Father Myron periodically writes a "Dear Friends and Family" letter to supporters of the mission. They are often full of recent news of events in Russia so we reprint them here for our website visitors.

Click here for the June 15, 2010 Letter

Click here for the April 24, 2010 Letter

Click here for the February 28, 2009 Letter

Click here for the January 15, 2009 Letter

Click here for the December 31, 2008 Letter

Click here for the October 31, 2008 Letter

Click here for the August 31, 2008 Letter

Click here for the May 31, 2008 Letter

Click here for the May 15, 2008 Letter

Click here for the February 15, 2008 Letter

Click here for the January 15, 2008 Letter

Click here for the December 16, 2007 Letter

Click here for the November 30, 2007 Letter

Click here for the November 15, 2007 Letter

Click Here to read November 2, 2007 Letter

Click here for the May 14, 2007 Letter

Below is a letter from Fr. Daniel Maurer

January 7, 2008
 
Dear Family and Friends,
 
Thanks to those of you who have sent Christmas and Season's
greetings over the last several weeks. It is a great joy to hear from each
one of you. Even though I am always late (or worse) with Christmas wishes,
please know that I pray for you daily in this wonderful season when we
celebrate the birth of God as a baby into our world for our salvation.
 
The Christmas season around here only seems to get busier
and busier, and here in Russia we have nothing like the hectic round of
parties and gift shopping that most people have in America, so I can only
imagine how frazzled you can become. Thank God I've got my community prayer
schedule and quiet time each day in front of the Blessed Sacrament to get me
through the busy-ness of parish life.
 
Today the Russian Orthodox Church and many of the Eastern
Catholic Churches celebrate Christmas (the old Julian calendar is 13 days
behind the new Gregorian calendar), so Merry Christmas to all who did not
celebrate it 13 days ago!
 
I'm learning that I'm not as agile as I used to be,
especially when it comes to decorating the church for Christmas. Of course,
the church is not the size it used to be. With the removal of the last
remaining added floor the worship space is now 14 feet taller than when we
planned the decorations 13 years ago. That means that the capitals of the
12 pillars and pilasters that we decorate are 35 feet above the floor, so
they require a three-section sliding ladder to reach them for the purposes
of hanging the decorative pine garlands and electric lights. Just moving
the ladder from pillar to pillar is exhausting for a sedentary type like me.
And then there are the 18 foot Christmas tree in the sanctuary to decorate,
the crèche to set up, and the choir loft railing to light up with a display
of pine and metallic garlands and electric lights. This year I had wanted
to add some decorative pine garlands and electric lights to the pinnacles of
the first layer of the main sanctuary reredos and to make larger wreaths for
the pillars, but I could not find the time. The situation is made more
complex by two conditions: we do not want to put up decorations inside the
church until after the 4th Sunday of Advent; and there are almost no
volunteers available in the last few days before Christmas because in Russia
the winter school holiday does not begin until December 30. So all of our
parishioners are either at work or at school, leaving the decorations to me
and Brother Oleg. This year we got some invaluable last-minute help from
Vladimir (Volodia), one of our parish restoration workers, who took off some
time from his other projects to help us move the 33 foot ladder and even to
scale the thing in order to hang the garlands. (I've started to dream at
night about getting a small but tall "cherry picker" to drive around the
church to put up all the decorations. I've seen such contraptions used in
airports to change light bulbs.)
 
Immediately after Christmas Day came our 4 sold out
Christmas concerts on Dec. 26-29. (275 seats X 4 = 1100 people who
attended). They also required a lot of moving and lifting. This year the
above mentioned Volodia made a new steel and wood platform to slightly
increase the size of the front of our sanctuary in order to make more room
for the orchestra, organ and director. There used to be enough room for
everyone until we installed our immovable, marble main altar last February.
Now all the musicians have to find places around it: choir in back of it (on
the ingenious risers that Volodia made for us 10 years ago); organ on the
right side of it; orchestra on the left side and in front of it, and
director in front of everyone. So we made a short extension out over the
two sanctuary steps. This gives us just enough room for soloists and
director to walk comfortably to their positions and for the director not
accidentally to tumble down the steps during a performance, and yet it does
not take up any further room in the church since it is only installed
temporarily over the already existing steps. It is easy to install and
remove, but it is heavy since the frame is made of steel strong enough to
carry the weight of the organ if necessary. And that brings me to the
organ. Most organs in the world are installed in one place and stay there
for the rest of their working existence. Not our organ! It is moved up and
down the sanctuary steps at least 5 times a year and sometimes 8 times a
year, for various musical performances. Thank God we bought an "organ dolly"
when we got the organ 5 years ago. It is made of two sets of handles and
coasters that are strapped onto each side of the organ for easy lifting and
moving. But again, as with risers, temporary platforms and ladders, it
requires lifting. The organ weighs around 500 pounds and requires six men
(five if they are extra strong) to carry it. If I cannot find anyone to
take my place I find myself occasionally (like yesterday) doing the lifting.
So my memories of this Christmas seem to be disproportionately connected
with the physical labor involved. But our two Christmas Masses and the four
concerts were so inspiring that they largely removed any awareness of aches
and pains.
 
