THE mISSIONS

The Situation of the Church in the Former Soviet Bloc

by Ralph Martin

The situation of the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is one of both great difficulty and great opportunity. Over the past several years I have had the opportunity to visit several of the Eastern European and former Soviet countries more than once and visit at length with church and government leaders in those countries.

On one of these trips, to Poland, I stayed in a hotel in Warsaw for part of the trip and was struck at how it was swarming with businessmen from North America, Europe, and the Orient, all flooding into Poland to establish a commercial foothold. Economic and political freedom can certainly be a blessing, but what a tragedy if the Polish Church, having defeated one kind of oppression and slavery, falls into an even worse slavery, the slavery of the soul that is Western secularism.

People told me that Warsaw had no neon signs a few years ago, now they are common. The city shows the growing influence of Western television, music, and fashions. Pornography is sold openly. In a few years some streets of Warsaw will probably look like Broadway. Western materialism is making strong inroads, particularly among the youth, many of whom are turning away from the Church now that it is no longer the only alternative to communism.

A recent survey shows that although 97 percent of Polish citizens describe themselves as Catholics, between half and two-thirds refuse to accept Church teachings on abortion, contraception and premarital sex.1 Church leaders in Poland told me that in 1989, 28 million of Poland's 38 million people attended church regularly. In 1993 only 10 million were regularly attending church. In Warsaw only 18% of the population attends church weekly. And trends for the future do not look bright. Religious education has been restored to Polish schools and over 90 percent of youth in the schools attend the religious education classes; but only 25 percent go to church.

In recent elections the Catholic Coalition only won 7.1% of the vote, shocking the Church. Some are warning that the Church is depending too much on winning for itself a privileged position in the Constitution, and not enough on Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.2

In Hungary, there were many similarities. With a less rigid communism than many other countries, Hungary was among the first to be hospitable to Western business and other influences. While I was there I was able to share with friends a full page advertisement that appeared in the New York Times a few years ago, celebrating the launching of the Hungarian edition of Playboy magazine. The ad illustrated well the challenges that Hungarian society will be facing.

The text of the ad reads:

On November twenty-ninth, Hungarians came one step closer to something they've been fighting for since 1956. Freedom.

Not just political freedom, but freedom of the press. And the first American consumer magazine published in Hungarian was Playboy. No surprise, since we're the magazine that led a social revolution in America by standing for personal, political, and economic freedom.

That's the power of Playboy. A power that reaches 15,000,000 readers worldwide. And it's continuing to grow.

15,000,000 readers are devoted to us because we're devoted to them. That's why more Americans buy Playboy each month than Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone, and Business Week combined. Making us the largest selling men's magazine - not just in the country - but in the world.

So here's to freedom. Or, as they say in Hungary, Eljen a Szabadsag.

While the Catholic Church in Hungary is slowly adjusting to its new situation, the fastest growing church in the country is led by a former Catholic, the 20,000 member Faith Church in Budapest, which has already started more than 80 satellite churches throughout the country. While aware that he is rocking the boat of the religious establishment in Hungary, he finds many Hungarians, particularly the young people, "disillusioned with both communism and the Catholic establishment, and cult groups like the Hare Krishnas, Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, Scientologists, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are recruiting followers..."3

In another major Hungarian city two friends from the Franciscan University of Steubenville are teaching English at a Catholic high school, and witnessing to their faith, but they are outnumbered in that same city by ten Pentecostal missionaries from Southern California who are busy starting churches.

Shortly after my return from Hungary a new report hit the American press about the latest "gift" that American business was offering to the former Soviet Union:

Half a million people jammed an airfield Saturday to see AC-DC. the Black Crowes, and Metallica play at the Soviet Union's biggest Western rock concert, touted as a gift to Russian youth...

The show was in celebration of the successful defense of democracy as a gift to the youth of Russia. There is nothing commercial connected to it, no live telecasts, no HBO specials, nothing,' said Marilyn Harris, corporate communications director for Time Warner...

The first hit is always free.

