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 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 to read October 4, 2007 Letter

Click here for the May 14, 2007 Letter

Dear Benefactor,

February 11, 2007

Thank you for your contribution!  It is so important to us just at this time because of our hope to finish the restoration of the church building and finish the rectory project.  Naturally our help to the poor and orphans is not suffering.  To manage all three projects simultaneously is quite a feat, if we can achieve it.  So far we are solvent and we have met our responsibilities, even if the building construction and repair work has stretched out now for 13 years!  As the culture gradually shifts here, as Russia itself develops, we expect a new day of evangelization to begin, so much of the groundwork for it is being laid now.  Thank you for your help.  Meanwhile we include you in our prayers every day.

We got the wonderful news that our Brother Oleg Yelchaninov, C.J.D., has been approved for ordination to the diaconate!  We don’t know the date yet, nor the place, but I’ll be sure to attend.  Usually diaconate ordinations are at the seminary or in the cathedral where the seminary is located, and then the priestly ordination is in the home church or home cathedral.  So, if we can count our chickens, his priestly ordination will probably be here in Vladivostok next spring, after he finishes the seminary program.  He will be our second parishioner to be ordained a priest (third, if you count Fr Dan).  Our thanks go out to those who have supported our seminarians’ expenses and to those who have prayed for vocations.

Even though the church won’t be ready for reconsecration in May, as we had hoped, we are still hoping to have Easter masses there!  So Father Dan is beginning to plan the concert series for summer and fall.  We think that there will be crowds for the concerts because people will want to see the restored church and hear the bells for the first time!  Over the last month we’ve been listening to our own CD’s (that you can order through Mary Mother of God Mission Society) and have decided that we like them better than ever!  I hope you’ve enjoyed them, too.

There is a new Russian film which is very popular just now called “Island.”  It is a wonderful and at the same time terrible study of Russian culture.  I hope it is helping the Russians and the Russian Church to have a good look at themselves and to begin to make more positive steps to heal their culture and their Church.  We pray for the Orthodox Church and for reconciliation between churches every day (and our Church is “standing in the need of prayer,” too!)  Ever since Adam and Eve we’ve had these problems!  I don’t think the film will be popular in America, because it isn’t a Hollywood type of film.

God bless you.  May God be generous with you as you are with us.  May the Most Holy Mother of God be your advocate!

Gratefully,

V Rev Myron Effing, C.J.D.

Dear Benefactor,

January 17, 2007

I’m writing to thank you as our co-missionary for help, prayers, and support, and to let you know how things are going. Thank you for your contribution! If you are tithing, you know God will see to your needs. Meanwhile we include you in our prayers every day so that you aren’t alone with your problems!

Suddenly the birthrate as taken a jump here. The government now gives $10,000 to every woman who gives birth to her 2nd and further children. She gets the money only after three years—to make sure she doesn’t give the child up for adoption—and the money can only be spent to buy a larger apartment, for the child’s education, or for the mother’s pension. As I’ve been mentioning in my sermons in the States this past year, the low birthrate throughout Europe and the former Soviet Union is the most worrisome thing often on my mind! People went from being afraid of a population boom to having no kids at all! Once again our Church has been the prophet in all of this, even if the birthrate in Catholic countries is among the lowest. So it seems that the Catholic people haven’t believed the Church on these issues. Now it is becoming clear. We hope, not too late.

Thank you, too, for helping us with the Women’s Support Centers, where try to help women save their children instead of going for abortions, and through which we are trying to promote chastity in the public schools and universities here. Right now the Women Support Centers are $33,007.94 in debt! Can you help with this problem.

President Putin has decided to close most of the orphanages in Russia and to begin a program of foster care for children so that the children will at last have parents! (Remember that Robert Owen, the American socialist of New Harmony Indiana fame who developed the social doctrines that eventually led to Communism, said that children should not even know who their parents are! “It takes a village”—without parents, apparently.) One in twenty children is an orphan in Russia! It is mostly a result of years of Communist dogma, easy divorce, and abortion, all of which have weakened the family to practically nil. The institution of the family has to be rebuilt from scratch.

