the son of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, but when the time came for them to be married, they backed out. Agnes’ father then planned to marry her to Henry III of England, but the emperor vetoed this because he wanted to marry her himself. 

Instead, Agnes dedicated herself to consecrating her life to God in a cloister. Emperor Frederick is said to have relinquished his plans, saying “If she had left me for a mortal man, I would have taken vengeance with the sword, but I cannot take offense because in preference to me she has chosen the King of Heaven.” 

Agnes entered the Order of St. Clare in the monastery of St. Saviour at Prague, which she had built. She was elected abbess, and became a model of virtue and religious observance. God favored her with the gift of miracles, and she predicted her brother Wenceslaus’ victory over the duke of Austria. 

The exact year of her death is not known, but Agnes is believed to have died in 1281. She was beatified in 1874 by Pope Pius IX and canonized by Pope John Paul II on November 12, 1989.

“There were graves all around the village”The village of Naberezhny in Russia’s northern Pechora region arose essentially on the site of what was once a large cemetery—a cemetery of prisoners of the labor camps that built the Pechora Bridge and railway.

“>Part 1

From Catholicism to Orthodoxy

Liudmila Iosifovna Filippova     

I met another parishioner of the church of the Holy Hieromartyr Herman (Ryashentsev) in the settlement of Puteyets—Ludmila Filippova. Her parents used to call her Ludvika.

“Where does your unusual name come from? I asked.”

“My mother and father gave it to me. My parents met and were married in the Pechora village of Taly, where they were exiled. My father, Iosif Vikentievich Konovka, was from Belarus, and my mother, Aldona Avgustovna, was from Lithuania. They were the ones who built this village, recalls Ludmila Iosifovna. “My parents were Catholics.”

“How did you end up in Naberezhny then, with the Orthodox name Ludmila?” I eagerly asked to hear the rest of her life story.

“Oh, it’s very simple!” she smiled. “After graduating from the Syktyvkar Cultural and Educational College, I was sent by distribution first to the Pechora village of Kadzherom, and then the head of the cultural department, Ivan Artemenko, advised me to go to the Industrial Complex; that’s what our Naberezhny was called at first. ‘As soon as you pass the Pechora Bridge, get off right away,’ Ivan Zakharovich warned me. So I ended up in Naberezhny. I was only nineteen years old at the time.”

As custodian of the local cultural center, Liudmila faced many trials. But she still cannot stop marveling at how multicultural the settlement was at the time.

“We had Georgians and Chechens living here,” Ludmila Iosifovna recounted. “Many of them were exiled settlers. When you’d drive into Naberezhny, there used to be a whole settlement of them, with their own shops.”

From further conversation with Ludmila Filippova, I learned that the prison settlement was located just past the bus stop in Naberezhny, opposite the school. Today there is an open field there, with nothing to indicate that there was once an open correctional institution there.

“The entire multicultural population of the settlement would gather at the cultural center for dances. And as soon as the dances in the club ended, I had to go with a bucket of water and pour it into the cracks in the floor, where the club visitors threw cigarette butts. That’s how we tried to prevent the building from catching fire…” she went on.

But as she recalls, fights would also break out in the club, and someone told young Ludmila Iosifovna that she should come between the conflicting parties in such situations…

“Well, I did just that!” she laughed. “And then my future husband grabbed me by the collar and yelled, “What are you doing!” then made me go up to the second floor and locked me in one of the rooms. In the courtyard of the cultural center they were tearing down all the fences. The next day, people wanted to go to the club to dance, but I didn’t open it. ‘Open up, and we’ll put up a fence for you!’ they promised me. So this unpleasant incident was resolved, and the club got a new fence,” Ludmila Iosifovna concluded her series of reminiscences about cultural life in the settlement during the last century. But over the eight decades of the village’s existence, a church or chapel has never been built here.

But Liudmila Iosifovna is a parishioner, as I mentioned earlier, of the church in the village of Puteyets. And in order for her to be able to attend an Orthodox church, she converted from Catholicism to Orthodoxy.

“I didn’t even need to prepare for this important event in my life! The thing is, due to a progressive eye disease— glaucoma in one eye, and the other can only see thirty percent—I had already memorized many Orthodox prayers by heart in advance. But still, before making the decision, I thought for a long time: How will I convert from Catholicism to Orthodoxy? After all, Catholicism is the faith of my parents and many relatives… And the priest didn’t rush me, he just said to come for the sacrament of Baptism as soon as I was ready. But at the same time, while still a Catholic, I continued to go to the Orthodox church, where parishioners looked at me askance: “Why do you go to an Orthodox church if you’re Catholic?” I often heard from them.

