THREE PRIESTS ARE ORDAINED IN RUSSIA, FIRST TIME IN 82 YEARS

VATICAN CITY, MAY 23, 1999 (VIS) - Today, Solemnity of Pentecost, three seminarians from Queen of the Apostles Major Seminary in St. Petersburg, Russia were ordained as priests, the first Catholic priests to have prepared and been ordained in Russia since 1917. Two of the new priests were born in Russia and the third was born in Estonia.

Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, apostolic administrator of European Russia, presided at the ordination Mass, which took place in the seminary's Dormition of the Virgin Church. Though the newly ordained priests are of the Latin rite, Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches, attended the ceremony.

The original seminary was opened in 1877. It was confiscated by authorities at the start of the communist revolution and used as a military hospital. Only the top floor of the seminary's building complex has since been returned to the Church. It was re-inaugurated as a seminary on September 1, 1993 and in 1996 was recognized by the ministry of education as an institute of higher education.

The seminary's Church of the Dormition was closed in June 1930, returned to the Catholic Church several years ago and was re-consecrated on May 24, 1998. It is one of only four buildings of the original 50 Church structures which existed before the revolution to have been returned to the Church.

When the seminary re-opened in 1993, there were 12 students. Today there are 48.

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