On trips to Lithuania, which has the highest percentage of Catholics of any of the countries of the former Soviet Union, significant conversations with Catholic bishops and youth revealed a difficult situation. The long years under communism have demoralized many of the priests, and interest in renewal or new initiatives is not high. Among many priests there's a strong tendency to just keep doing what was done to survive under communism and not make waves. Others are still primarily focused on the political issues and have not yet readjusted to the present needs of the Church for a great work of re-evangelization. In the midst of this the strong materialist, secular influences from the West are gaining sway and many of the youth are losing interest in what is perceived as a paralyzed, non-dynamic church.

Another factor which was particularly noticeable in Lithuania was the arrival of great numbers of Evangelical and Pentecostal missionary groups from the West as well as the arrival of non-Christian religious groups. In the face of the paralysis and poverty of the Catholic Church these groups are making great strides and many are joining them. The largest church building in the country will soon not be the Catholic cathedral but a church being built with help from Swedish Pentecostals for a burgeoning pentecostal church in Lithuania. If it had not been for the welcoming attitude of one bishop in particular many of the finest Catholic youth leaders we met would have left the Church for more dynamic Protestant groups. While we were there, on one trip, Fr. Michael Scanlan, President of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, and myself gave a one day mini-rally for hundreds of Catholics . Some had never been baptized. We also had the opportunity to offer some young Catholic women who were on their way to live with Mormon families in Utah and attend a predominantly Mormon university the opportunity to attend Franciscan University, where they are presently enrolled.

Throughout the former Soviet Union and the former satellite countries, more than a thousand non-Catholic organizations (not including individual congregations and individuals) from all over the world are working vigorously at proselytizing with remarkable results. Hundreds of thousands are attending crusades, rallies, training schools, seminars and thousands of new churches are being started. Many are being brought to other countries for additional training and studies. American Evangelical and Pentecostal evangelists and organizations are prominent in this effort but so are evangelists and organizations from Africa, Korea, the Philippines, Sweden, and many other countries.

Listen to the eyewitness report of someone involved in such a mission:

I recently returned to the United States from the city of Moscow where a number of American ministries sponsored a leadership training seminar ... bringing nearly 1500 pastors and ministers from throughout Russia and the surrounding republics. We held two back-to-back leadership conferences in which a wide variety of training, teaching and equipping was offered. Needless to say, the whole occasion was charged with the presence of the Lord and with the prophetic excitement that characterizes these days of harvest.

Often, as I faced the Russian disciples - most of them very young both in years and in the Lord - I wondered who is really being trained, them or us! The fire in their eyes, the zeal in their hearts and the excitement and abandonment with which they cast themselves upon the Lord brought us both conviction and great joy.

Expecting to find a persecution-minded and dispirited group of believers (which was true for years), we were met with very lively, excited and prophetic disciples. As they came to the conference, traveling hundreds of miles on trains and buses, they were already positioned toward the Lord and were quick to enter into intense intercession and corporate worship. They were so young in some ways, and yet so mature in others. Indeed, as dark as the Russian landscape may be, the brightness of the emerging church is already drawing the multitudes to God's embrace.

Not only are these disciples and leaders hungry for God's presence and eager to grow, they also possess a very contagious prophetic vision for their land and for the entire earth. I remember a group of these Russian believers describing to us how they fully expect, after building the house of the Lord in their lands, to be sent southward to the Moslem republics. And after evangelizing them, paying the price of suffering and martyrdom, they believe God will open the Moslem world before them - sending them on to India, China and all the way to Jerusalem, where they expect to welcome the Lord's return! Oh, for such vision and fervor for us all!4

In a recent interview the four Catholic bishops appointed to care for Catholics in various regions of the former Soviet Union gave witness to this situation:

As far as the sects are concerned, they have arrived in the Asian republics too and they are converting so many people . . . Last summer the sects were also filling the stadiums here (Siberia). They come from South Korea and America and tens of thousands flocked to listen to what they had to say. They represent a remarkable phenomenon . . . The Protestant preachers are dominating television air-time, with hours and hours of broadcasts a week never mind the stadiums they rent throughout Russia. They even hired a boat on the Volga . . . And in the meantime, the Catholic West sleeps on. It is allowing the sects to carry on with the "new evangelization." We received requests from Omsk for missionaries - either laymen or priests - to teach Catholicism. Down there we have just one priest . . . Of course there is no comparison between the missionary work of Protestants and that of Catholics. I read about one Baptist project in the paper. In the West they pledged to build a thousand prayer houses for themselves in the former Soviet Union. And we've been trying for the past three years to put up a couple of Catholic churches but we still haven't laid the foundations . . . I also read that Sweden alone has pledged to finance the building of 500 houses. They certainly get the job done . . . It's true. They have an endless source of money. But I would like to say this. Our approach is wrong. We think it our duty to stay in the church and wait for the people to come to us and become Christians. But this is an illusion. The Christian proposal will only be convincing if lay witness flourishes, if people in their own environment bear witness . . . At the time of the Iron Curtain everyone wanted to help us. Now it seems that no one, either religious congregations or Church movements, feel like coming here. And only God knows how much we need them.5

