(ANS – Baku) – At the end of January in the name of the Rector Major, Fr Marek Chrzan, Regional Councillor for North Europe began the  Extraordinary Visitation of the  “Mary Help of Christians” Province of Slovakia. After a first visit to the Provincial House in Bratislava, last Saturday, 4 February he arrived in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, which in Salesian terms belongs to the territory of the Slovak Province.

 The land of “fire and wind” of Azerbaijan, between the Caucasus and the Caspian sea was entrusted to the Salesians of Slovakia in 2000. The Salesians in Baku are missionary pioneers not only from the point of view of the Congregation but for the whole Catholic Church: the Salesians in Baku are responsible for the only Catholic community in the country and with the Sisters of Charity (the Congregation founded by Mother Teresa) for the pastoral, social and education work in a former Soviet state with a large Muslim majority.

The Catholics numbered about 150 when on 11 October 2000, the church of Azerbaijan was entrusted as a church “sui iuris” to the Salesians. The whole country covering 86,500 km², forms a single missionary parish based in Baku and the church of the Immaculate Conception. The church, rebuilt in 2006, the only one in the country, which had been destroyed in 1931 on orders from the USSR - was consecrated by the Nuncio Apostolic at the time, Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, on 29 April 2007.

In these days, the Salesians in Baku – a community of 8 led by Fr Vladimír Fekete – are beginning preparations for the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the visit by Blessed John Paul II to Baku, in May 2002. It was thanks to that visit by the Pope that a new openness to the spiritual life for the Catholics in Azerbaijan began.

On 29 April 2011 the Holy See  and Azerbaijan signed a Concordat  with eight articles which regulates juridical relations between the Catholic Church and the State, thanks to which the Prefecture Apostolic of Azerbaijan was created.

Published 08/02/2012