Father Edvard Maszkiewicz Is Latest Victim
ROME, SEPT. 11, 2002 (Zenit.org).- While the Vatican was protesting the latest expulsion of a Catholic priest from Russia, authorities there were expelling yet another one.
Following the expulsion over six months of a Catholic bishop and other priests, sources of the Church in Russia reported that Father Edvard Maszkiewicz, a Polish Salesian, was impeded Tuesday from returning to his parish.
Father Maszkiewicz, a parish priest in Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia, was detained for several hours by the police on the border with Byelorussia, when he was returning by car from Warsaw.
A police commander told him that «his church had been closed, his parish removed and, therefore, he no longer needed to be a priest in Rostov-on-Don.» His visa was canceled, Catholic sources reported.
Father Maszkiewicz, 45, had been living in Russia for over 10 years. He succeeded in building a church in that city. On Monday morning, unknown individuals fired on the church.
Earlier on Tuesday, Father Jaroslaw Wisniewski, another Polish priest, was deported to Japan from the Khabarovsk airport, where he had landed the previous day.
Authorities gave no explanations for the expulsion, the official agency Itar-Tass stated.
The Vatican protested against the expulsion of Father Wisniewski, alluding to the possibility of a persecution against the Catholic Church in Russia.
ZENIT - The World Seen from Rome
11. september 2002