(ANS – Rome) – On next September 1st the Northern Europe Region will have a new arrangement: the Special Circumscription “Immaculate Conception of Mary” of Eastern Europe will be canonically closed. The Salesian houses of Greek-Catholic Ukraine will constitute a new circumscription. The others will be entrusted to the Polish Provinces.

In recent months the arrangement and the future of the Eastern Europe Special Circumscription  has been a topic in the order of the day for the plenary sessions of the General Council, above all in the last two. After a careful study of the state of the Province, the Rector Major, with the assent of the General Council, has issued two decrees.

The first establishes the canonical erection of the new Special Circumscription of Greek–Catholic  Ukraine, “Mary Help of Christians”, with its seat  in Lviv (UKR). Instituted by Fr. Chávez on the 24th of January 2005, the delegation was inaugurated on the 15th of August of the same year, first as a delegation not tied to the territory but as a rite. Besides the seat of the neo-circumscription in the “Blessed Philip Rinaldi” house, the other houses present in the city of Lviv form part of the neo-circumscription: “Mary Help of Christians”, “St. Francis of Sales”, “St. John Bosco” and “Lviv Vynnyky”.

The second decree sanctions the canonical closure of the Special Circumscription “Immaculate Conception of Mary” of Eastern Europe, erected on 8th December 1993, and authorizes the entrustment of the Salesian houses  to several Polish Provinces.

The Salesian houses of Latin Ukraine – Korostyshiv, Odessa e Peremyshlany – will be entrusted to the Polish Cracow Province (PLS) “St. Hyacinth”;  those of Bielorussia – Baruny, Minsk, Navayelnya e Smarhon – to the Polish Warsaw Province (PLE) “St. Stanislaus Kostka”; and the houses of Russia  – Mosca, Oktiabrskiy and the two of St. Petersburg – to the Polish Province of Pila (PLN) “St. Adalbert”.

The two decrees come into force on next September 1st.

The reorganization of the Eastern Europe Circumscription is one the effective  tasks entrusted to the Rector Major and his Council in regard to the second area of Project Europe: the relocation and re-dimensioning  of our presences in Europe.

Published 12/04/2012