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First Stone of First Russian
Orthodox Church Laid in Cuba
MosNews.
Russia, November 15, 2004.
The first stone of the first-ever Russian
Orthodox church to be built in Cuba was
laid Sunday. Metropolitan Kirill, the head
of the Russian Orthodox Church's foreign
relations department said the church will
constitute "a monument to Cuban-Russian
friendship", Associated Press reports.
Following a procession through the streets
of the city's historic district, religious
figures and Cuban government officials on
Sunday laid the first stone of what will
become the island's first-ever Russian Orthodox
church. The church will constitute "a
monument to Cuban-Russian friendship,"
said Metropolitan Kirill, the head of the
Russian Orthodox Church's foreign relations
department. He traveled to Cuba from Moscow
for the consecration.
The church will also pay homage to the
thousands of Russian workers, soldiers and
technicians who cooperated with communist
Cuba for three "glorious" decades
before the fall of the Soviet Union, he
said. "The past can reunite with the
present, with the result being a common
future," Metropolitan Kirill said.
"Russia will again be a great power
... that supports and defends its friends."
Cuba was a strategic Soviet ally in America's
backyard during the Cold War. Under an ideological
and economic alliance that lasted for three
decades, Cuba once received about 20 percent
of its gross national product from Soviet
subsidies.
Sunday's event began in the old Roman Catholic
Convent of San Francisco in Habana Vieja
with a two-hour mass attended by about 300
people, primarily Eastern Europeans living
in Cuba.
Havana city historian, Eusebio Leal, and
Caridad Diego, director of religious affairs
for Cuba's Communist Party, sat in the front
row of the church. Leal presented the church
project to Patriarch Alexy II for authorization
during a visit to Moscow at the end of October.
Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, the Vatican's
ambassador to Cuba, and several diplomats
were also present. After the service, Metropolitan
Kirill led the procession carrying Russian
Orthodox crosses and flags. At the empty
plot that will house the new church, Metropolitan
Kirill filled a deep hole with religious
artifacts, and covered the opening with
the first symbolic stone, followed by cement
and more stones.
Cuba became officially atheist in the years
after the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel
Castro to power, but the government removed
references to atheism in the constitution
more than a decade ago and allowed religious
believers to join the Communist Party.
Relations between churches and the Cuban
state climaxed in January 1998, with the
historic visit of Roman Catholic Pope John
Paul II. In January of this year, Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader
of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians,
visited Cuba to consecrate a different cathedral
built by the communist government. The new
Russian Orthodox church, also being financed
by the Cuban government, is expected to
open its doors in about a year.
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