Nakhodka Parish History

Nakhodka (nah-HOHD-ka), population 70,000, is a port city on the Pacific Ocean in the southeastern most part of Russia . It is one of the main Russian Pacific shipping ports, and is located 100 miles east of Vladivostok (about a four-hour drive).

The Roman Catholic parish of Our Lady of the Pacific, patroness of all who live and work on and near the Pacific Ocean, was canonically established in Nakhodka on November 15, 1994 as a mission of the Catholic parish in Vladivostok. The founding pastor of the new parish, Father Myron Effing, C.J.D., was also pastor of the Vladivostok parish. In January 1995, Fr. Myron celebrated the first Mass in the new parish. Advertisements were placed in newspapers, and 26 people attended, 15 of them Catholic. On September 5, 1995 Bishop Joseph Werth, S.J., apostolic administrator of the Asian Part of Russia, under whose jurisdiction Nakhodka was then located, accompanied Fr. Myron to Nakhodka for the first baptisms and confirmations in the parish .

The parish was organized under lay leader, Leila Abasovna Yashenko. It is officially incorporated under Russian law and has its official seal. It has a chapter of the international Catholic Charities organization, "Caritas", which completed its first project in 1995, a listing of children in the city who have parents who are invalids or alcoholics. Caritas invited the children for a day of recreation and a barbecue on the beach, an innovative idea that was very successful.

There is still a need to build a church in Nakhodka. The parish is one of the first outlying parishes started by Fr. Myron, who arrived to work in Vladivostok, Russia in February, 1992. In the beginning of the Nakhodka mission, Sunday Mass was celebrated once a month on Saturday afternoon in a hall at the "House of Youth". Before Mass Fr. Myron taught a class in religious education for those interested in becoming members of the Church. Shortly after the founding of the parish the monthly Sunday Mass and class was moved to a small auditorium in the Nakhodka Public Music School, where it was held for many years. During that time the parish purchased a small, three-room apartment for use as a parish center for weekday prayer services, religious education, and as overnight accommodations for the priests from Vladivostok.

In 1998 the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart from Australia expressed interest in serving in a parish in the Russian Far East. Brother Paul Brooks, MSC came to Nakhodka as a pioneer for the mission, and took up residence in the parish apartment. He worked full time as an English teacher and studied Russian, helping with various parish activities. After one year, he suffered a serious decline in his health and had to return home in early 2000, where his health improved but not enough to return to Russia. Without Brother Paul's leadership the Sacred Heart Missionaries decided not to pursue the possibility of pastoral service in Russia.

Around the year 2001 or 2002, seeing a growing pastoral need, Fr. Myron began to visit the parish twice a month on Saturdays or Sundays to celebrate Sunday Mass and teach religious education to adults and children.

In the spring of 2003, the city of Nakhodka forbade the use of school buildings for religious services, so the parish bought a second, larger apartment for use as a worship space, where the parish has gathered for Mass ever since. It also has two other rooms that serve as the parish social hall, religious education classroom, Caritas office and Women's Support Center.

In 2004 the parish began seriously to study the possibility of building a church building, including facilities for offices, parish hall, and religious education. The city of Nakhodka made available a very good plot of land near the center of the city which had never been developed because it was actually a small island with no bridges leading to it. The city made an agreement with the parish that if the parish built a bridge it could have the use of the land for free. American benefactors became interested in the project. A land feasibility study was done and showed that the land was suitable for building. An architect was commissioned to make a set of preliminary drawings for the building. The next year, because of a change in parish leadership, the plans were put on hold.

At the end of 2004 and the beginning of 2005 two diocesan priests from Poland came to Nakhodka to be the first resident priests to serve the parish. On December 1, 2004 Bishop Kirill Klimovicz of the Diocese of Saint Joseph in Irkutsk appointed Fr. Bartholomew (Bartek) Schost as pastor and Fr. Christoff Terepka as associate pastor. (Fr. Christoff's arrival in Nakhodka was held up until February 2005.) They took up residence in the smaller parish apartment. A few months later either Fr. Bartek or Fr. Christoff began to travel two or three times a month to the Roman Catholic parish of the Most Holy Trinity in Romanovka (about 2 hours by car from Nakhodka) to celebrate Sunday evening Mass.

On January 14, 2006 Fr. Bartek was appointed pastor of the parish in Romanovka, which by that fact became a mission of the Nakhodka parish rather than the Vladivostok parish. For 11 months in 2006-2007 Fr. Bartek was in Poland to help his elderly, ailing parents, so Fr. Christoff was the only priest serving both the parishes in Nakhodka and Romanovka.

In the spring of 2007, when Father Bartek decided to return to Poland permanently, Bishop Klimovicz appointed Father Sebastian Marian D'Silva as the third pastor of Our Lady of the Pacific parish in Nakhodka. He also appointed Father Christoff as the third pastor and first resident pastor of the parish in Romanovka, which thereby ceased being a mission of the parish in Nakhodka. The official installation ceremonies for both new pastors were held on the same day, Sunday, April 15, 11:00 AM in Romanovka and 4:00 PM in Nakhodka, with Fr. Myron Effing, Dean of the Vladivostok deanery, present to administer the oath of office.

Nakhodka's new pastor is a native of the city of Mangalore in southern India. He was ordained as a diocesan priest in the relatively new diocese of Meerut in northern India on May 15, 1981. He arrived in Russia in 2002 to study Russian and to serve in the Vladivostok and Russian Far Eastern parishes. From 2003 until his appointment as pastor in Nakhodka he worked as associate pastor of the Most Holy Mother of God Catholic parish in Vladivostok.