Unfortunately, Russia tends to look to Europe, and the situation there isn’t much better! The Orthodox Church has been compromised in this area, too, but they seem to be waking up. The Patriarch’s Christmas message was all about the importance of family values and family traditions. Hopefully, Christianity will have much to say in this area in the years ahead—both in Russia and in Europe. (As we say, Russia has one foot in Europe and the other foot in Asia!) It will take several years for the plans to close orphanages to be realized, so meanwhile we will continue to work with orphans and street children and try to figure out how to support family life in Russia, including our Women’s Support Centers.

2007 should be an interesting time for Vladivostok! They are planning to build a high bridge from the center of Vladivostok to Churkin, across the Golden Horn Bay (which will make the city even more like San Francisco with its Golden Gate Bridge—Maybe they’ll call this one “The Golden Horn Bridge”) and then they will build another bridge to Russian Island where we do our retreats and Boy Scout camps. The first bridge will be one of the largest bridges of its kind in the world—a new style suspension bridge. So traffic will be worse than ever this year with all the road construction going on.

Meanwhile we are working on plans for the sanctuary in church. The only thing that remains of the sanctuary from 1933 when the church was closed is the large marble crucifix, so it will be part of the altar again. But we have to plan the rest—the altars, the baptismal font, and the pulpit. We are hoping to have them made from marble, but we don’t know if we will have funds for that or not. We are also doing the final plans for the sacristy and cry room. Now is the time to get it done. We’ve been hoping for 15 years to do it.

And the devil still keeps us busy with other problems. Last week (Christmas night on the Orthodox calendar) thieves broke three locks, and among the stolen things was a welding machine which we need to do the stairways and piping in the church. In Europe someone killed an Orthodox priest on Christmas night, stole all the icons from the church, and then set fire to it. So we don’t have it quite as bad as some others. But we’ve had a lot of these break-ins lately. We’ll have to decide what we can do to ward it off. A full-time night watchman is probably the way we will have to go. That’s another salary to pay, unfortunately, but it might be less expensive than replacing locks and stolen articles.

There is a new Russian film which is very popular just now called “Island.” It is a wonderful and at the same time terrible study of Russian culture. I hope it is helping the Russians and the Russian Church to have a good look at themselves and to begin to make more positive steps to heal their culture. We pray for the Orthodox Church and for reconciliation between churches every day (and our Church is “standing in the need of prayer,” too!) Ever since Adam and Eve we’ve had these problems!

I hope you enjoyed the Sunrise newsletter with all the last news of 2006. God bless you this new year, the Blessed Mother smile on you! May God be generous with you as you are with us.

Gratefully,

V Rev Myron Effing, C.J.D.

P.S. I was going to put a photo of progress in the church building, but they are plastering now, so there are scaffolds everywhere. Instead, here is the artist’s sketch for the new tabernacle pediment which will be in the middle of the sanctuary.

Dear Benefactor,

January 7, 2007


I decided to sit right down and write you a letter on this beautiful Feast of the Epiphany when we celebrated how wonderful it is that God did not merely make his Son known to somebody, but to us! As I said to the parishioners today, “What good would it have been to us if Christ came, but we didn’t know about it?” So now it is our obligation to make him known to others, which, of course, is the primary reason for our mission. The three kings knew that the Christ child came for them, too, and not just for the people of Judea and Jerusalem. Sister Alicia had to be in the Philippines for Christmas because of some meetings of her religious order, and she told how wonderful it was when there were thousands of people and thousands of children who greeted the newborn Christ. We aren’t at our thousands yet, so we have to keep working and praying and witnessing.

So I’m writing to thank you as our co-missionary, to let you know how things are going. Thank you for your contribution! If you are tithing, you know God will see to your needs. Meanwhile we include you in our prayers every day so that you aren’t alone with your problems!

