The Republic of Moldova (also known as Moldavia) is a beautiful, small, land-locked country, in the southeast part of Europe, neighboring Romania to the West and Ukraine to the East.

In the midst of the political and economic uncertainty, we responded to the call of mission to set out along the path towards The Republic of Moldova. Wednesday, the 5th of October and the 2nd anniversary of the Canonization of our Saints Arnold and Joseph, was highlighted by the official opening of our new Mission in Orhei, Republic of Moldova.

Our Presence In The Republic of Moldova

Under a clear, blue sky our pioneer sisters set out to Orhei towards the border to Moldova which was about 10 km away from Romania Regional house. Sr. Juliana Kondelová, from Slovakia, has been working in Romania for the past 13 years. Sr. Dawida Strojek is from Poland and has been working in Romania since 1995, and Sr. Patrizia from Austria. The officers at the border were very friendly. We even got the visa without paying anything because of the invitation of Caritas of Chisinau.

Orhei has about 60,000 inhabitants. The catholic parish is an outstation of the SVD parish of Stauceni and has just started to awaken. There are only a “handful” of Catholics. Therefore, Sr. Dawida’s future task will be mainly catechism and youth pastoral ministry. During the communist times, the buildings of the Catholic Church were used for other purposes.

Now, these are in the process of being returned to the Catholics. The house for our sisters had been used by an Orthodox priest before. P. Klaus bought and renovated it for them. One of the three rooms is used as a temporary chapel. P. Klaus already has plans about how to renovate these rooms.

Sisters Juliana and Dawida were welcomed heartily and beautifully, with flowers and much embracing. P. Klaus came with a group of faithful from his parish. Soon after, the bishop arrived, and concelebrated with our confreres the first Mass we had with the community. The Mass was in honour of Saint Joseph Freinademetz, to whom we entrusted our sisters, our new mission and the tiny convent.

The Bishop Anton Cosa blessed the sisters and their house. P. Klaus encouraged them to trust in God without limit. Only God knows the future of this station - and that is good! A reception followed the Eucharistic celebration and the traditional congratulation song “LA MULTI ANI”, was sung to welcome Sr. Juliana and Sr. Dawida once more. Since the house of the sisters was not yet completely furnished, we all went back to the SVDs’ house in Stauceni. There we had our supper and a “family get-together”. We continued to savour the warm welcome we experienced in Orhei. Knowing that many sisters will accompany the new mission with their prayers, we bid goodbye to our sisters the next morning and returned to Romania .