To catch you up on some personal news of this past year: On
November 1 in Modesto, California where I was visiting our sister parish of
St. Joseph I spent one night and one day in the hospital because of a very
irregular heartbeat. It was diagnosed as atrial fibrillation (AF). If I
had known anything about AF I would not have gone to the hospital. While
there my heart started to beat normally on its own and has behaved itself
ever since. However, it was probably just as well that I went because the
tests done in the hospital showed high levels of blood cholesterol and
triglycerides, and the whole episode provided me with a strong warning which
I finally heard. I changed my diet considerably since then. When I got
back to Russian on November 22 we invested in an elliptical exercise machine
which I have used every day. So far I have lost 26 pounds in two months
and am enjoying a higher level of energy. I have 40 pounds to go to get
down to the norm for my height and body type.
 
This past year here in the Russian Far East our finances
have been stretched thin. Not only are we still taking care of our two
Vladivostok parishes, but we have also had to take back financial
responsibility for two of our former parishes that we had given up to other
priests (who subsequently left Russia). Also we try, as much as we can, to
help out financially our dear friend Fr. Sebastian, who has been transferred
temporarily to the large church in the city of South Sakhalin on Sakhalin
Island (the large Russian island just north of Japan). The South Korean
Foreign Mission Society, which took over the care of all parishes on
Sakhalin one year ago, pulled all its priests out of Russia very suddenly
last summer, leaving the Catholic people and a community of Blessed Mother
Theresa's Missionaries of Charity completely without the sacraments and
pastoral care, so our bishop asked Fr. Sebastian to leave his parish in
Nakhodka (three hours by car away from Vladivostok) to be administrator of
the parishes on Sakhalin Island. We miss him. In his absence the pastor my
former parish in Romanovka has agreed to celebrate Sunday Mass and hear
confessions for Fr. Sebastian's people in Nakhodka. Please pray for more
vocations in Russia and for more missionary priests to serve here until the
Russian Catholic Church can become self sufficient in priestly vocations.
 
Contributing further to our financial strain are all the
trips we have had to make to the US to renew our visas every 3 months
instead of only once a year as before. The good news is that Fr. Myron has
already received his long-term residency permit and I will probably receive
mine sometimes before July of this new year. Until then, however, I will
have to return to the US two more times on the current 3-month visa system.
We are very grateful to a special benefactor, a retired United Airlines
pilot, for donating to us his "travel companion passes" which allows us to
fly for free between Seoul or Beijing and the United States, by far the most
expensive leg of our journeys. Over the course of many years he has saved
our mission many thousands of dollars in travel expenses.
 
To give non-Russians some idea of the crisis Russia is going through since
the communist system ended I often repeat the following statistic, so
forgive me if you've heard it before: because its death rate (heavily
alcohol related) is higher than its birth rate (heavily abortion related),
Russia has 800,000 (eight hundred thousand!) fewer people each year than it
had the year before, even counting a net immigration increase to Russia.
They tell us that the Far East is losing a higher percentage of its people
than any other region of Russia, as people move to the West or abroad to
find jobs. Our Vladivostok parishes are not growing, although as members
leave the region we are getting new members each year. (This year we have
five adult candidates for baptism and five more already baptized who are
asking for entrance into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil in April.
 
Even though our parishes are very small by American standards
there is always something happening to keep us busy. This past year our
"initial evangelization" program called "Alpha Course" has brought in
several new faces, and has re-animated the faith of other parishioners. Our
young colleague who finished his Master of Theology in Austria in June is
busy teaching a weekly class on the Gospel of St. John and other lessons for
the catechumens. The "12-Step" groups who meet in our parish center have
grown from 2 to 4 this year.

The continuing restoration and completion of the church always gives us
something new to see and rejoice in. Before I went to the US for my
October-November visit I heard that our workers would be completing the
construction of the brick/cement parts of the bell towers while I was away,
so before they would have a chance to take away the scaffolding in my
absence I thought I'd better climb up to the top of it while I had the
chance. When staff members heard that I was going they decided to join in,
so we had an afternoon group excursion to the top. It was fascinating to
see how the workers were doing their job in the bright sun of our "Golden
Autumn" at a height of at least 60 feet above the ground (comparable at that
point to an 8-story building. Our work crew are presently making the
steeples, the steel and wood frames of which are standing in the church yard
waiting to be covered with stainless steel roofing material and topped with
anodized gold chrome crosses. We hope that all this work will be done some
time in January, and that the steeples will then be lifted into place by
crane. I hope we can get a film crew here to capture the long awaited
event. As most of you know, the original builders of our church had no time
to complete the towers and steeples. They wanted to hurry up and open the
church for services as soon as possible because of the advancing Bolshevik
communists. As it turned out the church was solemnly consecrated with
special permission from the Holy See without steeples on October 3, 1921,
and the communists invaded the city and took power in 1922, holding it until
Christmas Day 1991.
 
Although I do not write nearly as often as I should, please know that you
are in my daily prayers and very often in my thoughts. May Christ shine in
your hearts through the long, dark nights of winter and may you have a
wonderful and blessed New Year 2009.
 
Sincerely yours in Christ,
 
(Fr.) Dan