Then at one point such sadness came over me, and Matushka Natalia, the priest’s wife, called me and was surprised to hear my upset voice. Then the priest himself called me and said, “That’s it, Liudmila, come to the church on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, and we will baptize you!” So he baptized me into Orthodoxy, and I immediately felt lighter in my soul. But after this important event in my life, my Catholic relatives started to judge me… But I no longer wanted any faith other than Orthodoxy. Before this important event, I had a very difficult situation in my family—my husband died at the age of fifty-five, and my son was on near death. But after accepting Orthodoxy, I received Divine comfort…

There will be no one to take care of the chapel

However, despite her love for Orthodoxy, Ludmila Iosifovna also believes that there is no point in building a chapel in Naberezhny. Instead, she says, the churches in neighboring villages such as Iz’yay and Ozyornoye should be completed, and residents of Naberezhny could attend services there.

“There will be no one to take care of the chapel in our village”, Ludmila Iosifovna comments. |We are old, and won’t be able to do it anymore. But what are the kids like today? They’ll want to smoke and drink—and God forbid, all of this will happen in the chapel.”

At the end of our conversation, Ludmila Filippova showed us the icon corners in her apartment. And like the others I talked with in Naberezhny, Ludmila Iosifovna has them in every room.

A table with icons and family photos at Liudmila Filippovna’s house.     

Next to the icons, the woman had also placed portraits of her loved ones who are dearly missed…

“Here I have a corner arranged for prayers, right next to the icons there is also a portrait of my husband. When the priest blessed the apartment, he was surprised that I had a photo of my husband next to the icons,” she smiles. My late husband’s partent were deeply religious people; they lived in a two-story house in the village of Bakur in the Izhma District of Komi, and they had many ancient icons. The priest gave me the ‘Burning Bush’ icon of the Mother of God for my home icon corner.”

Next to the icons, I saw prayers printed in large type so that Ludmila Iosifovna could read them.

“Our priest’s, son, Alexander, printed these prayers and spiritual verses for me,” Liudmila explained.

Visiting Maria Antonovna

Maria Antonovna Porubaeva     

In Naberezhny I had a meeting with its oldest resident, Maria Porubaeva. Maria Antonovna was originally from the village of Sizyabsk in the Izhma District of Komi, and after the war her mother brought her to the Pechora village of Ust-Kozhva.

“Her brother lived here, and he invited her to live with him and helped her find a job,” Maria Antonovna said.

Maria moved after marriage to Naberezhny—then prosaically named “Promkombinat” [Industrial Complex], in 1971.

“I married Giorgi Vasilyevich Porubaev, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War [World War II].”

“Where did your husband work in Naberezhny?” I asked her.

“At first, he worked as a cinema mechanic in our old club. We used to gather at the club for dances and concerts of local artists,” Maria Antonovna recalls. “Yes… the settlement was different in those days… bigger! And there were many residents. In those distant years, there were four stores in Naberezhny: with household goods, industrial goods, and two grocery stores. The houses were mostly wooden with wood heating, but the brick houses were built by the oil depot for its workers.

Loyalty to her beloved company

All that’s left of the Naberezhnaya sewing workshop     

As I learned from our conversation, Maria Antonovna had worked for thirty-two years as an accountant in the Naberezhny sewing workshop.

“I retired from there. After that, the workshop continued to work for some time. And then our seamstresses and tailors were transferred to the city of Pechora,” Maria Antonovna explained.

“I would gladly go to a church or chapel in our village!”

It seemed that we had discussed everything with the longtime resident of Naberezhny, Maria Porubaeva. But now it was time to talk to her about the main thing—the construction of a chapel in the village. And just as in the homes of my other acquaintances from Naberezhny, I saw icon corners in every room.

“In our hearts, we all believe,” she says. “And how can one live without God? When my loved ones go somewhere, I always bless them. And when you leave, I’ll also say to you, “God keep you!”

“But Maria Antonovna, there is no church or chapel in your village to pray for your loved ones, light a candle for them, attend a service…”

“Well, I didn’t really go to church before. Although we had a church nearby, I didn’t visit it. And now, especially at my age I won’t be able to go to church. I’ll pray at home in front of the icons and that’s it… But if we in Naberezhny had a chapel or a church built, I would gladly go to them!” Maria Antonovna suddenly declared.

