On July 17, 2023, the Supplementary Agreement to the Bilateral Treaty between the Holy See and the Holy See entered into force. Kazakhstan. An agreement that will have as its main effect the obtaining of residence permits for Catholic pastoral agents who request them. Although the second article of the Treaty signed in 1998 already foresaw that Catholic missionaries coming from abroad would have the possibility of obtaining visas to enter and live in the country, it did not contemplate the possibility of obtaining a residence permit, which can last up to 10 years and is renewed almost automatically.
Relations between the country's authorities and the Catholic Church are very good. As a result of this good understanding, this long-awaited news has come as a gift from heaven, since the Nunciature has been working along these lines for about 5 years, and had intensified its efforts in the last few years.
A work of years
The priests who work in this great Asian country owe much to the efforts of Bishop Francis Chulikatt, Nuncio to the Holy See. Kazakhstan until October 1. The signing of this agreement is the fruit of his constancy in dealing with the authorities of the country, and taking advantage of the favorable situation provided by the visit of Pope Francis in mid-September 2022. The document was in fact signed on September 14, while Pope Francis was still in Astana.
The first section defines more precisely the structures of the Catholic Church present in the country (dioceses, parishes, etc.); and the second section opens the door to obtaining a residence permit for Catholic pastoral workers who have a long-term appointment in one of these structures.
Until now, the priests and nuns present in this former Soviet republic had a visa, called missionary visa, which lasts 180 days and can be renewed without leaving the country. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the legislation made it compulsory to go to the country of residence every year to obtain a new visa. There was the unusual case of Argentinean priests who went to Brazil (since there is no Kazakhstan consulate in Argentina) to get their visa: 14,000 kilometers one way and as many kilometers back, to be able to serve the Kazakh Catholic faithful, in addition to the cost of the plane tickets and the fatigue of the trip.
Also the economic cost of the current visa is high for the possibilities of the priests and religious: 400 euros each year, not a negligible amount if we take into account that we are dealing with more than 200 people, including priests and nuns. For all these reasons, the recent news of access to a residence permit has been received with great joy and gratitude by all the Catholic pastoral agents of the country.
In addition to the visa, missionaries must receive an annual permit from the local authorities in order to carry out their ministerial work. Certainly this requirement is also required for representatives of other religions, including the Muslim religion, which is the majority religion in the country, comprising more than 70 % of the population.
A country of multi-faith coexistence
Relations between the various religious denominations are very good, and both Pope St. John Paul II, when he was in Astana in 2001, and Pope Francis, have wanted to highlight this positive aspect of religious tolerance, which can also serve as a model in other countries.
At the governmental level, an eMeeting of the leaders of different religions in Astana. It was precisely to this meeting that Pope Francis attended last September. The highest leaders of each religion are invited, and when they themselves cannot come, they send their representatives. On the part of the Catholic Church, it is usually the Cardinal who heads the Congregation for Interreligious Dialogue, accompanied by a good group of collaborators, the Nuncio in Kazakhstan and several bishops of Kazakhstan.
At the local level, city councils organize meetings with representatives of the various denominations, with the aim of getting to know each other and thus improving relations. In Almaty, the city in which there are more religious denominations represented, there has been an evolution: initially the meetings were organized by the city council, and took place at its headquarters: they often took the form of a round table, with topics such as religious tolerance, young people and faith, relations between the various religions, the contribution of the denominations to peace.
In recent years, a more flexible and less formal model has been adopted: the municipality hires an agency in charge of organizing events, and this agency, with a lot of imagination, is the one that invites the guests. While there is no shortage of more solemn events, such as the Day of Unity of the Peoples of Kazakhstan (May 1) or the Day of Religious Concord (October 18), they also bring together representatives of various religions for sports and recreational activities, such as family outings to the most picturesque sites, indoor soccer, chess and ping-pong tournaments, song contests, and garden clean-up days. These meetings allow not only the clergy to get to know each other, but also the faithful, thus bridging gaps that might otherwise have created a rift between them.
It is customary that at the end of Ramadan, the chief imam of the Main Mosque of Almaty invites to eat in a yurt (tent of Kazakh nomads, which was used as a dwelling by many people until a few tens of years ago) planted at the foot of the mosque. Other Protestant pastors also take the initiative of inviting people to Bible exhibitions or simply to have lunch in their church. Recently, the pastor of the Orthodox Cathedral, a temple of extraordinary architectural beauty, invited us to see the remodeling work he had done months ago.
Friendly treatment
Personal contact has facilitated friendship. During the pandemic, it was common for the various clergy to help each other, providing medicine or food to people in emergency situations. And more recently, they have successfully united our voices to ask the Almaty City Council not to give its premises to a musical group whose songs and performances harm young people.
From my personal experience, I can say that Kazakhs are very respectful of all religions, and even if they are not Catholic, when they see a priest they feel a certain reverence for a person of God. On one occasion, when I finished shopping for groceries in a store, a young man who was present asked me if I was a priest, and when I answered in the affirmative, he asked me to let him carry my shopping bags to my car so that - he said - he could pay for his sins in this way.
As a quick historical overview, it is worth remembering that the arrival of Catholicism in Kazakhstan in the 20th century occurred in an unusual way: as a consequence of the deportations to this country by Stalin during the Second World War. Many Polish, German, Lithuanian and Korean deportees were Catholics, and they managed to survive with the help of the country's inhabitants. In addition, some priests were sent to concentration camps in the Kazakh steppes, and once they had served their sentences they continued to exercise their priestly ministry in a hidden way in private homes. In this way the faith was maintained, and later, when it became possible to practice it in the open, priests arrived from many places, especially from Poland. Today, more than half of the Catholic clergy is composed of Polish priests.
Kazakhstan was the first republic of the former USSR to begin diplomatic relations with the Holy See in the now distant year of 1994, that is, only 3 years after declaring its independence. It was also the first to sign a bilateral treaty, in 1998, despite the fact that the number of Catholics in the country is only 1%, that is, less than 200,000.
Almaty, (Kazakhstan)