Just one Pentecostal church, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has concentrated on the city of St. Petersburg, for example. In sixteen months it has held monthly crusades which draw 12,000-15,000 people each month. So far over 400,000 have put their faith in Christ in response to these crusades. The first church they helped start tripled after three months. A Russian Bible school they started has 900 students studying five days a week. While people travel monthly from Tulsa to St. Petersburg to help, some taking vacation time to do so and raising their own money, one family has sold their sporting goods store and moved there with their three school-age children to provide regular guidance for the church and Bible School.6

Officials in the Russian government are amazingly welcoming of Christian help in restoring morality and character to the Russian people.

Never mind Big Macs. The former Soviet republics are now opening their public school doors to teaching about Christianity.

Russian officials from the Ministry of Education say they are inviting a consortium of 60 US evangelical groups and Christian colleges, calling itself the CoMission, to train educators in 120,000 public schools how to teach Judeo-Christian principles.

CoMission leaders say they'll recruit 12,000 lay people and college students to spend a year each in the former Soviet Union... "Seventy years ago, we closed God out of our country, and it has caused so many problems in our society we cannot count them," deputy education minister Evgeniy Kurkin said in a prepared statement recently. "We must put God back into our country, and we must begin with our children."

Deputy minister of education Aleksandr G. Asmolov calls it a miracle that the Christians of the USA would help those in Russia.

"Instead of hostilities, which we saw 10 years ago, we see kindness. That's why I can only say, praise God."7

Russian officials have invited Catholic, Orthodox, traditional Protestant groups, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists to help also. "So far, however, practically the only groups with the money, materials and will to respond have been evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants from the United States."8

Another evangelical organization from the United States, Bill Gothard's "Institute in Basic Life Principles", is also doing extensive work in the former Soviet Union, and has just announced that the Moscow City Council has asked them to distribute materials on building character to all 2.5 million families in their city. The Russian Air Force has offered to transport the material free of charge. 9

Yet another organization, Missouri-based Revival Fires Ministry, has been asked to provide Bibles to be used as textbooks for all 7,000 public schools in the capital.10

Still another organization, Youth With A Mission, has been asked to work along-side Education officials in Albania to develop education materials with Christian principles.11This particular evangelical organization has more than 7,000 career missionaries and more than 25,000 short-term missionaries, operating in more than 80 countries.12

Also in Albania the Christian Broadcasting Network has distributed 575,000 gospel booklets to every Albanian school child in grades 1-8, and has broadcast their animated children's television series on Albania's only television network.13

One bright spot for the Catholic Church in Albania was the appointment of Archbishop Ivan Diaz as Papal Nuncio. Archbishop Diaz is known as a dynamic, Christ-centered bishop.

All in all though, the Catholic and Orthodox church authorities of the former Soviet bloc territories seem to be hampered in their efforts at pastoral and spiritual renewal and evangelization by their preoccupation with reclaiming confiscated church buildings and monasteries, disputing about territorial rights, and placing limits on one another in the name of ecumenism.14 Meanwhile, the Protestants are coming.

