Kyrgyzstan is a large and remote Central Asia country. The former Soviet Republic is home to a small Catholic population scattered throughout the mountainous landscape. Recently ACN spoke to Fr Johannes Kahn SJ, who ministers to the faithful in Kyrgyzstan, about his own life and about the situation for Catholics in Kyrgyzstan.

By ACN Staff

Kyrgyzstan is a country not particularly associated with Catholicism. The landlocked country is located in Central Asia, with around 80% of its population being Muslims. As a former member of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan is still influenced to a large extent by Russia. For this reason, the Russian Orthodox Church has reasonable established presence in the country.

Catholics make up a very small minority of the population. There are around 1,000 Catholic families who live scattered across the Central Asian country. Most are not ethnic Kyrgyz, but rather Koreans and Russians. The country contains eight priests, one religious brother and six religious sisters.

While recently in Switzerland, Fr Johannes Kahn SJ spoke with Aid to the Church in Need’s Ivo Schürmann about his own background the situation for Catholics in Kyrgyzstan. Fr Johannes has been ministering as a priest in Kyrgyzstan for nearly ten years. He was born in 1965 in northern Kazakhstan to an ethnic German family. Most of the Germans in Kazakhstan are descendants of Volga Germans who were deported to Central Asia by the Soviet Government after the Second World War. Fr Johannes said that his mother and grandmother instilled the importance of the Catholic Faith in him early in his life. There were no churches or priests in the part of northern Kazakhstan his family lived. He was therefore unable to go Holy Mass, but the family prayed before meals and before going to bed.

Fr Johannes said that things did change later on in his life:

“This changed when my family moved to Central Kazakhstan in 1978. Holy Mass was held regularly there, and my faith grew stronger. I came to realise that I wanted to become a priest.  After completing the two years of compulsory military service in the Soviet army, I was able to enter the seminary.”

Still harbouring distrust of ethnic Germans after the Second World War, the Soviet Army did not allow Germans like Fr Johannes to handle weapons while in the military. This was fine with Fr Johannes, who was assigned tasks such as office work and driving lorries instead. Despite being deliberately assigned tasks during feast days by superiors, Fr Johannes did manage to find time pray during his army service. After he was discharged from the army, he entered the only Catholic seminary in the Soviet Union, which was located in Latvia. In March 1991, Fr Johannes became a member of the Society of Jesus.

After his time in the seminary in Latvia, Fr. Johannes was sent to Austria to study at a university. Once his degree was completed, Fr Johannes went back to Central Asia, specifically Tajikistan. After that he spent some time in Siberia and then his native Kazakhstan, before being sent to Kyrgyzstan. Fr Johannes’s brother, Fr Alexander Khan SJ, is a theologian and the Jesuit superior in Kyrgyzstan. He had requested more priests to help minister to the scattered Catholic population and his brother was sent.

Fr Johannes said that Catholics is Kyrgyzstan are not exactly actively persecuted. Rather barriers are put in their way. Traditionally the Muslims in Kyrgyzstan are tolerant of Christians. Unfortunately, there have been attempts in recent years to import a more radical form of Islam from Turkey and Pakistan, which does not accept the presence of Christians. In addition. the influence from Russia has imported many Russian’s distrust and resentment of the Catholic Church into Kyrgyzstan. There are not enough Catholics in Kyrgyzstan to register Catholicism as a religion. This causes difficulties for Catholics in Kyrgyzstan. For example, there is only one Catholic church in Kyrgyzstan, with the faithful being unable to get permits to build others.

The Church in Kyrgyzstan faces other practical logistical issues. The country is very large, with Catholics being scattered around the country. This means the priests need to drive long distances to minister to the faithful. Fr Johannes outlines the support Aid to the Church in Need provides to allow the priests to do this:

“The charity supports the pastoral workers with subsistence aid. New vehicles are regularly needed because the priests have to travel long distances. In the winter, the temperatures can drop to -40°C, which makes good and robust cars absolutely vital.” 

If you would like to help the Church to continue minister to the faithful in countries like Kyrgyzstan, please consider donating to Aid to the Church in Need.