Meeting at the paramedic-obstetric station

We gathered for a meeting with the residents in the paramedic-obstetric station to discuss the construction of a chapel and commemorating the prisoners of the GULAG. The station is located in the former office of the oil depot, so there are many rooms here; there is a waiting room, a reception room, a procedural room, and there is even enough space for visiting specialists from the city to work. I also noticed that there were icons in every room here as well. And the head of the station, Svetlana Evdokhenko, is a parishioner of one of the churches in the Pechora region.

The residents who came to see Svetlana Ivanovna talked to me about the need to build a chapel in the village, which they would like to dedicate to the Mother of God.

“There is a place for the construction of a chapel—near our dacha in Naberezhny there is a picturesque vacant lot on a high bank of the Pechora River,” commented Vera Galasheva, who had come to the meeting.

But after all the talk we had with the residents about the revival of spiritual life in the village, that’s where it has stopped for now. Indeed, not far from Naberezhny, two churches are being built in neighboring villages. But I also saw that there are many elderly people living in Naberezhny who, unfortunately, can no longer visit them. However, it was not possible to gather an group of people who would jointly take up this good work of building a chapel or erecting a Devotional Cross in Naberezhny.

At the sorrowful sites of Naberezhny

To conclude our work in Naberezhny, villager Ludmila Udovenko and I walked to the sorrowful sites that were pointed out to us by longtime residents of the village.

At the beginning of our walk, my companion showed me a hill—a burial site—that you pass by when you go from the station to the village. Today there are quaint country houses here.

Where I stopped to capture the beauty of this corner of the Pechora region, Ludmila Valentinovna reminded me that according to the testimony of Naberezhny old-timers, this is where the graves of prisoners who built the Pechora Bridge were located.

Life in Naberezhnaya goes on against the background of the Pechora Bridge     

Another landmark for us in search of such sorrowful places was the ruined club building. As eyewitnesses had told Ludmila Valentinovna, prisoners were also buried not far from it.

“When the prisoners were brought on barges, they disembarked on the shore, where they lived and built the railway and the bridge. There were many deaths, and they were not taken far to be buried,” Ludmila Udovenko said. “And there were also burials on the very place where the House of Culture stood. The club in our village could not start its work for a long time, and many attributed this to the fact that it was built on a cemetery…”

Ludmila Valentinovna also reported that there had already been attempts to build a church and install a cross in Naberezhny in the past. The chairman of the village council was interested in this, and the residents were enthusiastic about his idea. They even found a place to install the cross, but everything stopped due to a lack of finances…

So, even now, I was unable to inspire the residents of Naberezhny to this noble cause for the memorial of all those who died a lay buried on this much-suffering land—the martyrs of the GULAG. But nevertheless, we did make progress in piecing together the village’s history and creating a photo archive of materials from former makeshift burials of prisoners and other places of sorrow, now only known to old-timers of Naberezhny.

On Feb. 29, a larger-than-life-size bronze statue of St. Junípero Serra came home to the last of the nine missions that the 18th-century Spanish missionary founded: the Mission Basilica San Buenaventura.

The return of the statue from Ventura’s city hall, originally driven by disputes over Serra’s legacy and threats to deface or destroy his image, is a remarkable example of cooperation between the Catholic Church, Chumash tribal leaders descended from those who built the mission in 1782, and civic leaders committed to building community rather than tearing it down.

The cooperation occurred despite significant differences over the meaning and impact of Serra’s legacy. The Catholic Church, which canonized him in 2015, maintains that history shows him to be a loving evangelist who strove to protect Indigenous Californians from abuse by the Spanish military.

“On the ancestral land of the Chumash, Serra sought to be a spiritual father to the Indigenous people in Alta California,” said Father Thomas Elewaut, pastor of the Mission Basilica San Buenaventura and director of Historic Mission Sites for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

“It is fitting that his image will continue to involve peaceful and open dialogue regarding the history of the Indigenous people, the mission era, the Spanish conquest, the Mexican occupation, the Gold Rush, and finally California statehood in the United States of America, all of which have impacted and influenced the history of this land.”

Recently, the mission created a GoFundMe campaign to raise $30,000 for the transfer, reinstallation and adjacent landscaping of the Serra statue. 

