Kyrgyz police fine Catholic nun for alleged evangelization

Police and security officials at Talas town in northwestern Kyrgyzstan entered a Catholic Church during Sunday mass and fined a Slovakian missionary nun for allegedly violating the country’s law by evangelizing among local residents without permission.

The officials visited St. Nicholas Church in Talas on March 26 and imposed a fine on Sister Daniela Činčilova from the School Sisters of St. Francis Congregation, Fides news agency reported on March 28.

The nun was accused of violating Article 142 of the Criminal Code of the Muslim-majority nation which deals with religious freedom and religious organizations.

The investigators reportedly said Sister Činčilova committed an offense by spreading Roman Catholicism among the residents of Talas without the authorization of the State Commission for Religious Affairs.

A Church official says the action resulted from “ignorance and misunderstanding.”

"The decision to fine Sister Daniela was certainly taken out of ignorance on the part of the local personnel involved in the operation since the nun did not violate the regulations in force in Kirghizstan," Jesuit brother Damian Wojciechowski, director of the curia of the Apostolic Administration of Kyrgyzstan.

The tiny Catholic Church in the country with several thousand members operates as a sui juris (independent) mission directly under the Vatican.

Wojciechowski said the nun was reading from Bible, but neither preaching nor officiating the liturgy, two actions foreign citizens can only perform after obtaining a special certificate from the government.

"We have already taken steps to lodge an appeal in court and we are confident that the fine can be canceled since we have always acted in accordance with the country’s existing laws," he said.

A central Asian nation and a former Soviet republic, about 90 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s estimated 6.8 population is Muslim, seven percent Christian and about three percent do not follow any religion, according to official data.

Christians belong mostly to the Russian Orthodox and Protestant churches, the US Department of State reported in 2022.

Catholics in Kyrgyzstan are spread in nine parishes. Three main Catholic churches are located in Biškek, the national capital, Jalal-Abad, and Talas.

As of 2020, there were about 4,000 Catholics in Kyrgyzstan, according to the papal charity, Aid to the Church in Need.

Currently, nine Jesuit priests and one brother from Slovenia, Vietnam, the United States, Kazakhstan, and Poland, a Slovakian diocesan priest, and 11 nuns from three congregations serve local Catholics.

Many local Catholics live far from the parish churches and gather to pray in private homes, where foreign missionaries periodically visit them.

The church in Talas was reopened in 2019, the first church reconsecrated after Kyrgyzstan gained independence after the end of Soviet rule in 1991, Fides reported.

The minority church gained new impetus when the Vatican established a new regional bishops’ conference in 2021 that covers Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, all of them part of the Soviet Union until independence in 1991. Later, Mongolia was added to the new episcopal body.

Observers say that Kyrgyzstan’s constitution ensures religious freedom, and the state has no official religion, but it placed restrictions on religions and religious activities since 2009.