Cuba: First church to open in 43 years

HAVANA, CUBA  (ANS) -- The Russian Orthodox Church, the largest of the world's eastern Orthodox communions, is expanding into Cuba and is expected to break ground this month in the center of Havana, according to the church's Moscow leaders. There are an estimated 8,000 Orthodox Christians in Havana.

Orthodox Church leaders believe their branch of the Christian faith is distinctive in its commitment to preserving the theological and liturgical traditions of the church fathers and also in its deep reverence of the Virgin Mary, both of which are prized by the island's Orthodox believers, says a report from WorldWide Religious News carried by United Press International (UPI) and quoting Novosti, the Russian news agency.

The temple of Saints Constantine and Helen in Havana, Cuba, hasn't heard a sermon in years, says an internet report on GreeceNow. Instead, the Greek Orthodox Church has been the home of a children's theater company.

The report says that when Archbishop Athenagoras was elected to head the newly-established Holy Metropolitanate of Panama and Central America in 1996, the Greek Orthodox liturgies were taking place at borrowed premises.

Pope John Paul II's visit to the Caribbean island in 1998 -- the year when Christmas was officially reinstated in Cuba -- proved a major opportunity to discuss religious matters, the website article says.

It was then that Archbishop Athenagoras together with the Greek Ambassador to Cuba, Yorgos Kostoulas, and the American Archdiocese began to put pressure at diplomatic and political levels for the return of Saints Constantine and Helen.

Although to date the church remains a theater, something much more remarkable has happened, the article says.

The Castro government instead agreed on the construction of a new Greek Orthodox church, the first religious structure to be built in all of Cuba in 43 years. On Sunday January 20, 2004, in the presence of Cuban government representatives and foreign diplomats, the Archbishop and Kostoulas placed the foundation stone of what is to be Saint Nikolaos (or Nicholas), the new Greek Orthodox church.

"In recent years many churches were returned to their respective congregations," explained Archbishop Athenagoras speaking to GreeceNow from Panama.

"But this is the first time that the government has allowed the construction of a new church."

It was the Cuban government's own initiative to build in the most exquisite of locations -- the port side in Old (or Colonial) Havana, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1982, the report said.

At that time GreeceNow said that “when the official opening takes place in about 10 months time both Ecumenical Patriarchate Bartholomew and Fidel Castro will be present in the St Francesco de Assisi square, the picturesque part of the city that St Nikolaos will call home.”

The better part of the credit for the church's construction this must be given to the Greek Ambassador, GreeceNow said.

"He is such a fine diplomat with a lot of love for the Church," says the Archbishop. "From the moment he arrived in Cuba he made it his main priority on a diplomatic and political level to gain the return of the church of Saints Constantine and Helen. He has done what no one else has done in 43 years."

RESPECT AND CREEDS

The report said the generous gesture towards the Greek Orthodox church “may seem a little incongruous, since, if anything, Cuba would normally be associated with the Roman Catholic church; the clear majority of Cubans are officially Catholics and only few thousand residents belong to the greater Orthodox church; as for Greek Orthodox, well, there's only about 50 Greeks in all of Cuba!”

The Archbishop explained that, "from my understanding, this has less to do with numbers than with the respect towards the Greek Orthodox Church. Firstly, we are not involved in the p