Russia: Nizhnevartovsk, a new Catholic church consecrated in the miners’ city on May 22nd

Right in the heart of Russia, in Nizhnevartovsk, a city that stands within the Catholic diocese of the Transfiguration, Joseph Werth, bishop of Novosibirsk, will consecrate a new Church dedicated to St Nicholas The Wonderworker on Sunday, May 22nd. This has been reported by Siberia’s Catholic newspaper. The building, finished last November, will be home to Latin-rite and Byzantine-rite Catholics. So far, the Catholic community that lives in that city, where gas and petroleum are extracted, used to meet and pray in the rectory chapel. The young rector of the parish, father Peter Pavlyshin, who died from Covid on December 29th last year, had been just in time to celebrate the first divine liturgy in the new church, which had taken 5 years to build, on November 25th 2021. Actually, on October 23rd 2016, the bishop had consecrated its cornerstone. Father Peter was 42 years old and was of Ukrainian descent.
Valentina Bombelli