Immaculate Conception Community Provides Essential Support to Sister Parish

For decades, Most Holy Mother of God Parish in Vladivostok, Russia, was dormant. The church had been taken over and repurposed by the Soviet Union during the Communist era. But in the 1990s, Catholics managed to restore the church building and reopen the parish. Now, Immaculate Conception Parish has become its sister parish, and our community offers the Russian parish its prayer and financial support.

Susan Gray and Susan Freeman serve as coordinators for the sister parish arrangement that began in 2010.

Our sister parish has about 250 families, although that count is flawed by the lack of what we would consider typical family units.

“The concept of a family with mom, dad, and kids is non-existent,” Susan Gray says. “There are high divorce rates and high alcoholism. Russia has made it easy to divorce. A family with mom and dad and kids is rare.”

Susan Gray has been to the parish four times, with the first visit taking place in 1996, shortly after Communism fell. The church had just been completed when Communist control reached Vladivostok. During Susan’s first visit, she saw what had been done to the building — it had been converted to a document archive building with steel beams and concrete floors.

“It took years for them to get it back to what it was meant to be,” she says.

Our parish is kept updated through a newsletter written by the priest in Vladivostok and printed in the U.S. We also have yearly speaking programs by one of two American priests who had visited our sister parish after Communism fell.

With the former Soviet Union dissolved, Most Holy Mother of God Parish enjoys a good working relationship with the local and state government units who provide social services. Those entities will approach the parish for guidance in providing help in different cases.

The pandemic is causing problems there, especially related to travel across the vast Russian landscape. Anyone in Vladivostok who wants to leave Russia, or travel across the country, must first fly to Moscow and get tested. Then, if they are determined to be uninfected, they are cleared to fly overseas or within Russia itself.

“In Vladivostok, the priests started a new order of priests with a novitiate program,” Susan Gray says. “The seminarians spend one year there, and there are 16 men who have finished their year, but they cannot get out due to flight restrictions. There also are men who want to go there for study, but they can’t. So, a lot are stuck in place right now.”

Yet, for the distances and restrictions involved in Russia, there have been moments of connection.

“Susan Freeman and I were lunching with Fr. John and Fr. Myron Effing, one of the priests in Vladivostok,” Susan Gray says. “Fr. Myron said he had received a request from a seminarian wanting to spend his novitiate year in Vladivostok. He was someone from Africa, but there was no way to have him vetted and no contact in Africa to help. Fr. John, who is from Uganda, said ‘Maybe I can do it.’ When Fr. Myron mentioned the man’s name and said he was from Uganda, Fr. John exclaimed, ‘I know the man!’ It was watching a God moment play out! Fr. John had been the seminarian’s advisor and knew him well. He’s one of the men stuck in Vladivostok right now.”

We can help our sister parish in our own "God moments," by keeping the parish in prayer and by helping with monetary donations. Envelopes are included in our donation packets, or donations can be made online at https://vladmission.org. For more information, contact Susan Gray at 501-606-1734, or Susan Freeman at 501-834-3258.

The Catholic Church of The Most Holy Mother of God, our sister parish, in Vladivostok, Russia.