Franciscan Father Junípero Serra came in 1769 to what was then the northernmost frontier of New Spain, along with a small contingent of Spanish troops, to try to convert the peoples of Alta California to Christianity. 

His method of protecting them from the sort of violence and exploitation Native Americans had suffered earlier in New Spain was to build missions organized around the traditional monastic rhythms of work and prayer. Some historians have compared the work done at the missions in that period to slavery, particularly given 18th-century European disciplinary practices that included stocks, whipping, and shackles.

After Serra’s death in 1784, the Franciscans built 12 more missions over the next 40 years. All 21 missions were secularized by the Mexican government in the mid-1830s. Most quickly fell into ruin and were only restored decades later. Though diseases that were not understood two centuries ago began to kill Indigenous Californians during Serra’s lifetime, the overwhelming percentage of Indigenous deaths — due to disease, violence, and related maltreatment — occurred after secularization.

The death and marginalization of Indigenous Californians “had a layering effect,” Elewaut said.  “It’s not just the missions and it’s certainly not Serra, in my opinion. He defended their dignity and rights.”

This statue of Serra, which stands over 9 feet high and weighs about 3,000 pounds, was cast in 1988 to replace a concrete original that had stood in Downtown Ventura since 1936. It was unveiled in front of Ventura City Hall on October 20, 1989.

Long-simmering debates about Serra’s impact on the First Peoples of California boiled over in the summer of 2020. Protests over the police killings of George Floyd and other unarmed Black persons led to attacks on statues that honored defenders of slavery. Some protesters saw Serra as part of that legacy.

Matt LaVere, now a Ventura County supervisor, was mayor of the city of Ventura at the time.

“We had received some actionable intelligence through our police department that there were plans to come and tear down or deface the statue here,” he said.

“At that point I realized, that’s the last thing I wanted.”

He decided to contact both Elewaut and Julie Tumamait Stenslie, then the longtime tribal chair of the Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Mission Indians, whose proper name is Chumash. Meanwhile, Elewaut had already received a call from Tumamait Stenslie, who has since stepped down from her tribal role and could not be reached for this article.

Despite deep disagreements over the ministry of Serra, they had a longstanding respectful relationship. Both firmly believed that the Chumash had built Mission San Buenaventura on Chumash land and that only the Chumash people had the right to address how the mission affected Chumash heritage.

She called to tell him that social media was filled with calls for a protest to take down the statue in Ventura. “She said, ‘I think you and I and the mayor should all get together and talk about this,’ ” he recalled.

They met for hours at city hall.

“I think, at the end of the day, we all wanted the same thing,” LaVere said. “We didn’t want the statue torn down or defaced. We wanted to protect the statue but look at keeping it in an area where it wasn’t so in-your-face to residents who had different beliefs.”

Moving it to the mission was a logical solution. But there were hurdles to overcome.

On June 18, the three issued a joint letter on the City of Ventura letterhead, stating that “the three of us are confident that a peaceful resolution regarding the Father Junípero Serra statue can be reached, without uncivil discourse and character assassination, much less vandalism of a designated landmark.”

The decision, they wrote, must involve the City Council, the Chumash tribe and Ventura residents.

“To honor the cultural heritage of Ventura and its earliest residents is our ultimate goal,” they wrote.

“We all believe that the removal of the statue should be accomplished without force, without anger, and through a collaborative, peaceful process.”

Protesters arrived the next day. Their leaders were prepared to let Tumawait Stenslie speak, but not Elewaut. She gave him the chance by calling him to the microphone as she finished speaking.

Her own remarks, which included criticism of the missions, had also been pointed about who had a right to determine the fate of the statue.

“She said, ‘This is our challenge,’ ” meaning the Chumash, she recalled. She told the protesters who were not Chumash and who did not come from Ventura that they should stay out of it.

That July the City Council voted to store the statue until it could be removed to the mission. However, a lawsuit by local people who wanted it to stay at city hall caused a three-year delay. While Elewaut appreciated their concerns, “If you put the statue back up, how long do you think it’s going to be there?” he asked. “I wanted to preserve the statue.”

Once the legal battle ended, moving the statue has required major preparations, including erecting a new base, and flexible planning to accommodate weather, traffic, and even a last-minute change of contractors.

LaVere looks forward to seeing the statue in its new home.

“It took a lot of courage for Father Tom and Julie,” he said.

