Aid to the Church in Need: Bulgaria: Benedictine Sisters give courage to others

Bulgaria: Benedictine Sisters give courage to others

Posted by Project description on 17/4/2009, 3:39 pm
Board Administrator

It’s about the installation of a new heating plant – a pretty humdrum business. Yet for the Benedictine Missionary Sisters of Zarevbrod, Bulgaria, this heating system has great symbolic importance. For it marks the end of a long period of suffering.

The old heating system was shared between the Sisters’ convent and a psychiatric clinic. This clinic was originally their convent, but when the communists seized power in September 1944 the convent, together with its kindergarten, orphanage and school, was shut down and all the German Sisters were interned and later expelled from the country.

In 1952 the former convent was turned into a psychiatric hospital and the remaining Sisters were forced to work there, while being banished to live in the icy attic of their former convent. Their bishop and three priests were shot dead, while other priests were sent to the death camps. The Sisters stuck it out, and finally, with the changes, the Church emerged again from the catacombs. But there were still several more years of life in the attic before the State finally returned a part of their property. To this day, though, the greater part of the building is still used by the clinic.

Four Sisters survived those times of martyrdom, and in all there are now 10 of them in the convent. They may not be miracle workers, but their presence and their faithfulness give courage to the people. “We are afraid of no one”, says their Superior, Beate Schröter, who previously worked for over 20 years as a missionary in Tanzania, and later in Brazil also.

The Sisters are welcomed with great gratitude by ordinary people in this small town. They run retreat days, give religious instruction, care for the elderly, the sick, single mothers and above all the young people. For the past five years they have run summer camps for children, including the street children. “It is a joy to see what a good and healing effect love, affection and an ordered daily routine have on the children”, Mother Beate reports.

(They outlived communism in the attic. Now the doors are open again and the Sisters can once more work in the world. Mother Beate is in left of picture)

During the World Youth Day they invited the young people to watch the Pope’s message, live at 3 a.m. on a screen in the house next to the clinic. Just one of the crazy little moments of love that make the Sisters in Zarevbrod such a wellspring of human warmth. Mother Beate puts it simply: “That’s how we see our mission – being an instrument in God’s hands and being there to help people in their needs”. For it is indeed a mission. And your donations are bringing more warmth from afar.

The Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) lends support to these sisters and to many more religious orders around the world wherever the Church is poor, persecuted or oppressed.

To help this cause please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org