cl in the world

Russian Witness

The Responsibles’ Assembly was held on May 31st, with many wide-ranging testimonies. Natalja; Jean François, Director of the Religious Library; Koranten, from Congo and now a priest in Vladimir… in all of them, the desire to improve their world

BY PAOLA NAVOTTI

I arrived in Moscow at 4 pm on Friday, May 31st, and left at 4 pm the next day. Including a few hours for sleep, I wasn’t there even 24 hours, and yet it is incredible how much there is to tell. I came from Italy with Giancarlo Cesana, invited for the Responsibles’ Assembly.

I met the friends of the Moscow community at dinner, but I got an idea of what the Russian world was like as soon as I arrived: a great number of cars were stopped by the side of the road because, as Sgagna (Roberto Sgnaolin, Movement responsible) explained, the cars are very badly built and all that has to happen is to be caught in slow-moving traffic under the hot sun for the engine to burn up. I also noticed the impressive bulks of the Kremlin and of Lenin’s Tomb, next to a large department store full of American brands (when only thirteen years ago people were lined up to see Lenin’s body, not to buy Nike shoes). Inside this shopping center, I saw a woman, about sixty years old, washing the stairs, and her stockings were mended–too mended. The Russian people… I couldn’t wait to reach the restaurant to get to know inhabitants of a world so different from mine.

The discotheque, the libraries…
Natalja dominated the evening in a likable way. Her landlady told her to have more fun, go to the discotheque, not just to work and take part in meetings where they talk about Jesus. Natalja reflected that she is happy to be “different” from most people her age, but… she did miss the discotheque a little. Cesana encouraged her to go to the discotheque, if she likes it, because the Movement does not ask you to do some things in order to give up others, but teaches that you can do everything with a different consciousness, and enjoy more what you have. Jean François, of Belgian origin and Director of the Religious Library of Moscow, told of when he decided to go to Novosibirsk “to seek the truth,” because he was not sufficiently satisfied with his life up to then. Giovanna, a very valuable assistant at the Religious Library, recalled the 1970s, when she would pretend to be the wife of a friend, or would pretend not to know the other Italians traveling with her, so as not to arouse suspicion about their attempts to meet and help friends, especially Orthodox ones. Elena, who graduated with a degree in physics, is now teaching also art history. In short, I had in front of me some veritable adventurers, modern versions of Marco Polo. The most adventurous of them all, however, still had to speak: Koranten. He is a young black priest, originally from Congo, where he was chosen (“chosen,” in a manner of speaking, because he did not have the option of saying no) to go to Russia for university studies. Koranten thus met Stefano, got to know the Movement, and decided to become a priest. Koranten… black, from Congo, who became a priest in Russia–where Catholics are 5% of the population–“thanks” to the Communist party. The Communist regime… the accomplice of the encounter with Jesus… how mysterious God is! Now that Stefano has had his visa revoked and is thus “forced” to remain in Italy, Koranten is alone in an enormous territory–between Vladimir and Jaroslavl’ –where he travels around in his car so as not to leave his Christians alone; and it is hard for him now, without Stefano’s companionship. Cesana told him that “this separation imposes a greater responsibility, because we cannot allow the encounter that has begun to end; we have to keep it going. What a comfort it will be for Stefano when he returns, to find his children have in turn become fathers and mothers.”

A familiar name
Saturday morning was the Responsibles’ Assembly. The first thing that affected me was to recognize, amid the incomprehensibility of the Russian language, that familiar name: “Fr Gius.”

Olga, a musician, asked if the deep sadness she feels is right, or if on the contrary it is a sign of ungratefulness. Cesana answered that the more we love somebody, the more we understand that we have to love them even more. In other words, we understand that something is missing, and this is why we are sad. Among other things, this sadness is not felt by everybody, because a great sensitivity and courage are needed to live this wound, whereas usually it is covered up with the “lid” of work or something else that is going well. Natalja (another girl, not the one mentioned above) asked, “What can we do to restore the communion between our Churches? If this is not possible, what can I do so as not to feel this burden?” Tanya, an economist, asked, “What does always being responsible mean for you?” Sergey, who works in a bank, said, “I want to follow Christ, but doing this also means breaking the rules of my tradition, and many times I am placed in a difficult situation.” Irina, an actress in the theater, thinking about a friend of hers, in tears asked Cesana what suicide is, because “who can I ask, if not you?”

In a harsh world
The desire to improve one’s world, this responsibility, prevailed through all the talks, and it was moving to see people who are marked by a State that is so heavily present in daily life, and yet who are so eager and strong, like rivers in flood that break their banks. Their life is hard, because their world is hard; it was enough just to see the common areas of the houses, neglected, with dirt floors and stairs falling in, because the regime taught that everything is the same for everybody–the minimum for everybody. And then to see the two Memores Domini houses so well cared for, with little touches added to give them some beauty, which made me think again of what Cesana said: “If difficulty were worth more than positivity, this would mean that I and the world are wrong. The problem is to be confirmed in this consciousness, because difficulty seems to overshadow everything. God became Man in order to tell man not to be lost, that the consciousness of being wanted is the right, true consciousness.”