As one Russian Orthodox theologian has put it: "Russian society and the Church are becoming strangers to each other . . . People expected an answer to their questions. But the Church had been contaminated by the evils of Soviet society, the lack of truth, stereotyped language . . . In 1989 there was great enthusiasm when priests spoke on television.Today nothing remains of this enthusiasm. Because the Church had nothing to say apart from banal generalities."15

And Father Halik, a prominent Catholic priest in the former Czechoslovakia, warns against idealizing the current condition of the Catholic churches of the East that have survived persecution:

We should not be sentimental about the Catholic Church in the formerly Communist world . . . There were to be sure, martyrs in our church and many honest Christians who even under the hardest conditions have preserved their faith. However, there were also many who wanted to compromise, and there were collaborators and even agents of the State Security. And if we count ourselves lucky because we don't have any problematic theologians with us, we should not fail to add that, unfortunately, we cannot provide a healthy, modern theology which could combine faithfulness to tradition with sensitivity to the needs of our time. For orthodoxy does not in any way mean anxious and uncreative repetition. He who boasts of his lack of tooth decay should ask himself if that is so because he has a set of artificial teeth.

Fr. Halik then points out that "our proverbial faith in relation to Church authority, too, may have been a little easier during the times when there were almost no bishops, or when our bishops were imprisoned....only now do I realize that it is not so simple to respect the authority of superiors whose natural human limits and weaknesses cannot be ignored. Loyalty to the persecuted church, too, was in a way humanly easier than solidarity with the public institution, for at times, some of its external manifestations were enough to make one blush with shame."

And while acknowledging the legitimacy of the Church's claims for the return of its possessions, he warns: "We should not overvalue the economic and institutional problems, but place our main emphasis on spiritual renewal . . . it may be good to remember that the Church does not live from the 'administrative' alone."16

While speaking with leaders of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Lviv, in the Western Ukraine, on a recent trip the same thought occurred. While experiencing a large measure of success in retrieving Church buildings that formerly belonged to the Church, and working on the difficult problems of integrating priests from the underground, Russian Orthodox priests who have come over to the Greek Catholic Church, and the Canadian and American Ukrainians in exile who have returned in leadership positions, the pastoral and spiritual problems of the population are daunting and are just beginning to be addressed.

A special report issued by the Vicar General of the Archeparchy of Lviv details the "great ruin" of spiritual, moral, and ethical values suffered under the decades of communism. The lack of motivation to work, the widespread corruption and dishonesty as a way of life, the widespread alcoholism and substance abuse, the large numbers of abortions (in 1991 950,000 abortions were officially registered in the Ukraine), the frequency of divorce and separations and sex outside of marriage, out of control crime, robberies, and now organized crime "families," provide daunting pastoral challenges. 17

As in other countries, evangelical missionaries from the West are active, and have a significant presence on the television channels, while a fledgling Catholic television effort struggles to get off the ground.

In this decade a major American Christian magazine ran a cover story titled: "Why is Latin America turning Protestant?"18 Unless the Catholic and Orthodox churches turn their energies to the kind of internal spiritual renewal, repentance and conversion, that prepares the way for the preaching of the gospel and the moving of the Holy Spirit it will not be too many more years before we read another headline: "Why is the former Soviet Union turning Protestant?" But even graver things are at stake.

As Fr. Werenfried Van Straaten, leader of a major Catholic aid agency recently said: "If Christ is not preached in these countries, the whole former Soviet bloc will crumble into ruins. It will become like a decomposing corpse on our doorstep, a corpse 10 times the size of Western Europe. But a corpse whose poisons and stench will weaken the forthcoming millennium right from the start. Without Christ diplomatic efforts to halt the imminent decline will be to no avail."19

The results of alcoholism, environmental pollution, multiple abortions and the break down of the health system infrastructure in Russia, as well as perhaps more accurate statistics, has led to deaths exceeding births by nearly 800,000 last year, making Russia the first industrialized nation to experience such a sharp decrease for reasons other than war, famine or disease. Life expectancy of adult men has plummeted to 60 years which means that men in Indonesia, the Philippines and parts of Africa now live longer than the average man in Russia today. If the trend continues the country's population of 148 million will shrink sharply in the coming years.20

But rather than despair, Fr. Van Straaten is calling for prayer and conversion:

"Now we are throwing ourselves heart and soul into a worldwide ecumenical campaign of prayer. Its objective is that the Church in the West and the Church in the East might be converted together and together take the last step along the road to reconciliation. That we might rise again together from the spiritual ruins of the twentieth century and together proclaim the Gospel credibly to a generation which has lost faith in Marx and is now called to be the herald of the Kingdom of God in the third Christian millennium."21

In his encyclical, Mission of the Redeemer, John Paul II asked that every individual and institution in the Church devote itself to this great mission of making Christ known.