“Both of them took some blowback from it from their respective camps. I have an immense amount of respect for both of them that they were able to come to this agreement, to this decision and this opportunity.”

A new study claims one-in-three young adults in the United States will never marry.

Writing for the Institute for Family Studies (IFS), Lyman Stone says these are close to the lowest levels ever observed for marriage rates.

“Many commentators will blame these declines on the increased delay in marriage. While there’s some truth to this, the situation is extreme at higher ages, too,” he writes.

“For instance, only about 60 percent of 35-year-old men are ever-married today, down from 90 percent in 1980. This trend also suggests that a growing share of Americans will not get married before their healthiest years are long past them,” he continues.

Stone is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and Chief Information Officer of the population research firm Demographic Intelligence.

He says it is striking that just 20 percent of 25-year-old women and 23 percent of 25-year-old men have ever married today.

“In 1967, about 85 percent of 25-year-old women had ever married, along with 75 percent of 25-year-old men. This was the height of the Baby Boom years,” Stone writes.

However, he points out that these marriages also ended up having the highest divorce rates observed in American history.

Stone also notes those Baby Boomer rates were also unusual: In 1920, he says just 70 percent of 25-year-old women and 50 percent of 25-year-old men had ever been married.

“There’s no reason to suppose young-adult marriage rates ever could have, or even should have, remained at Baby Boom-era levels,” he writes.

He claims this will have dramatic consequences for American society.

“It points to long-term fertility declines being hard to prevent, since marriage is a major factor shaping fertility behavior. These trends may also result in a whole slew of adverse outcomes as people age, including increased loneliness and isolation,” he continues.

“The benefits of marriage for individuals and society are considerable, and thus the costs of falling marriage are, too,” Stone says.

Speaking to Crux, the author said marriage is “an honorable estate to which many people are called.”

“There’s no reason to believe we are entering a period of dramatically increased chastity or celibacy, and so declining marriage is obviously concerning for churches since it suggests a greater share of people in our society will be confronted by life experiences that may not square well with Church teachings,” he said.

Stone said one thing churches can do to answer the current marriage decline is to “speak clearly.”

“There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that public exhortative statements by religious leaders in fact matter for behavior,” he told Crux.

“Aside from setting up programs, Church leaders should unambiguously exhort people to pursue marriage if they are not actively pursuing celibate vocations,” Stone said.

The gifts of men and women are “fruitful” together, and to erase the difference between men and women “is to erase humanity,” Pope Francis said.

“Today the worst danger is gender ideology, which erases differences,” he said, underlining that he has asked for studies to be done “about this ugly ideology of our time, which erases differences and makes everything equal.”

“To erase difference is to erase humanity. Man and woman, on the other hand, stand in fruitful ‘tension’” with each other, he said March 1.

The pope made his remarks as he opened an international congress in the Vatican Synod Hall titled, “Man-Woman: Image of God. For an Anthropology of Vocations.”

The congress March 1-2 was sponsored by the Center for Research and Anthropology of Vocations, which was founded in 2020 by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, retired prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, to promote and support research in the social sciences on vocations in society.

The pope greeted the attendees and told him that he would have an aide, Msgr. Filippo Ciampanelli, an official of the Vatican Secretariat of State, read his prepared text because “I still have a cold and I get worn out from reading” out loud after a while.

However, he continued speaking off-the-cuff, saying, “I would like to emphasize one thing: It is very important that we have this meeting, this meeting between men and women, because today the worst danger is gender ideology, which erases differences.”

As he often has done in the past, the pope referenced the dystopian science fiction novel, “Lord of the World,” written in 1907 by Msgr. Robert H. Benson, a former Anglican vicar, encouraging his audience to read it. He reiterated that he considers the novel to be “prophetic because it shows this trend of erasing all differences.”

In his prepared remarks read aloud by the aide, the pope wrote that a basic truth needs to be rediscovered “in all its beauty: the life of the human being is vocation.”

Every person needs to discover and express himself or herself “as called, as a calling, as a person who finds fulfillment in listening and responding, sharing his or her being and gifts with others for the common good,” he wrote.

People today sometimes “forget or obscure this reality, with the risk of reducing the human being to his or her material needs or basic needs alone, as if he or she were an object without a conscience or will, simply pulled along by life like a gear in a machine,” he wrote.

“Instead, men and women are created by God and are the image of the Creator; that is, they carry within themselves a desire for eternity and happiness that God himself has sown in their hearts and which they are called to realize through a specific vocation,” he wrote. “We are called to happiness, to the fullness of life, to something great for which God has destined us.”

