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(ANS – Moscow) – The journey of the Rector Major to the Special Circumscription of East Europe came to an end yesterday, 19 May in Moscow. During the visit the successor of Don Bosco had been able to meet the Salesians, lay people and young people in each of the works, to get to know the over-all picture of the complex situation and gather information in order to achieve a structural re-shaping of the Province.

Having arrived in Moscow on the evening of Tuesday 17 May, the following morning Fr Chávez met the Salesians working in Russia. A single Salesian had come to represent the community of Yakutsk and the foundation in Aldan, five thousand kilometres from Moscow.

During the meeting special attention was given to the Salesian centres  in Russia and to the others in the three other countries making up the East Circumscription. In the Province there is a great geographical, cultural, linguistic, and ritual diversity and a history of the conflict between them should not be forgotten In this context the pastoral and evangelising work of the Salesians takes on a missionary character, especially in Russia. “The difficulties should not frighten us.” – Fr Chávez said. “They need to be faced and resolved, and for this reason it is important to know how to recognise them.”

In the afternoon the boys and girls from the Moscow-Fili centre, most of them immigrants from various countries in the former Soviet Union, put on an entertaining show. For them “Don Bosco” in Russian sounds like Dom Bosco” which means Bosco house. Afterwards the Rector Major was able to visit, if only briefly, the  Tretjakovskaja Gallery where there are some ancient icons on display many of them painted  by the famous Andrej Rubliov.

Yesterday morning 19 May, the Rector Major, his Vicar Fr Adriano Bregolin and the Councillor for the North East Europe Region Fr Marek Chrzan attended the Provincial Council meeting. Various proposals for the re-shaping of the Circumscription were considered which had come up in the previous days or had been indicated in the preparatory document drawn up by a special commission which had recently visited the Circumscription in the name of the Rector Major: comprising Fr Francesco Cereda, Fr Chrzan and the Superiors of the East Circumscription and the Delegation of the Byzantine–Ukraine Rite.

It is now for the Rector Major and his Council to take into consideration the various contributions and decide, during the next Plenary Session, on the structure which the Salesian presence in these countries will have. The organisation of the East Circumscription is one of the practical decisions  which the Rector Major and his Council have to make in the context of the Project for Europe: re-organising the Salesian presence so as to foster the conditions to undertake with effectiveness and dynamic fidelity the mission of behalf of the young.

Published 20/05/2011