In 2004 Pope John-Paul II sent Cardinal
Walter Kasper, the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian
Unity (Cardinal Cassidy’s successor), to Russia with the greatly venerated icon
of Our Lady of Kazan. This had been entrusted to the care of the Pope in the
final years of Communism in Russia. Pope John-Paul had hoped to be invited to
Russia by Patriarch Alexis II, when he would have personally handed over the
icon to the Patriarch, but the invitation never came.
About ninety years ago the church in
Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tartarstan had been taken over by the
Bolsheviks. As its name may imply the territory is largely Sunni Moslem of
Tartar descent, with a Russian Orthodox minority and a Latin Catholic presence
of about 500 faithful. The church is being paid for by the government of
Tartarstan, and although constructed on a different site, is to be a replica of
the former church, which is beyond restoration as a place of worship.
The furnishings, vestments and a Parish
Centre have been funded by the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. The
parish priest Father Diogenes Urkiza described the re-building as a ‘miracle’;
and it is probably not coincidental that the Kazanskaya icon was regarded as Russia’s greatest miraculous
icon. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, sent Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the
former Secretary of State to the Holy See, to represent the Vatican. The Russian
Orthodox Archbishop Anastasy of Kazan
welcomed the re-building of the church.
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