Last Sunday, Monika Schmid and Marion Grabenweger led a “celebratory evening” on the topic “Church in the Underground”. Around 60 fellow celebrants descended into the crypt of St. Peter and Paul in Winterthur. A guest post.
Monika Schmid*
We were expecting twenty-five people, but around sixty people came. “Church in the Underground” was the title of this “celebratory evening” on September 22nd. The location was chosen accordingly: a crypt. We descended into the beautiful room that was bursting at the seams.
Christians threatened under communism
The “Hidden Church” or underground church accompanied us thematically as a preparation team, starting with the hidden church in Czechoslovakia during the communist regime. At the risk of their lives, Christians carried the message of Jesus the Christ through communism.
Around 60 people celebrated in the crypt of St. Peter and Paul in Winterthur.
In the knowledge of Pope Pius XII. Married men and women were ordained priests and priestesses by validly ordained and legitimate bishops. This was perfect as camouflage. Who expects a female priest in the Roman Catholic Church to assist women in the women’s prison, who expects married priests?
Treason threatens
The responsible bishops of the hidden church were exposed to betrayal in two ways: the ducks of their own church, who often collaborated with the atheists, and, on the other hand, the regime itself. They could not trust anyone. This was no reason for any of them to be unfaithful to the message of the gospel.
After the “Velvet Revolution of 1989,” Rome no longer recognized the hidden church. A betrayal of their commitment. Bishop Dusan Spiner, one of the underground bishops, later said: “It was not communism that silenced us, but the Vatican.”
Celebrate with cunning midwives
Accompanied by the midwives Shifra and Pua in the book of Exodus, who worked in the “underground” and cunningly ignored the orders of the enslaving Pharaoh, we prayed, sang and celebrated underground around the one table of love.
The blessing that we sang to each other resonates powerfully within me: “You are blessed, you are a blessing!” It’s good to meet each other on equal terms, women and men without any “ifs and buts” in the power of baptism.
Work in secret, disregard what makes you sick and carry the message of Jesus up into the light. Perhaps this form remains for us to bring our faith and the church as it was once intended into life again.
Next party evenings
Celebration evening services are always celebrated on the 22nd of the month at 7 p.m. somewhere in the canton of Zurich. Starting from July 22nd, the memorial day of the apostolic and Doctor of the Church Mary Magdalene.
October 22nd, St. Martin, Effretikon
November 22nd, St. Peter and Paul, Winterthur
*Monika Schmid is a retired community leader of the parish of Effrektikon ZH and today works as a freelance theologian, grief counselor and ritual mediator in life transitions. It offers psychological counseling and pastoral caree to. Marion Grabenweger is pastor of the Effretikon parish.
© Catholic Media Center, September 28, 2024
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