“We are part of a plan of love, and we are invited to go outside of ourselves and realize it, for ourselves and for others,” he wrote.

After the aide finished reading the prepared remarks, Pope Francis told participants to “not be afraid during these rich moments in the life of the church.”

“The Holy Spirit asks us for one important thing: fidelity. But fidelity is being on a journey, and fidelity often leads us to take risks,” he said.

He urged them to keep pressing ahead “with the courage to discern and risk seeking God’s will” and “without losing your sense of humor!”

One of the biggest thrills of my New Hampshire childhood was the field trip my elementary school class once took to the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

To a kid raised among apple orchards and grazing cows, Boston was akin to a trip to Paris, or Istanbul, or the lost city of Atlantis.

Harvard represented a foray into unimaginable sophistication.

And a visit to the Museum of Natural History meant that we got to see The Glass Flowers gallery. 

Commissioned by professor George Lincoln Goodale, founder of Harvard’s Botanical Museum, the flowers were made by the father-and-son team of Leopold (1822-1895) and Rudolph Blaschka (1857-1939).

From 1887 through 1936 at a studio near Dresden, the Blaschkas — descendants of a long line of Czech glass artists — turned out over 4,300 models of 780 plant species.

My height at that age would have put me eye-to-eye with the flowers: wondrous, vividly colored, unimaginably detailed reproductions with such lifelike leaves, blooms, stamens, and pistils — how could they have been made of glass? — I felt I could have reached out and plucked from their stems.

There were lilies, asters, rhododendrons; a maple leaf in full fall color; a branch heavy with pale pink apple blossoms.

The flowers and fruit had been commissioned as teaching aids but to my mind they were more like relics. They were beautiful, they were marvels, they were mysterious. The way they were made, we were told, was a secret.

The Glass Flowers gallery underwent a historic renovation in 2016, and is now known as the Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants.

But I prefer to remember it as it was: the creaking wood floors; the glass cases that were old even then; the dire warnings that the slightest movement could shatter the flowers, or separate a head from a stem, or a petal from a bloom.

Such carelessness, I instinctively understood, would have been a sacrilege.

Now, it turns out, the world-renowned Glass Flowers were preceded by another astounding, almost-forgotten collection.

“Spineless: A Glass Menagerie of Blaschka Marine Invertebrates” is on view at Connecticut’s Mystic Seaport Museum through March 2, 2025.

The exhibit features 40 reproductions of small ocean invertebrates, most of them borrowed from Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ).

These, too, were commissioned — the first around 1863 by the head of the natural history museum in Dresden — at a time when marine invertebrates could pretty much only be preserved in jars, or rendered in drawings.

Other museums and universities placed commissions. By the 1870s, the Blaschkas had a thriving mail-order business.

Hundreds of the models were acquired by Harvard during that time and used as teaching aids.

But the widespread use of underwater photography eventually rendered the business obsolete, and the Harvard collection became scattered.

When the university recently decided to assess the models, says former MCZ Director of Collections Operations Linda S. Ford, it took six months to go through all the departments.

Some were on display; some, carefully wrapped, had been tucked away in the back of closets and drawers.

Harvard originally hoped to unearth 60 or 70 specimens; they found 430.

Judging from the photographs, the glass sea creatures — jellyfish, anemones, and squid, among others — are just as wondrous as the flowers.

Antennae, tentacles, plumes, fringes, and crowns abound.

The cerata (multifunctional “fingers”) of a pale green Stiliger ornatus (“sea slug”) are delicately tipped with black and gold stripes. A Glaucus atlanticus (“blue sea dragon”) looks like a ballerina whose limbs have exploded into sparklers mid-jeté.

The Blaschkas weren’t alone, naturally, in their obsessions: the exhibit also includes 19th-century sailors’ journals and rare books containing sketches, watercolors, and written descriptions of marine invertebrates.

So lifelike and so otherworldly are the glass sea creatures it’s easy to forget that even more wondrous are the actual creatures.

Some of which — still migrating, as the museum points out — have come to be a problem along the Eastern seaboard and beyond. Invasive species originally from Europe reproduce in such overwhelming numbers that sea squirts, for example, coat piers and pilings, befoul the waters of nearby Stonington Harbor in the Mystic River Estuary, and in general make giant pests of themselves.

