The Mission Society

Founded in 1997 after six years of preliminary work by Father Chris Zugger and parishioners of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Albuquerque and Holy Protection Church in Denver.

Members of the Mission Society are asked to pray to Our Blessed Lady, the Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary for vocations to priesthood, diaconate and consecrated life in the Byzantine Catholic Church of the United States, and to work for the re-establishment of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine and Slovakia and its charitable work; and for the support of American seminarians of the Byzantine Catholic Church of the Pittsburgh Metropolia.

Finding a Hidden Church

Father Chris Zugger's new book is the result of eight years of interviews and research covering the history of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic church in the USSR and independent Ukraine. Here  you will find not only background history of the Church before 1945, but the heroic witness of Blessed Theodore Romzha (killed in 1947), Bishop Petro Oros (executed 1953), Bishop Alexander Khira who died in Kazakhstan, and scores of priests, their wives, their children, and other people who fought to keep their beloved Church alive in a hostile society.

Read about the anti-religious attitudes of the Soviet Union, the imposition of harsh legislation, and the rupture of a 1,000 year old culture and Church. Also discover the determination of people to keep their faith in Jesus Christ and Catholicism alive by worshipping secretly at night, in forests, in barns, and how the Church survived with not one legal building and constant harrassment by the feared secret police. Discover the new ways Bishop Khira and underground priests came up with training new priests, establishing forbidden parishes, and nurturing the faith in an incredibly hostile atmosphere.

Included are short histories of what happened to the other Byzantine Catholic Churches in the Soviet bloc, five maps, over 70 photographs including some from the dreaded Gulag camps. Be inspired to renew your own faith in God and your own dedication to His Church and to realize that the impossible can be achieved, but only when relying on God's grace.