It’s a mid-September Sunday, and I am at Mass in Karaganda, Kazakhstan.
One of the five “stans” of Central Asia, along with Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world, largely composed of sparsely populated steppe, bordering on Russia, China, three of the other “stans,” and the Caspian Sea.
While Kazakhstan is a predominantly secular post-Soviet nation, I am part of a familiar Catholic scene, as the bells of the cathedral ring out over the city, the last family hurries up the church steps, and four little boys in clean white shirts take the front pews because today is their First Communion.
After Mass, we adjourn to the parish meeting room, where the church ladies have created a feast for the congregation, going heavy on the pizza because our honorees average about 11 years old.
Father Vladimir, who has just preached a dynamic sermon, is there to congratulate the boys. The bishop is there too, quietly enjoying the fun. The religious sisters who have served as catechists to the boys are there to hug them. It is all so recognizable that I am hard-pressed to remember that I am far from home.
I am here with a photographer and an interpreter, to write about the lives of Catholic children in this nation as part of a series on the universal Church, as shown through the lives of Catholic children worldwide. Kazakhstan is an extraordinary place, with a turbulent history that encompasses Genghis Khan, the Silk Road, and Stalin’s worst moments.
In these post-Soviet days, the nation is peaceful and free. The Kazakhs have just served as host to the World Nomad Games, a ten-year old biennial spectacle that is the nomad answer to the Olympics. Along with amazing feats of horsemanship, and the celebration of traditional nomad sports like hunting with eagles, the Games have an additional message. Stalin did his best to destroy the nomad culture throughout Central Asia. The Games are a jubilant celebration of his failure.
“Here we still are!” the Games say. “And you are gone.”
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Similarly, Stalin did his best to eliminate all religious believers, but he failed on that too. We are here to showcase that second failure.
To begin, let’s ask how many Catholics you think there are in Kazakhstan. (1) 100,000 to 150,000? (2) 300,000 to 500,000 though nobody knows exactly? (3) Are there any Catholics in Kazakhstan?
The correct answer is (1). There are between 100,000 and 150,000 Catholics in Kazakhstan, with four parishes in the territory of Karaganda alone – five, if you count the Ukrainian Greek Catholic parish. And you should count it, because the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is in full communion with the Catholic Church.
The correct answer used to be (2) — there were more than 300,000 Catholics in Kazakhstan.
The nation of Kazakhstan had a large growth in Catholic population from the 1930s to the 1960s It had a drastic drop in Catholic population recently. But the first point is not good news, and the second is not bad news. A thumbnail history makes that clear
For thousands of years, the Kazakh territory was a wind-swept steppe inhabited by nomadic herders. In the 1930s, Stalin’s policies brought this existence to an end, through a series of disasters that were agonizing even by the catastrophic standards of the 20th century. First, forcible collectivization of the nomads, combined with the total incompetence and disinterest of territorial governors, created one of the worst famines ever seen in the world, killing approximately 40% of the total population and damaging most of the rest.
Into Kazakhstan, Stalin then sent hundreds of thousands of exiles from Poland, Ukraine, Korea, Finland, Byelorussia and more, to find what food they could and live if they could. Many of them were Catholic.
Exiles died by the thousands along that dreadful journey, but some survived and reached Kazakhstan, and their descendants are still there today.
Then there were the prisoners. Since one of the fundamental tenets of Communism is atheism, Stalin opposed all religions, and his infamous law, Article 58, allowed his regime to label anyone “an enemy of the people” and send them to one of his many labor camps, most often for 10 years.
Many of the labor camps were in Kazakhstan, and the largest of all, the Karlag, was in the Karaganda region.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s book, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” is a personal memoir of time in the Karlag camp.
One million prisoners passed through the gates of that labor camp, and many of them were Catholic. Some of their descendants are still there today.
The result of all that was the arrival in Kazakhstan, and specifically in Karaganda, of thousands of Catholics, from an entire litany of nations.
Thus the rise in the Catholic population was not good news.
The recent Catholic population downturn was the result of the collapse of the Soviet empire, and the return of several hundred thousand descendants of the exiles to the nations their parents and grandparents came from. Thus the drop in the Catholic population was not bad news.
However, not all the descendants of the prisoners and exiles were able to return to the country of their family’s origin. Perhaps they had no home to return to. Perhaps they had created a home in Kazakhstan, or had spouses and children with a heritage other than their own. The Catholics who remain in Kazakhstan are now choosing to be Kazakh, whatever their tragic heritage may be. Several people commented to me that the huge cross-section of people who arrived in their nation have created a truly tolerant multi-ethnic society. They have all suffered together, for one thing.
Records show that believers in Christ reached Kazakhstan for the first time in the second century as prisoners of the Persian empire of the time. They are glimpsed off and on through the historical record, showing a presence at the courts of Genghis Khan, turning up on the Silk Road, and arriving as Franciscan missionaries in the 1400s.
Between the 8th and the 13th century, the area became predominantly Muslim and remained so until the take-over by the Soviet empire.