Aiming for both a local and global reach, the exhibit also provides commentary on the ocean’s changing biodiversity and features contemporary, marine-life based artwork and photography.

The Blaschka models are so anatomically perfect that no artist since has been able to reproduce or equal them. But it turns out their methods were neither extraordinary nor esoteric. They melted glass tubes over an open flame like everyone else, using bellows and a foot pedal, then shaped their creations with hand tools.

Their “secrets” were discipline, attention to detail, and a passion for craft that can arguably be passed on only through bloodline.

Leopold once observed: “Many people think that we have some secret apparatus by which we can squeeze glass suddenly into these forms. … The only way to become a glass modeler of skill, I have often said to people, is to get a good great-grandfather who loved glass.”

Ex. 20:1-17 / Ps. 19:8-11 / 1 Cor. 1:22-25 / Jn. 2:13-25

Jesus does not come to destroy the temple, but to fulfill it (see Matthew 5:17) — to reveal its true purpose in God’s saving plan.

He is the Lord the prophets said would come — to purify the temple, banish the merchants and make it a house of prayer for all peoples (see Zechariah 14:21; Malachi 3:1-5; Isaiah 56:7).

The God who made the heavens and the earth, who brought Israel out of slavery, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands (see Acts 7:48; 2 Samuel 7:5).

Nor does he need offerings of oxen, sheep or doves (see Psalm 50:7-13).

Notice in today’s First Reading that God did not originally command animal sacrifices — only that Israel heed his commandments (see Jeremiah 7:21-23; Amos 5:25).

His law was a gift of divine wisdom, as we sing in today’s Psalm. It was a law of love (see Matthew 22:36-40), perfectly expressed in Christ’s self-offering on the cross (see John 15:13).

This is the “sign” Jesus offers in the Gospel today — the sign that caused Jewish leaders to stumble, as St. Paul tells us in the Epistle.

Jesus’ body — destroyed on the cross and raised up three days later — is the new and true sanctuary. From the temple of his body, rivers of living water flow, the Spirit of grace that makes each of us a temple (see 1 Corinthians 3:16) and together builds us into a dwelling place of God (see Ephesians 2:22).

In the Eucharist we participate in his offering of his body and blood. This is the worship in Spirit and in truth that the Father desires (see John 4:23-24).

We are to offer praise as our sacrifice (see Psalm 50:14, 23). This means imitating Christ — offering our bodies — all our intentions and actions in every circumstance, for the love of God and the love of others (see Hebrews 10:5-7; Romans 12:1; 1 Peter 2:5)

Minsk, March 1, 2024

Photo: church.by     

On Wednesday, February 28, His Eminence Metropolitan Veniamin of Minsk and All Belarus consecrated the first spiritual aid room in one of the children’s hospitals in the Belarusian capital.

It is planned to open such spaces in all children’s hospitals or departments throughout Minsk. Such a room is already being organized in another hospital, reports the Belarusian Orthodox Church.

Photo: church.by     

The project, co-sponsored by the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service and the Minsk Health Committee, with the support of the Brotherhood of St. John the Theologian, involves dedicating multifunctional rooms with a prayer corner, a library with Orthodox children’s books, and a play area with educational games.

Volunteers trained by the Synodal Department of Religious Education and Catechesis will play with the children and hold educational classes and master classes, and an appointed priest will provide spiritual care to the children and volunteers.

Following the consecration service, Met. Benjamin addressed those present with a word of edification and presented the hospital with an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos.

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Little is known about the life of St. David of Wales. The earliest biographies of his life date to centuries after his death. He is said to have been conceived in rape, although this cannot be established with certainty. His mother, St. Nonna or Nonnita, is celebrated in Wales on March 3.

David is said to be the cousin of St. Teilo, another Welsh bishop and monk, and to have studied under st. Paulinus, who also taught St. Teilo. Some stories say David and Teilo traveled to Jerusalem and were ordained together as bishops, although some historians doubt this.

David served as bishop of Menevia, an important port city that linked Ireland and Wales. He is also recorded as a leader in two local councils of the Church. Twelve monasteries ascribe their founding to David, who lived a strict ascetic life. His monks lived like the earliest desert hermits, working hard and in silence, spending long hours in prayer, and abstaining from meat and alcohol.

One tradition has David’s death in 601, although others believe he died in the 540s.

St. David was canonized by Pope Callistus II in 1120, and is the patron of Welsh people.