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How faith stayed alive in Armenia and Russia

From the Marian Centre Newsletter - December 1999, with permission

A deacon of the Armenian Rite at a meeting in Rome said: "We went to Armenia in 1988 after the earthquake and found the Catholic faith was still alive, despite the hostility of the Communist regime - at the time it was calculated that Catholics numbered about 80, 000. Today, this number has grown to at least 300,000.

They had been without pastors for at least 30 years, after the last Catholic priest died. We managed to find his grave site; on the tomb was written: 'the priest who recited the Rosary.' The Rosary, which recalls the mysteries of salvation, was the only practice they still retained. We tried to make contact with them, but for them we were strangers and they didn't trust us. However, when we turned up with Rosary beads in our hands, their mistrust disappeared immediately. With their cultural simplicity, indications that one was a Catholic were the recitation of the Rosary and the faithfulness to the Pope.

Now things are slowly picking up again with the presence of priests who are helping them rediscover that faith which they had entrusted over the years to the simple but solid chain called the Rosary.'

Cardinal Messener experienced a similar situation in Russia where after decades of atheism the Faith was kept alive in many families, thanks solely to the Rosary.

(Fr Muraro, professor at Angelicum University, Rome)

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