The number of those who do not know Christ and do not belong to the Church is constantly on the increase. Indeed, since the end of the Council it has almost doubled. When we consider this immense portion of humanity which is loved by the Father and for whom he sent his Son, the urgency of the Church's mission is obvious...God is opening before the Church the horizons of a humanity more fully prepared for the sowing of the Gospel. I sense that the moment has come to commit all of the Church's energies to a new evangelization and to the mission ad gentes. No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples....If we look at today's world, we are struck by many negative factors that can lead to pessimism. But this feeling is unjustified: we have faith in God our Father and Lord, in his goodness and mercy. As the third millennium of the redemption draws near, God is preparing a great springtime for Christianity, and we can already see its first signs22

In the light of all this how important it is that all of us respond to the call of Pope John Paul II to engage in the "new evangelization," both in the circumstances of our own lives and in our support for true missionary work, especially in the countries of the former Soviet bloc.

Ralph Martin is the president of Renewal Ministries, a Catholic organization devoted to renewal and evangelization which works extensively in the countries of Eastern Europe. This article is adapted from a chapter of his recent book, published by Ignatius Press, The Catholic Church at the End of an Age: What is the Spirit Saying?

Notes

1 "Looking East: Uncertain Church Loyalties in Poland," National Catholic Register, January 31, 1993, p. 3.

2 Luigi Amicone, "The Clinton Effect on Warsaw," 30 Days, No. 9, 1993, p.21.

3 Lee Grady, "Hungarian Officials Target Churches," Charisma, April 1993, p. 52.

4 Reuven Doron, "The Lord of the Harvest," River of Life Ministries, May 1993, p. 1.

5 Lucio Brunelli, "Gorby, Wish You Were Here," 30 Days, pp. 17-19.

6 Natalie Nichols, "Tulsa Church Heads to Russia," Charisma, April 1993, p. 50.

7 Dennis Kelly, "New Russia Welcomes Christianity," USA TODAY, International Edition, November 11, 1992, 7A.

8 Kenneth L. Woodward with Clinton O'Brien in Moscow, "Iisus Khristos Loves You," Newsweek, January 4, 1993, p. 45.

9 Information from Institute in Basic Life Principles, Oak Brook, Illinois.

10 Elizabeth Farrell, "Religion Welcome in Slavic Schools," Charisma, March 1993, p. 60.

11 Ibid.

12 Robert L. Romaker, "One Good Turn Deserves Another," The Ann Arbor News, January 9, 1993, p. A7.

13 Susan Norman, "New Day Dawns in Atheist Albania," Charisma, June 1993, p. 76.

14 "Rifts in East Are Stubborn," National Catholic Register, November 29, 1992, pp.1,10.

Lucio Brunelli, "The Ukranian Hitch," 30 DAYS, No.12-1992,pp. 25-27.

15 Viktor Popkov, "At The Turning Point," The Catholic World Report, December 1992, p.19.

16 Fr. Thomas Halik, "No Model for the West," The Catholic World Report, June 1993, pp. 22-25.

17 Msgr. Iwan Dacko, "The New Situation of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Ukraine," published by the Archeparchy of Lviv, September 14, 1992. See also the January February 1994 issue of "The Catholic World," devoted to an analysis of the situation of the Church in Eastern Europe.

18 Christianity Today, April 6, 1992. Two full length books have also been published which deal with the phenomenon of Evangelical and Pentecostal growth in Latin America: David Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant? The Politics of Evangelical Growth, University of California Press; and David Martin, Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America, Basil Blackwell. An interesting review of these books, by Joseph E. Davis, appeared in the May 1991 edition of First Things. Joseph Davis has also written an article for America, January 19, 1991, pp. 37-46, "The Protestant Challenge in Latin America," which deals with these themes.

19 Gianpaolo Barra, "A Decomposing Corpse," The Catholic World Report, February 1993, p. 37.

20 Michael Specter, "Russian Population Shrinks," The New York Times news service, The Ann Arbor News, March 6, 1994, p. A-6.

21 Fr. Wilfrid Van Straaten, "Aid To The Church in Need MIRROR," No. 7., October 1992, p. 1.

22 John Paul II, Mission of the Redeemer, 3, 86.