2007 should be an interesting time for Vladivostok! They are planning to build a high bridge from the center of Vladivostok to Churkin, across the Golden Horn Bay (which will make the city even more like San Francisco with its Golden Gate Bridge—Maybe they’ll call this one “The Golden Horn Bridge”) and then another bridge to Russian Island where we do our retreats and Boy Scout camps. The first bridge will be one of the largest bridges of its kind in the world—a new style suspension bridge. So traffic will be worse than ever this year with all the road construction.

There are again complaints in the national media about why there is so little development here in the Far East. Investments here should be more long term, but people are into quick money, even though the Far East has tremendous resources that could be developed over time.

Next Sunday will be the Ecumenical Christmas Concert. It will be held at St Paul’s Lutheran Church this year because of our construction going on. Our choir is practicing. We accepted the invitation of St Paul’s to have our Midnight Mass at their church, because our temporary chapel isn’t big enough, and, as you know, our church building is under major repair. Our “Midnight Mass” was at 3pm, because the Lutheran community planned to have their service in the evening, and we can’t have our mass at night in the extra cold weather here--Most of the elderly who want to come to church don’t have cars. Buses don’t work at night. The Lutheran church is about six blocks away, and it is interesting how our histories have intertwined: Back in the 1860’s our pastor lived at the Lutheran pastor’s apartment and celebrated mass there daily before the Catholic church was built. Because our Christmas Mass had to be so early, we wondered if we were the first Catholics in the world to celebrate Christmas!

President Putin has decided to close most of the orphanages in Russia and begin a program of foster care for children. One in twenty children is an orphan in Russia! It is mostly a result of years of Communist dogma, easy divorce, and abortion, all of which have weakened the family to practically nil. The institution of the family has to be rebuilt from scratch. Unfortunately, Russia tends to look to Europe, and the situation there isn’t any better! The Orthodox Church has been compromised somewhat in this area, too, but they seem to be waking up. The Patriarch’s Christmas message was all about the importance of family values and family traditions. Hopefully, Christianity will have much to say in this area in the years ahead—both in Russia and in Europe. (As we say, Russia has one foot in Europe and the other in Asia!) It will take several years for the plans to close orphanages to be realized, so meanwhile we will continue to work with orphans and try to figure out how to support family life in Russia, including our Women’s Support Centers.

Meanwhile we are working on plans for the sanctuary in church. The only thing that remains of the sanctuary from 1933 when the church was closed is the large marble crucifix, so it will be part of the altar again. But we have to plan the rest—the altars, the baptismal font, and the pulpit. We are hoping to have them made from marble, but we don’t know if we will have funds for that or not. We are also doing the final plans for the sacristy and cry room. Now is the time to get it done. We’ve been hoping for 15 years to do it.

And the devil still keeps us busy with other problems. Last night (which was Christmas night on the Orthodox calendar) thieves broke three locks, and among the stolen things was a welding machine which we need to do the stairways and piping in the church. In Europe someone killed an Orthodox priest on Christmas night, stole all the icons from the church, and then set fire to it. So we don’t have it quite as bad as some others. But we’ve had a lot of these break-ins lately. We’ll have to decide what we can do to ward it off. A full-time night watchman is probably the way we will have to go. That’s another salary to pay, unfortunately.

There is a new Russian film which is very popular just now called “Island.” It is a wonderful and at the same time terrible study of Russian culture. I hope it is helping the Russians and the Russian Church to have a good look at themselves and to begin to make more positive steps to heal their culture and their Church. We pray for the Orthodox Church and for reconciliation between churches every day (and our Church is “standing in the need of prayer,” too!) Ever since Adam and Eve we’ve had these problems!

I hope you enjoyed the Sunrise newsletter with all the last news of 2006. God bless you this Christmastide and the Holy Mother smile on you! May God be generous with you as you are with us. Happy New Year 2007!

Gratefully,

V Rev Myron Effing, C.J.D.