Now, with Stalin’s influence destroyed and the Soviet system in collapse, Kazakhstan is a free nation again. The high Kazakh birth rate, a sign of national hope, is reflected everywhere, with dads pushing strollers, moms carrying babies, and friendly children everywhere. Karaganda parks are full of fountains and flowers, and the only thing that the children know about the Soviet years is that they prefer to play on the Soviet tanks in the parks, rather than the brightly-colored playground equipment.
Understandably wary about anything that smacks of fanaticism, and with militant Muslim nations on their borders, the Kazakh government has chosen a policy of cautious religious toleration.
No one can openly proselytize in the streets, but the major historical religions of Kazakhstan are free to exist.
The first Catholic church in Karaganda, the little Basilica of Saint Joseph, built around 1973, was even allowed to come into existence in the late Soviet times, as long as it “didn’t look like a church.” It was built low to the ground and in a residential neighborhood. Today, in safer times, it has a new spire and stands a little taller.
The Karaganda showpiece is the serene new Catholic cathedral, built in 2012, and funded by gifts from all over the world, in recognition of the suffering of Catholics in Stalin’s labor and prison camps. Its beautiful spire rises on the skyline above the bustling streets, and the church interior is fresh and bright. The pastor preaches with vigor and conviction, while young missionaries from Slovakia rotate through each year, lending a hand with a lively variety of programs.
Some wise person even included funds for an excellent organ in this cathedral. Organ concerts regularly bring in people who, brought up in an atheistic post-Communist society, would never otherwise set foot in a church. Since the music is beautiful, and the concerts are free, the pews are always packed ahead of the starting time, so the parish takes the opportunity to do a little welcoming and explaining. We heard several stories of converts who first came to the Catholic church out of straightforward curiosity, so bringing people through the doors with beautiful music is very well suited to this city.
Along with the parishes, the Church built a Catholic seminary. It’s the only one in Central Asia, and seven seminarians are studying there now. Five are Kazakh, one is from Russia, and one is from Belarus.
Father Ruslan, the rector, is Kazakh. He attended the seminary in its opening year, 25 years ago. Born to Soviet non-believers, Ruslan and some companions first set foot in a church out of curiosity. He became good friends with the priests, began to learn the faith, became a believer, and was baptized at the age of 16. He did that over the opposition of his family, but years later, when he entered the seminary, his father became a devout Catholic and attended Mass every day until his death.
Father Ruslan’s background means he is well-suited to the population of students who arrive at the seminary now. Many of them come with little background knowledge or faith, since they do not come from Catholic families. They may meet a priest and admire their life, and that admiration may bring them to the seminary, but as the rector says, “They can’t want to be like the priest. They must want to be like Jesus.”
Seminarians have a year of discernment before they begin theological studies, so that they have time to make careful decisions, and many of them leave. Most of them face family opposition, and many of them must also overcome the Kazakh cultural prejudice that belief in Christ is for westerners, not for Kazakhs. The burgeoning churches of Asia, Oceania, and Africa may help eliminate this prejudice, and Catholicism has extended far past Europe since day one, but Father Ruslan fights this prejudice all the time.
To be fair, the geographical prejudice that assigns religions based on geography is not strictly a Kazakh mistake. When Father Ruslan travels outside of Kazakhstan, people always say to him, “Catholics in Kazakhstan?” Yes. Catholics in Kazakhstan.
He sends one of the senior students to give us a tour of the seminary. We can see that it is well-designed and well-run. The library, chapel, classrooms, confessional, and offices are all pleasant and bright. We put our heads around the classroom door long enough to see a Zoom class. The extreme rarity of Kazakh theology professors means that the classroom lectures are held over Zoom. The students have 8 years of study in the seminary - one year of discernment, six years of theology, and a year of work in a local parish.
One hundred and thirty students have entered over the 25 years of the seminary’s existence, and 25 have graduated. Some go on to study in Rome or Poland and become professors. Most are ordained as priests and serve in Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, or Georgia, as this is a truly multi-national seminary.
Accreditation is a challenge, because the seminary’s goal is to be accredited by both a Catholic university in Rome and the government of Kazakhstan, which of course have different requirements, and strict ones at that. Nevertheless, as part of their commitment to Kazakhstan, seminary leaders are choosing to keep working through both, which is particularly difficult as requirements change over time.
“We want to serve the Kazakh population,” Father Ruslan says adamantly. “We want to root here.”
As I prepare to leave, I ask Father Ruslan if there is anything he would like people to understand about the Church here.
“Yes,” he says. Do not think of Kazakhstan as a far-off country that is only Muslims. Our Catholics here are part of the world-wide church.”
He likes the project that has brought me to Kazakhstan, because it bears directly on his point about the worldwide church. My book about Catholics in Kazakhstan will sit on the shelf next to the books about such Catholic heavy hitters as Ireland and Brazil.
“Is there something the worldwide Church can do for you?” I pose a final question.
“Yes,” he says again with conviction. “Don’t forget us.”
