Our Lady of the Plentiful Catch Monastery

Our Lady of the Plentiful Catch Monastery
Monastery information
Other names	Osornoe Monastery
Order	Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien, Order of Saint Benedict
Established	2006
Dedicated to	Our Lady of the Plentiful Catch
Diocese	Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Maria Santissima in Astana
Site
Location	Osornoe, Kazakhstan

Last updated April 30, 2019

Our Lady of the Plentiful Catch Monastery, Osornoe, Kazakhstan, is a Benedictine monastery of the Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien. Established in 2006 by the Abbey of Uznach, the monastery is currently home to two monks. Fr Joseph Schnider is the community's superior.^[1]

Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is the world's largest landlocked country, and the ninth largest in the world, with an area of 2,724,900 square kilometres (1,052,100 sq mi). It is a transcontinental country largely located in Asia; the most western parts are in Europe. Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically, generating 60% of the region's GDP, primarily through its oil and gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources.

A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which may be a chapel, church, or temple, and may also serve as an oratory.

St Otmar's Abbey, Uznach, Switzerland, is a monastery of the Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien. It was established in the wake of World War I to expand the Congregation's resources beyond Germany. To this day, the monastery continues to procure funds and send personnel to Benedictine missions in the Global South. The current superior of the monastic community is Fr Adelrich Staub, Prior Administrator.

History

On October 1, 2006, two monks of Uznach Abbey, Fr Matthias Beer and Fr Joseph Maria Schnider, were sent on mission to Kazakhstan. The monks established a cella at the village of Osornoe. In 1941, the residents of Osornoe were spared from famine when a large number of fish miraculously appeared in a nearby meltwater lake. Attributed to the Virgin Mary, the miracle was chosen as the name of the new monastic foundation.

A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, inflation, crop failure, population imbalance, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every inhabited continent in the world has experienced a period of famine throughout history. In the 19th and 20th century, it was generally Southeast and South Asia, as well as Eastern and Central Europe that suffered the most deaths from famine. The numbers dying from famine began to fall sharply from the 2000s.

Fish are gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. They form a sister group to the tunicates, together forming the olfactores. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Tetrapods emerged within lobe-finned fishes, so cladistically they are fish as well. However, traditionally fish are rendered paraphyletic by excluding the tetrapods. Because in this manner the term "fish" is defined negatively as a paraphyletic group, it is not considered a formal taxonomic grouping in systematic biology, unless it is used in the cladistic sense, including tetrapods. The traditional term pisces is considered a typological, but not a phylogenetic classification.

Meltwater is water released by the melting of snow or ice, including glacial ice, tabular icebergs and ice shelves over oceans. Meltwater is often found in the ablation zone of glaciers, where the rate of snow cover is reducing. Meltwater can be produced during volcanic eruptions, in a similar way in which the more dangerous lahars form.

Upon their arrival, the pioneering Missionary Benedictines moved into a small wooden house. They soon discovered that the facility could not withstand the region's cold winters, and by the spring of 2007, they had begun to renovate and expand the cella. In addition to accommodations for the monks themselves, the new monastery can house monastic candidates and guests.^[2]

Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate zones. It occurs after autumn and before spring in each year. Winter is caused by the axis of the Earth in that hemisphere being oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures define different dates as the start of winter, and some use a definition based on weather. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa. In many regions, winter is associated with snow and freezing temperatures. The moment of winter solstice is when the Sun's elevation with respect to the North or South Pole is at its most negative value. The day on which this occurs has the shortest day and the longest night, with day length increasing and night length decreasing as the season progresses after the solstice. The earliest sunset and latest sunrise dates outside the polar regions differ from the date of the winter solstice, however, and these depend on latitude, due to the variation in the solar day throughout the year caused by the Earth's elliptical orbit.

Apostolic Work

After learning the Russian language, the monks of Osornoe began mission work. As ordained priests, they have been able to provide pastoral ministry to a church in Osornoe, a number of outstations, and a nearby monastery of Carmelites. Additionally, the monks are involved in health care and youth ministry.^[3]

Russian is an East Slavic language, which is official in the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as being widely used throughout Eastern Europe, the Baltic states, the Caucasus and Central Asia. It was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution on 25 December 1991. Although nearly three decades have passed since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russian is used in official capacity or in public life in all the post-Soviet nation-states, as well as in Israel and Mongolia.

In Christianity, evangelism is the commitment to or act of publicly preaching (ministry) of the Gospel with the intention of spreading the message and teachings of Jesus Christ.

The Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel or Carmelites is a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order founded, probably in the 12th century, on Mount Carmel in the Crusader States, hence the name Carmelites. However, historical records about its origin remain very uncertain. Berthold of Calabria has traditionally been associated with the founding of the order, but few clear records of early Carmelite history have survived.

Related Research Articles

St. Ottilien Archabbey is a Benedictine monastery in Emming near Eresing and the Ammersee in the district of Landsberg, Oberbayern, Germany. It is the mother house of the St. Ottilien Congregation, otherwise known as the Missionary Benedictines.

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References

↑ Schematismus. St Ottilien. 2011. p. 77.
↑ "Osornoe / Kazakhstan". Abbey of Uznach. Retrieved 18 October 2012.
↑ "Osornoe / Kazakhstan". Abbey of Uznach. Retrieved 18 October 2012.

External links

History (German)

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[1] Schematismus. St Ottilien. 2011. p. 77.

[2] "Osornoe / Kazakhstan". Abbey of Uznach. Retrieved 18 October 2012.

[3] "Osornoe / Kazakhstan". Abbey of Uznach. Retrieved 18 October 2012.