EUROPE/RUSSIA – “Rachel’s Vineyard”, Russia to overcome post-abortion trauma
St. Petersburg (Agenzia Fides). “Participating in these seminars helps individuals to face the grief and to entrust that to God, reelaborating the loss, and reconciling oneself with God.” Sister Anna Zakharova FMM discusses the seminar that Rachel’s Vineyard organized in Russia. This international Christian work offers a pastoral, spiritual experience for those who have suffered traumas from the practice of voluntary or spontaneous abortion. It also addresses those who are grieving the loss of a child.
The formation and spirituality meeting will take place in Saint Petersburg’s Franciscan monastery Saint Anthony from September 9-11. Participants are able to reflect on their lives in private, with the support of a psychologist, a priest, and in an atmosphere of great confidentiality. This three-day event is now in its third edition in St. Petersburg. In the last 20 years, it has been held multiple times in other Russian Federation cities (Magadan. Agenzia Fides reports that six more events of the same nature are planned for various locations in the Russian Federation up to the end 2022. “In my family, there have been many cases of abortion. It is a pain that has affected my entire family and also affects my surroundings. This pain has been with me since childhood. A seminar like this has allowed me to be healed by the Lord, taking away my guilt and giving us the opportunity to live again,” said Sister Anna Agenzia Fides, who was responsible for organizing the meetings in St. Petersburg.
Soviet Russia was the first state to legalize abortion in 1920. After the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, the Leninist government established by decree a model society that defined men and women only in terms of the realization the socialist state, which was free from any connection with God. Along with regulations to eliminate religious marriage, the legalization and practice of abortion was a result of state atheism.
Except for the period 1936-1955, where voluntary termination of pregnancy wasn’t allowed due to demographic reasons in Soviet Russia or in the Russian Federation, the legal basis for voluntary abortion has been there since the fall of Berlin Wall.
It can be done anytime before the twelfth and after that date, but only in certain situations as provided by law. For example, if the pregnancy was caused by sexual violence, or without a time limit if there is a danger to the mother’s health.
Project Rachel, from which the seminaries known as “Rachel’s Vineyard” were born, was founded in 1984 in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and was recognized by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and today operates in more than 40 countries. The seminar’s three-day journey of spiritual and human healing does not end there. It is a beginning point for accepting and processing pain and grieving, as well as the knowledge that God’s mercy restores what was lost and that God can bring good from every human experience. (CD) (Agenzia Fides, 9/9/2022)
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Source: fides.org
